IV Studio

A free Infinite Variance desktop app for making short films with MiniMax H3 on your own PC. Give a recurring actor a face and a voice, write a shot, hunt a few quick previews and finish the best one at full size. Make pictures, songs and spoken lines, cut it all together and export. IV Studio drives your own ComfyUI; nothing leaves your machine unless you choose the cloud. No strong graphics card? Shots can also render on a GPU in your own RunPod or Modal account, billed by the second, or on Comfy Cloud (see Cloud).

IV Studio 1.1.7 opens on a simpler welcome that asks how much you already know and keeps things short if you're new, shows a picture for every one of the 165 Cinematography setups, lets Hermes write your prompts, and opens Create's examples and staging board as pop-ups. 1.1.6 lets you name your agent (and tell it your name), pick a colour for the whole app (red, blue, purple, orange or a dark grey), and gives the editor's cut tool a red katana.

IV Studio 1.1.4 adds Hermes to the chat beside Claude Code and Codex, and a History tab for earlier conversations. The IV Studio plugin for Hermes works the other way round: Hermes's own video_generate and image_generate render in IV Studio, on your GPU, for free.

IV Studio 1.1.3 lets you talk to the chat (it hears you with IV Studio's own speech recognition, on your PC) and read its replies aloud, shows every agent's work in an Activity log with Undo, gives the chat a cleaner look and its own window, and tells it more about what you're looking at.

IV Studio 1.1 brings your own Claude Code or Codex into the app as a chat that can make, edit and fix things for you, MiniMax H3 Image and Seedance 2.5 beside MiniMax H3, effects for any clip, nearly every feature on your own RunPod or Modal, speed presets for smaller graphics cards, and a new look that fits any window. See what's new in 1.1.

IV Studio is Powered by MiniMax H3. Using H3 through it means agreeing to the IV Studio terms of use, which carry MiniMax's use restrictions: IV Studio asks once, before your first H3 render. To report misuse, email abuse@infinitevariance.ai.

What's new in 1.1

Your own Claude Code, Codex or Hermes, inside IV Studio

• Chat. The Chat button in the title bar opens a conversation with your own Claude Code, Codex or Hermes, on your own plan, with every IV Studio tool: it can look things up, write and render shots, sequence, edit, make music and voices, and answer questions about your projects. It knows which page you're on and which shot, film or edit is open. Anything that deletes, costs money, installs or changes a setting shows an Allow / Don't allow card first. Conversations are kept: the History tab (1.1.4) lists them, newest first, with which agent and when, and opening one carries on where you left off. On a wide window the chat sits beside the page; on a smaller one it slides over it. Works on Windows, Mac and Linux.
• Hermes (1.1.4). Pick Hermes beside Claude Code and Codex and your own Hermes Agent works in the chat, on the model you chose in Hermes. IV Studio talks to it through Hermes's Agent Client Protocol server (hermes-acp, found where Hermes's installer puts it), gives the session IV Studio's tools, and resumes the same Hermes session for each message. Anything Hermes asks approval to run outside IV Studio (a shell command, a file edit) is declined and shown as a declined step.
• Talk to it (1.1.3). Press the mic in the chat, say what you want and press send. IV Studio's own Whisper writes it down on your PC (Audio → Voices → Set up voices once). Talking while the agent works stops its answer and sends your new words; renders it already started keep going. The speaker button reads each reply aloud in one of your voices (the first one takes a while as the voice loads; after that a few seconds).
• Its own window (1.1.3). The arrow in the chat's header opens it in a window of its own: keep it on top while you work, and put it back in the app when you're done. It still knows what's open in the main window, and its links open things there.
• What it can see (1.1.3). Besides the page, each message tells the agent what you picked on it (a shot's version, the clip and playhead in the editor, the item open in the Library, how Create is set up), what's rendering or waiting, and the last render that failed in the past half hour.
• Activity (1.1.3). The chat's Activity tab lists everything agents did in IV Studio: the chat, Dashboard ideas, and Claude Desktop, Codex, Claude Code or Hermes using IV Studio's MCP server from outside, each by name. Steps that change something, spend or fail are kept for 30 days (looking things up isn't), with a link to what they made and Undo this change for any agent's change to an edit. Agents can read it too (list_activity).
• Working memory (1.1.3). The chat's header shows how full the agent's context window is (exact for Claude Code; estimated for Codex from its usage) and, when clicked, the chat's tokens. A note shows when the agent summarizes earlier messages to make room. Your plan's 5-hour and weekly limits aren't shared with apps, so they aren't shown.
• Ask about this. Buttons around the app hand the chat a question: Ask … to fix it on a failed render (with IV Studio's own explanation), Ask … on any run and Ask … to pick the best take on the Shot page, and Ask … about this in the Library viewer.
• Drop files in. Drop pictures, videos, sound or a script onto the chat, or use its paperclip. The agent can look at a picture or a moment of a video, and use the files as a first frame, a reference, a song or a script.
• Show me where. Ask "where do I train a character?" and IV Studio goes to the right page and lights up the right button, with the agent's words beside it.
• Edit by talking. On an open edit, press Ask … and say "tighten the middle", "add a song under it" or "put captions on". Captions are new: Whisper hears each spoken clip and the words go on as short lines at the bottom, timed across the clip (silent clips are left alone). Every change the agent makes gets an Undo this change in the chat, even when the edit isn't open, and an open edit shows the change at once.
• Recipes. When something works, say "save this as a recipe". It becomes a button on the Dashboard that asks the chat for the same thing again, written so it works another day.
• Overnight batches. "Make 10 variations of this idea overnight, three takes each": the agent writes each variation and queues them on your PC (free, up to 12). IV Studio keeps the PC from sleeping, ranks the takes as they finish, and leaves a report in the chat with the best ones to open.
• A short film in one conversation. Make one with … on Projects: the agent takes an idea through script, cast, storyboard, shots and rough cut, and stops for your OK at each step. It only starts filming after you approve the storyboard.
• A spending limit. Settings → Agents: let the chat spend Comfy.org credits without asking, up to a daily amount and an amount per step (off unless you turn it on). Each paid step shows what it spent and how much of today's limit is used. Renders on your cloud GPU, training and anything without a known price always ask. Seedance now works from the chat too.
• Let Claude Code make it. On the Dashboard, a button beside Make it hands your idea to your own agent: it writes the prompt and renders the previews on this PC, with its steps in a panel and a Stop button. It never deletes, installs or spends.
• Install them from IV Studio. The welcome asks which agent you use (Claude Code, Codex or Hermes) and what to call it, and Settings → Agents can install Claude Code or Codex with its maker's own installer and open its sign-in.
• Your agent's name (1.1.6). Name your agent and tell it yours, in the welcome or Settings → You and your agent. It answers to that name in the chat, on the Dashboard ("Let Nova make it") and in the activity log.

Make more

• MiniMax H3 Image. A new picture model in Create → Image: big, detailed pictures at 4, 8 or