Pinball arcades: cabinet art cannot morph; I2V the playfield you own

The backglass is the SKU. Wan 2.6 Flash holds art. An Omni parlor tour invents machines you do not have on location.

A pinball ad that books is this cabinet on this floor: backglass art, side-panel livery, the playfield you actually own. Licensed art is identity. A parlor tour that mints extra titles is a claim you cannot walk a renter to. Photograph the machine. Do not let the glass melt into a cousin IP.

The backglass is the SKU

Players match the ad to the row they will stand at. Title art, translite, cabinet colour, the playfield layout if it is in frame. Text-to-video of “a neon pinball arcade at golden hour, classic cabinets” invents a floor and a set of machines you do not have. That is a different location.

Photograph the approved cabinet the way you would print a location sheet: square-on on the backglass, or a three-quarter that still reads the art. Crop a face in the glass if a player is reflected. Crop a title you do not have the right to show. Do not prompt the model to “clean” the floor. Erasing a carpet redraws the legs behind it.

The AI product video generator is the contract: reference photos are the ground truth. Zoom to 100% and read the backglass before you keep a take. Fine art is the first thing a generator loses. If the still is a location photo, keep the location. A last frame is useful when you have a second approved still of your machine — backglass to playfield. Do not invent a different title as the landing. Two licensed glasses is a morph.

Wan 2.6 Flash holds the art

Image-to-video starts from the frame you upload. Frame one is the contract. Turn a photo into a video is the named one-still job: attach the cabinet jpeg, describe the hold, pick an image-to-video model. Cost is priced per model, shown before you confirm. It is not a parlor montage.

Wan 2.6 Image to Video Flash is the motion row: image required, ultra-fast I2V, audio false, 5s / 10s / 15s, 1080p, 8 credits. The file is silent. That is the point. Quoted chimes in the prompt do not become a soundtrack. Title lettering will not typeset itself. Score later if you want a bed.

Prompt camera and physics only. Slow push on the backglass. Light on the playfield. A hold on the side art. Do not re-describe the title. Re-describing is how the model draws a second translite. Do not prompt “the ball launches, multiball, crowd cheering.” Flash will not speak, and the playfield art will walk.

Start at 5s. Fifteen seconds of the same glass is a long miss if the art was already wrong. Max output is 1080p. Aspects are inferred from the still — lock the crop before you generate. If a different title appears that was not in the still, throw the file away. Cabinet art cannot morph. A licensed translite becoming a generic “PINBALL” smear is a claim.

An Omni parlor tour invents machines you do not have

Gemini Omni Video is multimodal: a prompt plus optional reference images, source clips, character IDs, and audio IDs; 720p / 1080p / 4K; 4 / 6 / 8 / 10 seconds; 16:9 or 9:16; listed 9 credits. Categories include text-to-video, image-to-video, and reference-to-video. An image is not required to press generate. That is the tell.

A parlor Omni film with no cabinet photo in the stack is a mood. A location cannot rent from a mood. Feed it one backglass and ask for “a packed arcade,” and it will invent titles you do not have on the floor. References are a casting call, not a first frame. The quota is images + videos×2 + character_ids ≤ 7. Seven near-duplicate hero shots of the same glass will not stop Omni from growing a second row of machines in the background.

Do not treat Omni as a location tour because 4K is on the slider. A bad stack at 4K is a sharper wrong parlor. Native audio is not marked on the row. If the brief is a mute hold on your backglass, Flash is the cheaper, quieter door: 8 credits, image required, three lengths. Do not generate players, a photoreal owner walking “tonight’s tournament,” or a child at the plunger. Empty cabinet. Real footage of a session you have grants for, on a different day, or no people.

Vertical after picture lock

Short-form is 9:16. The backglass is a wide rectangle. Generate the hold from a still you already cropped for the destination, or reframe after the keeper — not both, and not before the art holds.

Make video vertical reframes existing pixels. It will not grow side art the horizontal master never had. A 16:9 Flash take cropped to 9:16 after the fact will cut the translite at the ears. Lock the still in the ratio you will ship, then Flash. Overlay hours, “open play,” a title you actually have on the floor — after picture lock, as type you typed. Flash will not letter a lineup. Do not ask Omni to typeset a marquee of machines you do not own.

Pause on the glass. If a player would not say “that is the machine on your floor,” you made a parlor tour. Hold the art you photographed.

FAQ

Can I text-to-video a retro arcade and skip photographing our cabinets?

You can. You will get cousin titles and a floor you do not rent. Location is the backglass you photographed. Wan 2.6 Flash I2V from that still is the hold: 5s / 10s / 15s, 1080p, 8 credits, audio false.

Does Flash add pinball chimes if I write them into the prompt?

No. Audio is false on this slug. The clip is silent. Quoted sound does not become a soundtrack. Score later.

Why not Gemini Omni with a couple of cabinet photos as references?

Because Omni is a stack, not a first-frame contract, and an image is not required to generate. A parlor prompt will invent machines around the two you attached. Nine credits, up to 4K, 4–10s. Flash is the mute product push on the still you approved.

Should I generate horizontal and crop vertical for Reels?

Only if the backglass still survives the crop. Make-video-vertical reframes pixels; it will not invent side art. Crop the still to 9:16 first, then Flash, or accept that a 16:9 keeper will lose glass at the edges.