How to make and change animation backgrounds with AI

AI handles animation backgrounds three ways: generate a location from a description, swap a finished scene onto a different location, or edit the current one in place. In a layered pipeline the background is its own object, separate from the characters standing in front of it, so all three are safe operations: the characters, their poses and their dialogue stay exactly where they were while the world changes behind them.

Last updated 5 September 2026

Two edits, watched

A described change first. This narrated edit asks the garden to bloom, and the regenerated background keeps its geometry while the flower opens, the character untouched in front of it:

A background edit by description in Nima: the garden blooms, the scene's staging survives.

And a wholesale swap: same characters, same beat, new place entirely:

Swapping the location under a scene in Nima. The cast does not notice.

Generating a location from nothing

A background starts as a described place: "a small kitchen, morning light, cabinets a little too full". The generator returns the location in the project's declared style, and from then on it is an object the film owns, with named views you can return to. That last part matters more than the generation: a film revisits its places, and the second visit has to be the same room.

Why layering is the load-bearing feature

A generated frame where character and background are one image is a fresco: touch anything and you repaint everything, and repainting everything re-rolls the character you had already approved. Keeping the scene in layers, background plate behind matted characters, turns the background into scenery in the theatrical sense. Strike the set, keep the actors.

This is also what makes location edits safe late in production. A lighting change in the plate cannot drift your lead's face, because the lead is not in that image.

Doing this in Nima

Open a project at app.nima.mov and select the scene whose background you want to change.
To swap the location, pick a different one from the library. Your characters, their poses and their dialogue stay exactly as staged.
To edit in place, describe the change ("same garden, the flower open") and regenerate. Nima keeps the plate's geometry and the scene's context, changing only what you named.
To build a new location, describe the place and Nima generates it in the project's style, then keeps it as a reusable object with named views.
Re-render that shot only. The rest of the film is untouched.

Locations deserve continuity too

Character drift has a quieter sibling: the kitchen whose window migrates between scenes. The cure is the same shape, treat locations as fixed, reusable objects with defined views, not as per-scene inventions. A film returns to its places; the second visit to the drawing room has to be the same drawing room, down to the doorway everyone keeps entering through.

Time of day is part of the location's identity. Golden hour is a different room from noon, and declaring it per scene is what keeps joins from jolting:

The same Nima scene, its background edited to golden hour.

Common questions

Can I change the background without regenerating the characters?

In a layered pipeline, yes, that is the point: the plate regenerates or swaps behind matted characters whose approved art never re-rolls. In a flat pipeline, no, every background fix gambles the whole frame.

How do I keep locations consistent across scenes?

Build each location once, with named views, and reuse it by reference exactly as you would a character. Regenerate a view only when the scene demands a change, and describe the delta rather than re-prompting the place from scratch.

Can the background change during a shot?

Ambient motion, light and weather, yes, described at the keyframes. Structural change mid-shot, walls moving, reads as an error unless the story is explicitly surreal; cut to a new view instead.

Nima keeps backgrounds as swappable, editable plates behind matted characters, with locations reusable across your film. Try it free.