How licensing works on Lookhouse¶
A plain-English guide to picking the right license¶
When you license a character on Lookhouse, you're really answering two simple questions. Get both right and the license matches exactly what you're doing — nothing missing, nothing wasted.
You don't need to understand how any of this is built. You just need to know how big a part this character plays in your project and where people will see your finished work.
The two choices, in one breath¶
1. Role — how big is this character's part? From a face in the crowd to the star of the whole show.
2. Usage — what are you doing with the final video? From a hobby clip nobody pays for, to a streaming series.
That's it. Role decides how robust and precise the character is. Usage decides what you're allowed to do with it.
Choice 1 — Role: how big is the part?¶
Think of casting a film. An extra in the background and the lead in every close-up are not the same hire — and they're not built the same way.
| Role | Pick it when… | Plain meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Background | The character is in the distance, in a crowd, or on screen for a second or two | An extra. You'll never study their face. |
| Supporting | A recurring side character across a few scenes | Secondary cast. Recognizable, but not the focus. |
| Hero | A lead you'll see up close, lit different ways, moving and talking | The main character. Their face has to hold up under scrutiny. |
| Marquee | The face of the entire production — on screen for minutes, flawless every frame | The star. Cannot wobble, ever. |
Why higher roles are worth more: they're trained longer and harder¶
This is the part most people don't see. A higher role isn't just a label — it's a character that has been trained longer, on more reference material, with more quality checks, so the face stays sharp and consistent the closer and longer the camera looks at it.
Training takes real compute time, and it climbs steeply with the role — from a few hours for an extra to several days for a top-billed star:
| Role | Roughly how long it trains* | What that buys you |
|---|---|---|
| Background | A few hours | Reads convincingly as "a person" in wide and medium shots. |
| Supporting | Most of a day | Holds a recognizable identity across angles, expressions, and lighting. |
| Hero | Up to a full day or more | Stays precise through cinematic lighting, close-ups, and motion. |
| Marquee | One to several days | The highest precision we build — stress-tested so the face holds up even when it fills the screen. |
*Rough guidance only — actual time varies a lot. Higher roles train on more of your reference set (more photos and more video clips), at higher precision, using heavier training methods. Each of those adds time, and they stack: longer video clips, higher resolution, and the most thorough methods can push a top-tier character well into multiple days. Treat the column above as "expect this order of magnitude," not a clock.
Higher roles also use bigger reference sets and far more rigorous review before release. So you're paying for how hard it is to make that face fail — not for screen time itself.
Rule of thumb: the closer and longer the camera looks at this character, the higher the role you need. If the face really matters, go one tier up when you're unsure — an under-built character is the one that wobbles in a close-up.
Choice 2 — Usage: where will people see it, and is money involved?¶
This is about rights, not how the character is built. The same character used for a hobby post versus a national TV ad carries very different value — so it carries a different license.
| Usage | Pick it when… | Plain meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Personal (Hobby) | It's for fun — social posts, a personal portfolio, experiments. No money changes hands. | You're not getting paid, and no brand is behind it. |
| Creator (Indie) | You're a solo creator or small studio doing paid client work, roughly under $50k revenue. | Small-scale paid work. |
| Commercial (Agency / Brand) | An agency or brand is running a funded campaign — paid social, paid ads, digital marketing. | Real marketing budget behind it. |
| Broadcast (TV / Film) | It's going to linear TV, a streaming original, or theatrical release. | The widest reach, the highest stakes. |
Rule of thumb: match the license to the biggest place your video will appear and whether someone is paying. If a brand is funding it, you need at least Commercial. If it airs on TV or a streaming platform, you need Broadcast — even if the character's part is small.
How the price is set¶
There's no single price list. Every listing is priced by the seller who made it, so what you pay depends on the specific character and the creator behind it.
What stays consistent is how price scales:
- A bigger Role costs more because the character was trained longer and checked more thoroughly (see the table above).
- A wider Usage costs more because it grants broader rights and reach.
So as you move toward Hero/Marquee and toward Commercial/Broadcast, expect the price to rise — but the exact number is always the seller's call, listing by listing. The live total on the page updates as you pick your Role and Usage.
"Just tell me what to choose"¶
The price varies by listing, but the right combination is the same logic for everyone.
If you're a regular person / hobbyist¶
You're almost always on Personal usage. Then pick the role by how prominent the character is:
- Messing around, background filler — Background · Personal
- A character you actually feature in your edit — Hero · Personal
The moment you start getting paid for the work, you've outgrown Personal — move up to Creator.
If you're an AI film creator / indie developer¶
Pick usage by whether you're being paid and how big you are:
- Personal projects and tests — Personal
- Paid client work as a solo or small studio (under ~$50k) — Creator
Then set the role by screen prominence: side character — Supporting, your lead — Hero. Most indie paid shorts land on Hero · Creator for a main character and Supporting · Creator for the rest of the cast.
If you're a producer (agency, brand, studio)¶
- A funded brand campaign or paid ad — Commercial usage, minimum.
- Anything airing on TV or streaming — Broadcast usage, no exceptions.
Then role by part size: leads — Hero or Marquee, recurring cast — Supporting, extras — Background. A hero in a brand campaign is Hero · Commercial; the face of a streaming series is Marquee · Broadcast.
A few things worth knowing before you click "License this"¶
- One license, one project. A license covers the character for a single production — exactly like casting an actor: a production house hires them for one film, and the next film needs a fresh contract. Using the same character in another project means a new license.
- Verified creators. The maker's identity is checked by Lookhouse, so you know who you're licensing from.
- 24-hour takedown promise. If there's ever a concern about a listing, reports are reviewed within one business day.
- What you actually receive: the character files (the trained AI model), a few reference images, a short shoot guide, and a recommended-strength setting — delivered to your Library as a single download within about 30 seconds.
What your license won't do (yet)¶
No license tier changes these — they're limits of today's AI video, not of the character you bought. We'd rather you know up front than be surprised on set:
- Hands holding or gripping things. Fingers wrapped around an object still come out unreliable.
- Readable text in the shot. Signs, labels, and documents won't render as legible words.
- Lip-sync to specific audio. Matching mouth movement to a soundtrack needs a separate tool.
- Two characters physically interacting. Handshakes, hugs, and fight choreography get messy.
- Long unbroken takes. Most shots work in roughly four-to-six-second windows.
None of this is fixed by choosing a higher Role or a wider Usage. Plan your shots around these and the character will hold up. See also What your AI Character will and won't do in the creator shot guide for the same limitations from the other side of the lens.
The 10-second version¶
- How big is the part? — that's your Role (Background → Marquee). Bigger roles are trained longer for higher precision.
- Where does it air, and is money involved? — that's your Usage (Personal → Broadcast).
- The seller sets the price; the page shows your total once both are picked. When in doubt on rights, size up — an under-license is the expensive mistake.