Release v2.96.0 - Shot-by-Shot Cinema

Released: 2026-10-15

Highlights

Music videos render shot by shot: Final renders now build each shot separately with a cached film look per shot, so a re-render only redoes what changed. Locked clips render exactly as they are, and every refusal names the shots behind it with one-tap fixes.
Lyrics and transitions: Timed lyrics are drawn in composed final renders, lighter captions stay out of the picture, lyrics are placed and sized in any render that draws them, and shots can dissolve or fade through black.
Music video planning: A new Assets page in the step list pulls in an earlier draft's and unfiled media, shots can pick which character references their frames send, Plan warnings name the shots behind them, and frame numbers show beside shot times.
Animatic playback: Shot clips load reliably on a phone, paused and reversed clips stay on the exact frame, and the first seek right after page load works.
Apple Silicon image generation: Qwen Image 2.1 renders no longer fail at the final decode and free the text encoder before denoising.
Safer host actions and data integrity: Force-killing processes, Messages tooling, mail archive/delete actions and timeline render dispatch require operator authority; backup, schedule, calendar and music album/track failures are now reported instead of swallowed.

Film and camera effects on music video cuts and shots; dissolve and fade-through-black between shots.
Assets page for music videos; reference preview on hover or long-press; Swap search by generating prompt.
"Human Imagined" / "Human Directed" ending options with a collage floor and board card.

Pool deletion no longer removes media selected by a music video; bad marks and video locks reject unused takes.
Provider composition catalogs refresh after changes and reconnects.

Music video render output is pinned to the project's frame rate; render timing coordinates and input references are explicit.
Preview sessions reconnect after command errors and idle expiry.
Brain sync validates clocks and orders conflicts by time; unreadable backup dumps and retention inventories are reported.
Many flaky-test and test-cleanup fixes (browser fixtures, temp directories, Windows diagnostics).

Full Diff: v2.95.0...v2.96.0