Storyboard: page by page, panel by panel

The storyboard screen

In production, the third tab, “Storyboard”, lays out the episode page by page from left to right. Each page looks like the real page: panels, images, and dialogue balloons.

• Open a page: Click “Page N ›” in the page header to open that page’s details.
• Open a panel: Click any panel on the page to open that panel.
• Change page order: Hold the page header and drag sideways.
• Move balloons: You can drag text balloons directly on the page.
• Add a new page: Click “Add” in the top right of the top bar, then choose a layout.

A panel on the page will be in one of these states:

• Empty panel: A faint large panel number, with “Open to describe the image”;
• Written but not drawn: “Image” at the top left, the description in the middle, and “Not drawn yet · Open to draw” at the bottom right;
• Drawing / queued: It says “Drawing”, or “Queued · No. N”;
• Drawn: The image appears, going from blurry to clear;
• Failed to draw: It shows the reason, with a “Redraw” button;
• Old draft: A small amber tag “Old draft” at the top right. See “Old drafts after edits”.

Page details

Page details are shown in a large frame. Across the top is a row of tabs: “Page N”, followed by “Panel 1”, “Panel 2”, and so on. Use them to switch between the page and each panel.

Top bar: On the left are the layout name and panel count. On the right are “N old draft panels”, “Draw this episode” for the whole episode, ‹ › (turn pages, or press ← →), and ✕ (or press Esc).

Left side is a zoomed-in view of the whole page. Click a panel to jump to it. At the bottom is the draw button for this page: “Draw N panels on this page”. If all panels to draw are old drafts, it says “Redraw this page”. While drawing, it shows how many panels have been drawn. A line next to it tells you the current status of the page, and the far right says “Drawn x/y” (old drafts do not count as drawn).

Right side has three cards:

• Layout: Which layout this page uses. Click “Change layout” to change it;
• Panels: One row per panel, with the panel number, status dot, and first line of the description. Hover over a row, and that panel lights up on the left;
• Appearances: Who appears in each panel on this page. See “Cast list”.

The bottom has its own row: “Delete this page”.

One panel: panel description, appearances, text

Open a panel. On the left is that panel enlarged at its real ratio. On the right are several cards:

• Context(can be collapsed): What happened in the previous panel, what the next panel should connect to, and which page this is.
• Panel description: The text the AI uses to draw. Write clearly who is there, where they are, what the light is like, and what they are doing. Do not write dialogue here. If you change it, the finished panel must be redrawn.
• Cast list: Who is in this panel, and which location they are in. The cast list decides which element card images to follow when drawing. Changing it also requires a redraw.
• Comic text: Text printed on the image. There are six types: caption box, dialogue, thought, SFX, whisper, and phone. Click “＋ Add text” to add one. The default is dialogue. Text floats as a layer over the image. You do not need to redraw when you edit text, and you can drag its position on the image on the left.

At the bottom left is the draw button: if there is no image yet, it says “Draw this panel”. If there is an image, it says “Redraw”. For panels that have had images before, the right side also has “All versions ›”, where you can go to the gallery and see every version drawn for this panel.

It auto-saves after you stop for less than a second. Press ← → to move panel by panel through the whole episode, across pages too. Press Esc to close.

Why not write dialogue in the panel description? Text floats as a layer over the image. You can edit it and move it at any time, and edits do not require a redraw. If you write it into the description, the AI will try to draw the words into the image. Those words are often wrong, and changing one word would mean redrawing the whole panel.

Let AI help write descriptions

The top right of the panel description card has a “Write with AI” button. If there is already text, it is called “AI edit”. It writes a description using the episode synopsis, the beat on this page, the panels before and after it, and the appearance cards. You will see the text appear as it writes.

When it finishes, it lists what it used as reference, then gives you a few buttons: “Undo”, “Write another version”, “Make it more tense”, and “Change angle”.

Using AI to write descriptions does not cost credits, and it does not draw images by itself. After the text is written, it saves as usual. You still decide whether to draw.

Layouts

A layout is how a page is split into panels. Wapopo has six layouts. It does not support custom panel splits.

Layout	Panels	When to use it
Establishing page	4	Opening or changing location: one banner on top, with two panels below to carry it
Progression page	4	The most common layout, four panels moving down at an even pace
Reveal page	3	Small panels on top set things up, then one large panel below gives the result
Atmosphere page	5	Five quick cuts, for a moment without dialogue
Full page	1	One panel fills the whole page, for a peak moment
Two stacked panels	2	Contrast, or two beats before and after

Be careful when changing layouts: All finished images on this page will be cleared (they stay in the gallery, but cannot be brought back). If the new layout has fewer panels, the text and descriptions in the extra panels will also be lost. The remaining panels are kept in order. When something will be lost, Wapopo shows a confirmation first and clearly says what will be lost.

How the assistant splits panels

The third step in making an episode is “Split into panels”: the assistant chooses a layout for each page, writes the panel description and cast list for each panel, and sets the shot (shot size and angle). You cannot edit the shot in the interface, but you can see it in the “Appearances” card in page details. The fourth step, “Fill text”, writes the dialogue, captions, and other text.

After everything is written, it will ask you to click “Draw this episode”. To learn how drawing works and how to stop at any time, see “Draw this episode, and brake at any time”.