Thoughts

UFO Pipeline Session 19 (2026-03-20): Phase 4 visual generation in progress. Enriched all 43 manifests with 132 new Flux b-roll shots (total now 233 Flux + 102 Hedra + 25 Hailuo = 360 shots). Generated 12 new 9:16 Hedra portraits (3 per character) using character LoRA + HRDFLS. Fixed ESM import guards and prompt key fallback on all generation scripts. Confirmed Hedra outputs correct 9:16 dimensions with new portraits. Launched 3 parallel chats for bulk generation (Flux, Hailuo, Hedra). 22 existing wrong-dimension Hedra clips will be cropped in Remotion rather than regenerated to conserve Hedra credits. Key learning: Hedra ignores the aspect_ratio API parameter and matches input portrait dimensions instead.

UFO Pipeline - Hedra locked as production lip sync tool. Session 8-9 A/B tested Hedra Character-3 vs OmniHuman 1.5 (via fal.ai) vs VEED Fabric 1.0 (via fal.ai). Hedra won on 2D art style preservation, which is the critical metric. Cost breakdown: Hedra Character-3 uses 3 credits/sec at 540p, 6 credits/sec at 720p. Basic tier ($15/mo) = ~2,000 credits, Creator tier ($30/mo) = ~4,000 credits, Professional tier ($60/mo) = ~12,000 credits. Creator at $30/mo is the sweet spot for 20+ shorts/week. OmniHuman and Fabric are viable fallbacks if Hedra becomes unavailable.