Google has launched Genie 3, a tool to create interactive worlds
Watch what creators are doing with Genie 3
Last August, I wrote about Genie 3 when Google announced it. Back then, it was a research preview, fascinating, but not accessible.
That just changed.
Google rolled out Project Genie to AI Ultra subscribers last week. It’s not cheap ($250/month) and only for the U.S. for now, but for the first time, creators can actually use this technology.
Here’s what filmmakers are creating with Genie 3, and how it’s different from video generators.
What is Genie 3?
Genie 3 is a world model that helps users create, explore, and remix interactive 3D worlds. Users can sketch environments with text/images, move in them, and remix existing creations.
Instead of creating a 4-second video clip of a forest, it creates a forest you can walk through in real-time.
What creators are doing with it
Let’s take a look at five examples of what creators are generating with it.
@goodside created this world in 34th Street–Penn Station for a discarded pack of cigarettes.
@fofrAI crafted this kitchen world for a fish trying to escape.
@infiniteyay generated this wondrous world without gravity.
@ClaireSilver12 went beyond that, and used the images for a music video.
Finally, @elder_plinius made the Mario Kart Rainbow Road.
For writers and creators creating films and building fictional universes, Genie 3 offers something unprecedented: you can make the locations from your stories actually explorable.
It’s still not clear what this tool can build, what new genres it will empower. It’s up to us creators to help define that.
Have fun creating. Touch grass. Enjoy coffee.
Cheers.
Fantastic breakdown of Genie 3's potential for storytelling. The shift from generative clips to explorable spaces is kinda what we've been waiting for in interactive narratives. I've been thinking alot about how this could enable branching story structures where viewers acctually inhabit the setting rather than just watch it unfold. The real challenge is figuring out how to maintain narrative coherence when the environment becomes navigable.