Dialogue Stories — the complete step-by-step tutorial

A Dialogue Story is a conversation video: two to ten characters talk to each other, each in their own voice, over cartoon (or photorealistic) scenes. You can let the AI write the whole thing from a one-line premise, or build it line by line yourself. This guide walks through the entire flow in the order you'll see it in the app.

Step 1 — Create the project

1. 1Go to your Dashboard and click New project (or open Dialogue Stories Studio from the landing page — it preselects the format for you).
2. 2Under Format choose Dialogue Stories.
3. 3Pick a Genre (Comedy, Adventure, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Mystery, Action…) and optionally a Subgenre such as Buddy Comedy, Haunted Mansion or Time Travel. Leave Subgenre on "Any" to let the AI decide. Genre changes the writing style, pacing and jokes.
4. 4Set Maturity: Kids, Teens, Young Adult or Adult. This keeps the vocabulary and themes age-appropriate.
5. 5Type your Scene topic / premise — one or two sentences is plenty. Example: "Two rival food-truck chefs get stuck sharing one parking spot and slowly become friends over a weekend cook-off."
6. 6Choose a Visual style (Storybook, Comic Book, Flat Vector, Claymation, Anime, Pixel Art, Watercolor — or Photorealistic, which is only available in Dialogue Stories).
7. 7Click Create. You'll land in the Studio on the Characters step.

Step 2 — Build your cast (Characters step)

The Characters step is where Dialogue Stories differ most from Lessons and Storybooks: every speaker needs a look and a voice. You can have up to 10 cast members. You can also skip this step entirely and let the AI invent the cast when it writes the story.

1. 1Fastest route — Create a cast member with AI: describe the character's look, personality and how they talk in one sentence (e.g. "A grumpy but lovable old lighthouse keeper with a bushy white beard, yellow raincoat, gravelly voice and a dry sense of humor"), then click Generate. You get an image, a matching voice and the character is saved to your library. (4 credits)
2. 2Manual route — click Add character. Fill in Name, Description (how they look), and the voice details: Emotion, Voice/Style (e.g. "deep male", "bright kid"), Accent and Speed.
3. 3Pick a Voice from the dropdown. Press the ▶ button to hear that voice read a sample line with this character's settings.
4. 4For kid characters, click Audition youth voices. Press Play all six to hear the same line in each youth voice in turn, then click Use on the one you like.
5. 5Need the character to look a specific way? Click Upload on the card to use your own PNG/JPG/WEBP picture instead of generating one.
6. 6Click the film icon on a card to preview that character talking with lip sync (requires the character image first).
7. 7Set Pause between speakers (Tight / Normal / Relaxed) — this is the gap inserted between each line when the audio is stitched together.
8. 8Leave Show speaker captions during playback on if you want the speaker's name and line shown in their accent colour while the video plays.
9. 9Click Save cast.

Below the cast you'll also see Locations & Sets. Sets keep the same background (the diner, the spaceship bridge) consistent across every scene set there. They're auto-detected from your script, but you can add them up front if you already know where the story takes place.

Step 3 — Write the script

Open the Script step. You have two ways to work, and you can mix them.

1. 1Let AI write the whole story: your premise from Step 1 is already in the Topic box. Adjust it if you like, then click Write the story (5 credits). The AI drafts every scene — setting, which cast members are present, and every line of dialogue — matched to your genre and maturity. If you left the cast empty, it invents one and adds it to your cast list.
2. 2Or build it yourself: click Add blank scene, then on the scene card type the Setting / what we see, tick the characters present in that scene, and add lines with Add line — choose the speaker from the dropdown and type what they say.
3. 3Add a scene with AI: at the bottom, describe what happens next ("The detective corners the suspect in a rainy alley and demands the truth") and click Generate scene (2 credits). The AI writes that scene using your existing cast and continuity.
4. 4Edit anything: click any line to rewrite it, change the speaker from the dropdown, or hit the ✕ to delete it. Drag scenes by the handle to reorder, use Duplicate to copy a scene, or the trash icon to remove one (there's an Undo toast if you change your mind).
5. 5Use Find & replace to rename a character across the whole script, or Paste scenes if you already wrote the script elsewhere.
6. 6Click Save (or the Save changes button in the inspector) before moving on, then Next: Storyboard.

Step 4 — Generate the storyboard

1. 1Open the Storyboard step and click Generate storyboard. One image is generated per scene using your visual style, your cast's reference images and any Sets you've defined, so faces and places stay consistent.
2. 2Image quality (Low 2 / Medium 4 / High 10 credits per scene) is set in the project Settings panel — Medium is the default and the best balance for most stories.
3. 3Don't love a shot? Select the scene and click Image in the inspector to regenerate just that one. You can also edit the scene's visual direction first to steer it.
4. 4For precise control, open the scene menu (⋯) and choose Advanced editor. This opens the canvas Scene Editor where you can move characters, remove objects by typing ("remove the bicycle"), swap backgrounds, or convert a flat image into editable layers.
5. 5In the inspector you'll also find Timing & transition for each shot: Hold after voice (extra seconds the shot stays up after the last line), the Transition style (Crossfade, Dissolve, Slide, Zoom, Whip pan or Cut) and its length.

Step 5 — Voiceover

In a Dialogue Story every line is voiced separately with that character's voice, then stitched together per scene with your chosen pause between speakers.

1. 1Open the Voiceover step and click Generate voiceover. Cost is 2 credits × the number of spoken lines across all scenes.
2. 2Wait for the progress indicator — generation runs in the background, so you can keep editing other scenes. Each scene row gets a ▶ to listen.
3. 3Changed a line afterwards? Only that scene needs regenerating — use the per-scene regenerate button so you aren't charged for the whole story again.
4. 4Want your own voice for a character? Expand a scene row to record it directly in the browser or upload an audio file; the row is tagged Recorded so you know it won't be overwritten.
5. 5Premium voices: if ElevenLabs is connected (platform key, or your own key in the ElevenLabs card at the top of the Characters step), those voices appear in the Voice dropdown alongside the standard ones.

Step 6 — Turn on lip sync (optional)

1. 1Open the project Settings panel (gear icon) and find the Lip sync card.
2. 2Flip the toggle on. The app prepares a talking-mouth frame for each cast member who has an image (4 credits each, once per character).
3. 3Choose a quality: Basic (fast, 2D mouth animation) or Realistic (slower render, more natural movement).
4. 4Read the warnings list under the toggle — it tells you exactly what's missing, e.g. a cast member without an image or a story without voiceover yet.

Step 7 — Assemble & Export

1. 1Open Assemble & Export. Pick Background music from the dropdown (or None) — it's mixed under the dialogue automatically.
2. 2Click Assemble video (10 credits). Rendering runs in the background; you'll see it in the Render queue and get a notification when it's done.
3. 3Press play to preview. Speaker captions, transitions, holds and music are all baked in.
4. 4Download the MP4, copy the public share link, or publish the episode to your ToonFlix channel. Free accounts can preview with a "Made with ToonTeacher" watermark; paid plans download clean files.
5. 5Tweaked something? Change the music or a scene and click Re-render — only the assembly step is charged again.

Troubleshooting

1. 1"Add cast members first" warning on lip sync — your cast list is empty or the AI-written story added characters without images. Go to Characters and click Generate image on each card.
2. 2A character has "no talking-mouth frame" — toggle Lip sync off and on to retry. This needs an image-generation key (Gemini) to be available; if you're using your own keys, check Settings → AI Keys.
3. 3Voiceover sounds like the wrong person — check the speaker dropdown on that line in the Script step; the line is voiced by whoever is selected there, not by the name typed in the text.
4. 4Faces change between scenes — make sure each speaking character has a reference image before generating the storyboard, and regenerate the odd scene with Image in the inspector.
5. 5Background keeps changing — add a Set in Locations & Sets and assign the scenes to it, then regenerate those images.
6. 6Ran out of credits mid-way — nothing is lost. Top up from Billing and press the same button again; completed steps stay saved.
7. 7Video has no music — pick a track in Assemble & Export and click Re-render.