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    Solar brokers: the shade study is a still, the pitch is captions

    Do not Veo a fake sun path. Caption the approved still.

    Versely Team••4 min read

    Do not Veo a fake sun path. Caption the approved still. A shade study is a drawing a homeowner can compare to their roof. A generated sky is a weather clip. Those are different files, and mixing them up is how a broker ships a pretty eight seconds that no engineer will stand behind.

    Veo 3.1 is the dialogue and 4K cinematic row: native audio, 4 / 6 / 8 second clips. It is not a solar modeller. Asked for “morning to afternoon light across this array,” it will invent a sun. The array in that take is no longer the array on the proposal.

    The shade study is already the hero frame

    The approved still is the contract: roof plane, obstruction, azimuth, the diagram the desk already signed. Text-to-video argues with you about what the subject looks like. Image-to-video does not. Frame one is the file you sent. Labels, layout and the drawn sun path survive because they are pixels, not a prompt.

    If the still is wrong, stop. Lock the PNG the same way you lock the PDF. Then decide whether the file needs motion at all. Most pitches do not. The homeowner needs to read the study while someone talks. That is captions, not cinema.

    Veo will invent a sun you cannot sell

    A Veo take is a short cinematic clip with baked-in audio. Useful when a founder says one line on camera. Useless when the value of the frame is a measured diagram. Physics in a world model is plausible weather. A shade study is a specific hour on a specific roof. Plausible is the failure.

    Do not prompt around it. “Keep the overlay exact” is not a constraint the model was built to honour. You will get a cousin roof. The broker then either ships the cousin or regenerates until the credits feel like a CAD seat. If you needed a talking shot, shoot the broker. If you needed the study on screen, keep the study.

    Captions carry the pitch; the still carries the site

    Add captions to a video transcribes spoken audio and burns styled, timed lines onto the file. Twenty-one BASIC presets at the standard rate, nine DYNAMIC presets at 2×, 165 language codes. It listens. It does not redraw the roof.

    The production order is boring on purpose:

    1. Hold the approved still for the full duration, or animate it only after the diagram is the opening frame.
    2. Record the pitch against that picture — yield, payback, what the tree actually does in December.
    3. Burn captions so the muted feed still carries the numbers.

    Do not ask a video model to typeset kWh. Do not ask the captioner to invent a sun path. Speech in, styled subtitles out. The still is the evidence.

    If the still must move, describe only the camera

    When a listing needs more than a held PNG, image-to-video is the tool shape: upload the study, prompt the move, leave the object out of the sentence. “Slow push, no morph, overlay stays the overlay.” Re-describing the array is how the model re-invents it.

    Keep the clip short. A five-second push on a locked diagram is a pitch aid. A “day cycle” is a fake sun path with extra steps. If the take restyles the overlay, start over from the PNG. Do not grade your way out of a regenerated roof.

    FAQ

    Can I generate a time-lapse of the sun over this roof?

    Not as a proposal graphic. Veo will give you a cinematic day. It will not give you the study. Caption the approved still and speak the hours. If you need motion, animate the PNG with a camera move and stop.

    Why captions instead of burning the numbers into a new generate?

    Because captions transcribe what you said, and the still already has the drawing. A video model asked to “put 8.4 kW on the overlay” will spell it wrong and restyle the roof. Typesetting is a finishing job.

    Does image-to-video keep the shade overlay?

    It keeps frame one if you send the overlay as the still and prompt only the camera. It is not a CAD lock. Pause the take on the diagram. If a line moved, throw the take away.

    Should the broker appear on camera?

    Only if the job is a talking line. That is a different clip from the study. Do not composite a generated presenter onto the diagram and call it the proposal. Hold the still. Caption the voice.