Runway co-founder: graphics went control→quality, generative AI reverses it

c_valenzuelab · x · 2026-08-19

Runway co-founder Cristóbal Valenzuela revisits his essay "We're Solving Graphics Backwards": traditional graphics established control first (curves, triangles, meshes built over decades) and treated rendering quality as the last frontier — geometry principles from Renderman's era persist while rendering improved.

Generative AI inverts this: we start with photorealistic quality and must add control. multimodalart adds that tinkering with precise control "backwards" from quality requires tinkering with the weights, which is why open-weights frontier generative media models like MiniMax H3 are exciting. Valenzuela agrees: the more open-weights frontier for generative media, the better.

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