The close-up shown as plain gray shapes in the Clay view: a woman's face on the right, parasols and a jetty behind her

The same close-up in the Quick view, with colors and textures on a slate background

The same close-up rendered in NovelStage: a woman with red hair looks into the camera on a beach, low sun on one side of her face, parasols and the sea soft behind her

Your characters, in every scene.

NovelStage is a 3D studio for Mac. Make realistic characters once, dress and pose them in rooms or outdoor places, and render pictures that look like photographs, for your visual novel, comic or story.

Coming to the Mac App Store in November or December 2026. Free, with an optional Pro upgrade.

Email me when it is out

Realistic is the renderer itself, live in the view.

A studio that stays out of the way.

NovelStage scene editor: a woman resting her hand on a man's shoulder fills the window, with glass panels for the scene list on the left and her controls on the right

Two people talking in a park under tall trees, with the park settings in a glass panel

Project page for City Lights with its characters in a row and its scenes as pictures

Object library open on chairs, next to a room in the view

People, lights and objects on one side, whatever you picked on the other.

Make someone once.
Use them everywhere.

Your characters are saved in the project and stay themselves in every scene, from every angle. That is the hard part when you draw or generate each picture from scratch.

Character editor in the Body step, with body types and a woman in a red T-shirt standing in the view

Hair step with a grid of short hairstyles such as Buzz Cut, Crew Cut, Textured Crop and Side Part

The Grab brush pulling a woman's ear into a point

Start from one of eight people or a plain body, then pick a body type and use the sliders. Characters are adults from 18 to 80.

Skin and makeup

Four scanned skin sets blend and match any tone, so pores and freckles stay real. Add blemishes, sun spots or deeper creases, then makeup with gloss, glitter, glow and lip liner.

Hair

Every style is made of real strands: fades, ponytails, a mohawk, liberty spikes. Use a natural color, a dye, or a pattern such as a rainbow or leopard spots. Brows and beards have their own styles.

Tattoos, jewelry and nails

The ink sits under the skin. Earrings and piercings are fitted to each ear, nose and lip, or go on any spot you click. Nail polish comes in any color and finish.

A very close render of a woman's face lit from one side, with pores, fine lines and single hairs in sharp detail

Detailed enough for close-ups.

Pores, fine lines, makeup and single strands of hair, right down to the light on the skin. One soft light from the side is all it took.

Clothes belong to the scene.

The same person can wear a suit at the office in one scene and a sweater at home in the next. Pick from over 60 outfits, from dresses and winter coats to sportswear and swimwear, plus shoes.

A row of outfits on figures: office wear, dresses, winter coats and sportswear

Change the color of any piece, or give it a scanned fabric such as denim, linen, jersey or wool
Use woven patterns like gingham, tartan or bouclé
Take single pieces off, or borrow pieces from other outfits
Add prints and badges on the chest, back, sleeves or legs

Direct them like actors.

Most scenes are two people near each other: on a sofa, a hand on a shoulder, someone holding up a phone. Poses fit each body and each piece of furniture, so people sit on the cushion, not in it.

A man holding a wine bottle up high, with its Let Go button

Face tab with a grid of expressions for a man talking to a woman

A man with his left forearm raised in a wave, and the arm controls in the sidebar

Pose from a Photo window with a photo of a dancer and the same pose on a gray figure

Two people sitting side by side on a leather Chesterfield sofa, with Sit and Lie Down buttons for each of them

The fingers close around phones, bottles, cups and books, and stay there in every pose.

A wall of clay figures in many poses: standing, sitting, dancing, lying down — **51 poses** to start from, each one fitted to the body it is used on.

Fitted to every body

NovelStage reads the shape of each seat, and each pose is built for the body it is used on. Sit Here puts people on the cushion, arms stay out of the body on any build, and a hand on a shoulder stays there when the other person moves.

Blush, tears and sweat

Pick a look such as Embarrassed, Crying or Exhausted, or set each one with a slider. Tears well up and run down the cheeks, and they follow every turn of the head.

Mirror My Face

Use your Mac's camera and the person copies your face as you make it, then Capture keeps it. The camera is on only while that small window is open. Nothing is saved or sent.

Two women talking on a beach, with background people, parasols, a boat and pool floats behind them — A crowd takes one click. Everyone behind these two is a background person, dressed for the beach.

Build the set, or pick a place.

Make a room to size, or add one of 16 outdoor places. Each is built when you add it, with hills, trees and things around the edges, and a new variation is one click away.

Beach
Park
Forest
Winter Woods
Street
Town Square
Harbor
Mountain
Rocky Coast
Desert
Riverbank
Meadow
Farm
Campsite
Industrial Yard
Parking Lot

The same beach at sunrise, rendered in NovelStage

The same beach in the morning, rendered in NovelStage

The same beach at midday, rendered in NovelStage

The same beach in the afternoon, rendered in NovelStage

The same beach at golden hour, rendered in NovelStage

The same beach at sunset, rendered in NovelStage

Choose the hour.

The sun moves with the clock, and the shadows and the color of the light move with it. There are over 50 skies and backdrops, from a photo studio to starry nights.

A woman in a winter coat in a park on a cloudy day

The same park in the rain, with wet ground and puddles

A woman in a winter coat in a park.

Then change the weather.

Drizzle, rain or a downpour. Flurries, snow or a blizzard. Set how much falls and how hard the wind blows. It never rains inside a room.

A wall of objects from the library: furniture, lamps, plants, food, toys, vehicles and more

Over 5,000 objects.

Furniture, food, plants, toys, electronics, vehicles, trees and rocks. Many are photo scans, the rest were modeled for NovelStage. Lamps bring their own light.

Rooms built to size

Set the width, depth and height, add windows and doors to any wall, and pick walls and floors from scanned surfaces. Brick, stone and tile have real depth. Split a room with a wall of its own.

Paths and boardwalks

Click across the ground to draw a path through a forest, the snow or the sand. It sinks in, worn by footprints. Boardwalks, jetties and fences are drawn the same way.

Background people

Add one, or a crowd of 6, 12 or 20, each with their own face, body and hair. Dress them for the place, then have them wait, chat, walk or sit.

A row of buildings made in NovelStage: a house, a café, a bar, a hotel and a bakery

Buildings for the background.

Houses, shops, a bar, a hotel and more, in L, T and U shapes with their own roofs, signs and lit windows. They are finished on all four sides.

Pictures on screens

TVs, monitors, laptops, tablets, phones and signs can show a picture you choose: a video call, a game, a photo. It works on a phone in someone's hand too.

Used, not new

Wood fades in the sun, dust settles and sand climbs the legs of a lounger. Whatever stands on sand or snow presses into it, and footprints cross the beach. You set how much.

Rendered on your Mac.

NovelStage traces light the way film renderers do: around the room, through windows and into skin. No cloud, no account, no cost per picture.

Finished render of an open-plan office: a woman in a red dress leaning back in a leather chair at a desk, two coworkers behind her, and a monitor showing NovelStage — 3840 × 2160, rendered in 32 seconds on an M5 Max. The monitor shows a picture chosen for its screen.

Any size

Full HD, 4K or 8K, at Fast, Good or Best quality. The remaining grain is removed at the end. 8K has four times the pixels of 4K, so it takes about four times as long.

A real camera

Set the focal length, focus and background blur, and see the blur in the view. Then add a look such as Film, Cinematic or Noir, with a little grain or highlight glow.

A queue for many pictures

Add scenes and story shots and let them render one after another with the same settings. The queue tells you when it is done.

Bring your script.

NovelStage reads Ren'Py .rpy scripts and shows their lines over the view. Your file is never changed. Not using Ren'Py? Skip this part: everything else works the same.

define a = Character("Emma")
define d = Character("Jake")

label start:

    scene bg living_room

    "The rain had not stopped all afternoon."

    a happy "You finally made it."

    d "Lost? I've been here a hundred times."

The Story panel with a script's speakers linked to people and its lines listed, beside a woman speaking her line in the view

Link the speakers

Pick which person in the scene plays each speaker, and whose thoughts the narration is.

Step through the lines

Use the arrow keys. NovelStage frames whoever is speaking, opens their mouth and sets the expression the script asks for.

Save a shot, render them all

Adjust the camera or a pose, then Save Shot. Every picture is saved as a PNG named for the script, such as bg_living_room.png.

Ren'Py is a free visual novel engine made by others. NovelStage is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Ren'Py project.

Or ask an AI app to set it up.

With Pro, apps like Claude, Codex, Cursor, VS Code, Gemini CLI, Windsurf and LM Studio can work NovelStage for you over MCP. Ask for an office with two desks and someone on the phone, and it builds the scene while you watch. Every change can be undone with ⌘Z, and the server only accepts connections from your own Mac.

Every tool is free.

Make a whole scene before you decide anything. Pro is for bigger projects.

Feature	Free	Pro
Characters, clothes, poses, scenes, rendering, scripts	All of it	All of it
Projects	1, plus the sample	No limit
Characters and scenes per project	2 of each	No limit
Pictures waiting in the render queue	5 at a time	No limit
Mark on pictures	Small "Made with NovelStage"	None
Import your own .glb and .gltf models	No	Yes
32-bit OpenEXR export	No	Yes
Work with AI apps over MCP	No	Yes

Pro is a monthly or yearly subscription, or a one-time Forever purchase. All three unlock the same things. The monthly plan has a one-week free trial for eligible customers. Prices are shown in the App Store in your currency.

Nothing leaves your Mac.

The app has no account, ads, analytics or tracking. Projects stay in folders you choose and it works offline. Privacy policy

What you need.

A Mac with Apple silicon and macOS 26 or later. It runs on 8 GB of memory; 16 GB or more is better for large outdoor scenes. Renders are fastest on M3 or later.

Questions.

Who is NovelStage for?

Anyone who needs many pictures of the same characters: visual novel creators, writers, comic makers and illustrators. You do not need to know 3D. Some artists also use it as a reference for poses and light.

Does it make anime or drawn characters?

No. NovelStage makes realistic people and renders them like photographs. If your story is drawn in an anime or cartoon style, this is not the right tool for it.

How is it different from an AI image generator?

You build the scene instead of describing it. The characters are 3D, so the same person keeps the same face, body and hair in every picture, and you decide the pose, the camera, the light and who is looking at whom. Nothing is generated in the cloud: the pictures are rendered on your Mac, and you can render the same scene again from another angle.

Is it free?

The free version has every tool. It is limited to one project with two characters and two scenes, five pictures in the render queue at a time, and a small "Made with NovelStage" mark on pictures. NovelStage Pro removes the limits and the mark, and adds importing your own 3D models, OpenEXR export and working with AI apps over MCP. Pro is a monthly or yearly subscription, or a one-time purchase.

Which Macs does it run on?

Any Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or later) and macOS 26 or later, including models with 8 GB of memory. Renders are fastest on M3 or later, and 16 GB or more is better for large outdoor scenes. There is no Windows or iPad version.

Do I need Ren'Py?

No. Reading Ren'Py scripts is one part of the app. You can make scenes and render pictures for any story, comic or game.

Can I make backgrounds with it?

Yes. A scene does not need anyone in it. Build a room or pick an outdoor place, furnish it and render it as a background, then add the characters for the next picture.

Are all characters adults?

Yes. Characters are 18 to 80 years old. They always wear at least underwear or swimwear, and the app has no nudity.

Does it need an account or the internet?

No. There is no account, and the app works offline. The App Store installs its 3D content together with the app. After that it goes online only when you buy or restore Pro, or if that content has to be downloaded again.

More answers, and how to reach us, on the support page. Longer reads are in the guides.

Your cast is waiting.