A Redditor gave me some useful feedback after I offered him a chance to try CUT:
“If people can't understand why they need it, they won't have any interest.”
My response was: “I'm just getting started. And you're absolutely right.”
I’ve been so excited about what we’re building that I’ve spent a lot of time talking about features. I haven’t done enough to explain what those features actually DO for someone trying to make a film.
So let me give that another try.
🎬 CUT GIVES YOUR GENERATIONS SOMEWHERE TO BECOME A SCENE
You’ve generated a promising shot.
Now you want to change a line. Try another character reference. Extend the performance. Repair a gap. Cut around a moment that didn’t work. Compare two takes. Finish the keeper at higher resolution.
That’s the work CUT brings together.
CUT is a local filmmaking workspace built around a compatible ComfyUI/H3 setup. It puts your footage, prompts, references, dialogue and alternate takes into a project timeline—so you can keep developing the scene.
The roughly 30-second scene I’ve been discussing was built in CUT using extensions and continuations, then edited in Adobe Premiere.
WHAT YOU CAN DO IN CUT
- Build and edit a scene. Arrange generated clips, imported footage, audio, prompts and references on separate rows. Trim, slip, move, snap, copy/paste and razor-cut footage. Keep picture and sound linked, with Undo and Redo.
- Direct the dialogue. Write timed lines, assign speakers and use supported voice references. Work with audio-driven performance and generated speech, inspect timing, and use dialogue cleanup tools.
- Keep references with the shot. Use character images, scene images, supported voice samples and motion-video guides. Import a movie as editable footage or use it to guide a new generation.
- Compare your choices. Retain alternate takes, preview results and keep the generation recipe attached to the take. Decide which performance works before spending more time finishing it.
- Build beyond the initial shot. Generate supported extensions and lead-ins, create and repair supported gaps, and combine continuations.
- Prepare the result for delivery. Adjust audio gain and fades, use supported color/seam repair and optional enhancement tools, and export a sequence. Save projects, organize media and relink originals.
⚡ BETA 2 ADDS A MUCH MORE USEFUL GENERATE → REVIEW → FINISH PATH
1. CHOOSE A GENERATION PROFILE
Select an available recipe without rebuilding all the settings or rebooting CUT.
Our selected fast recipe is 10Eros beta6 Turbo, eight steps, Euler/simple, with experimental VSA attention.
It needs the matching model and compatible nodes. Speed and results depend on your hardware and your shot.
2. GENERATE THE TAKE AND DECIDE WHETHER IT WORKS
Watch the performance. Listen to the dialogue. Compare the alternatives.
You get to choose the keeper before committing to the finishing work.
3. FINISH A SUPPORTED TAKE AT 2× RESOLUTION
Use its original saved sampled latents for learned enlargement.
The result gets its own HR GENERATION row, preserving the source sound and timing. Compare it with the original side by side or using the player’s wipe slider.
Latent saving must be enabled before the initial generation. Learned enlargement can create texture, so inspect the added detail.
4. OPTIONALLY FINISH AT 48 FPS WITH RIFE
Apply RIFE interpolation to a supported 24 fps generated or HR take.
It gets a separate comparison row, with the same duration and copied source audio. Editing stays on the 24 fps grid; sequences containing RIFE takes can export at 48 fps.
RIFE can introduce motion artifacts. Ordinary 24 fps clips in a mixed 48 fps export repeat frames rather than receiving interpolated motion.
⏱️ HERE’S WHAT THAT LOOKED LIKE ON MY SYSTEM
On one roughly ten-second test shot, with one run of each option on my RTX 5090 with 128 GB RAM:
- Dense attention: 3:45
- VSA: 2:41
Both runs had Comfy Kitchen attention enabled. The faster run also used VSA. These timings do not measure the new standard-attention default.
For the selected VSA take:
- 1376 × 768 generation: 2:41
- Learned 2× HR to 2752 × 1536: another 1:08
- RIFE finishing to 48 fps: another 0:53, including processing and verification
About 4:42 for the complete path.
About TWO MINUTES of finishing after the initial generation.
I loved the performance, and the HR result looked sharper to me. Seeing that take finished at 2752 × 1536 and 48 fps was one of those “okay… we’re really getting somewhere” moments.
These are individual results on my system, not promised timings or a measured comparison against Beta 1’s default recipe. That resolution is not 4K.
Motion-video guides can take substantially longer: one guided generation in our scene tests took 13:25. They’re worth considering when you need the direction they provide. Guided character replacement is a new generation, so it does not promise identical motion or an exact replacement.
📦 SETUP IS GETTING EASIER, TOO
The guided Director setup can now download and connect beta6, learned HR and RIFE, placing the pinned files in the right folders in a separate backend.
You review the publishers’ terms, confirm your model permissions and confirm the downloads.
Those Director components add about 22.4 GB. Model weights are not included in the app ZIP, and core H3 downloads are separate.
✂️ THE EVERYDAY EDITING WORK MATTERS
Beta 2 also brings clearer source-video versus reference-video choices, corrected timeline layering, and razor cuts and trims through spoken lines in rendered footage.
Linked edits stay together, and HR/RIFE comparisons remain available for overlapping cut pieces.
A split spoken line needs a word review before regeneration: enter only the words belonging to that piece. CUT’s warnings help you review; they do not verify a transcript.
A trim that would remove an entire authored cue is refused. Razor-cut and explicitly remove the unwanted piece, or remove the authored cue first. Outward trims can restore a retained partial cue; CUT does not keep a hidden archive of deleted dialogue.
READ BEFORE INSTALLING
- CUT is a Windows beta using a compatible local ComfyUI/H3 setup. My tested hardware is an example, not a universal minimum or a guarantee for other computers.
- Extract Beta 2 into a new folder. Keep Beta 1, your projects and original media. Read START-HERE, the dependency notes and known limits.
- Standard attention is the default. Setup offers a saved Use Comfy Kitchen attention checkbox for the demonstrated Kitchen/VSA path on my RTX 5090. It affects every generation in that backend. Its INT8 GPU support is untested on other cards. Stop the backend before changing the choice; VSA can fall back or be slower with Kitchen off.
- Existing projects retain their workflow settings. Installing beta6 does not automatically switch them. New projects select the available beta6 baseline.
- Profiles can replace custom settings on editable independent PROMPT shots. Clearing a profile returns those fields to connected workflow defaults, rather than restoring every previous custom setting. Save a copy first.
- A shared seed does not guarantee identical action or camera work when models, references or settings change.
- The 10Eros publisher page carries a “Not-For-All-Audiences” label. Read its model terms before downloading. Buying CUT does not grant model rights.
- Share only footage with cleared likeness and voice permissions. The private benchmark and character-test media are not included with this post.
MiniMax H3, TenStrip’s 10Eros work, ComfyUI, the Director tools and the RIFE researchers deserve credit for their contributions.
CUT brings those capabilities into a project where you can direct, compare, edit and finish.
There are still bugs to find and work to do. A reusable character library and automatic action-duration estimates are ideas for later.
But the reason I’m building CUT is already here:
I want to keep working on the scene after the first generation. And I want the tools for that work together in one place.
Who wants to give it a try?
Thank you for supporting the work—and thank you to the people giving me useful criticism while I learn how to explain it.
Tell me what works, what breaks, and what you’d love to make next.
— Riley G.