Introduction

Welcome to Runway! Runway is a research organization that builds generative AI tools for the next era of creativity. We aim to make the future of content creation easy, controllable, and accessible to everyone with bleeding-edge generative video products and tools.

This quick guide will walk you through generating your first creations with Runway. For a more comprehensive overview, please see our full library of Creating with Runway content.

Step 1 – Accessing Runway

For an optimized experience, access Runway by visiting https://app.runwayml.com/ in a Chrome browser.

For generating on-the-go, we also offer iOS and Android mobile apps.

Step 2 – Creating a Session

After logging in, you have four generation modes to choose from when working with Runway:

• Custom — Traditional generation interface. Grants precise control over inputs and settings.
• Apps — Optimized experiences for particular use-cases, reducing manual prompting.
• Agent —  AI creative partner that works with you to produce complete, multi-shot videos through conversation.
• Workflows — Node-based editor for building automated, customized, and scalable creative pipelines.

Using Custom, Apps, or Agent will automatically create a Session. Sessions are an organizational structure in Runway that help keep your outputs organized as you generate.

Step 3 – Prompting and Generating

Gen-4.5 is our most advanced model that currently supports Text to Video and Image to Video. Gen-4 and Gen-4 Turbo are older models that generate videos faster and cost less credits. For the highest quality results, we recommend using the latest Gen-4.5 model.

You can switch between the models using the model switcher in the bottom left corner while in Custom Mode.

Upload an image and draft your prompt in the text box. See our suite of Prompting Guides & Examples for a comprehensive overview of prompting.

Your text prompts should focus on describing the desired motion when using Image to Video. You do not need to describe the contents of the image.

When using Text to Video, your prompts should describe both visual and motion elements in most cases.

Click the purple Generate button to begin processing the video. Your generations will be scrollable in your session as you generate.

Step 4 – Iterating the Output

Click Use under a completed generation to view more options to continue working with the output in Runway. Alternatively, try making adjustments to your prompt to further iterate on the concept.