Veo 3: Google's Best Video Generator — and How to Actually Use It

Google's Veo 3 dropped and it's genuinely good. Like, watch-a-clip-three-times-because-you-can't-tell-it's-AI good. The motion is fluid, the lighting is consistent across frames, and it handles camera movements that would've been a glitchy mess six months ago.

But here's the catch most people run into: where do you actually use it?

Google keeps Veo 3 fairly locked down within their own ecosystem. You can access it through Google's AI tools, but the experience is gated, limited, and bundled with stuff you probably don't need. If you just want to type a prompt and get a video, the path isn't obvious.

Myjourney gives you direct access to Veo 3 at $0.50 per video clip. No subscription, no Google account gymnastics. That's the short version. Here's the longer one.

What Veo 3 Actually Does Well

Previous text-to-video models had a common problem: they'd generate something that looked great in a still frame but fell apart in motion. Fingers would multiply, backgrounds would warp, physics would stop working. Veo 3 doesn't completely solve these issues — no model does yet — but it's a clear step forward.

Temporal consistency. Objects that appear in frame 1 still look like themselves in frame 120. This sounds basic but it's been the hardest problem in AI video. A person's face won't randomly shift features halfway through the clip. A building in the background keeps its shape as the camera pans.

Camera motion. You can request specific camera movements — slow dolly in, aerial flyover, tracking shot following a subject — and Veo 3 handles them convincingly. The parallax looks right. Objects closer to the camera move faster than distant ones, which is how real cameras work. Earlier models often made everything slide around at the same rate, creating that telltale AI-video flatness.

Lighting. This is where Veo 3 surprised me most. It handles golden hour, harsh midday sun, neon-lit nightscapes, and overcast flat lighting in ways that feel physically plausible. Shadows behave. Reflections mostly make sense. It's not perfect — you'll occasionally see light coming from an impossible angle — but it's close enough to be useful.

Audio generation. Veo 3 can generate synchronized audio for your video. Ambient sounds, dialogue, even music that matches the mood. The quality varies — sometimes it nails it, sometimes it's hilariously off — but having any audio at all is a big deal compared to silent clips from older models.

What Veo 3 Struggles With

Being honest here, because the hype around AI video generators tends to show only the cherry-picked best outputs.

Hands and small details. Better than older models but still not reliable. If your prompt features someone doing something specific with their hands — playing guitar, cooking, typing — expect some weirdness. About 1 in 3 clips will have hand issues that are noticeable.

Text and signage. Don't ask Veo 3 to generate a video with readable text. Signs, logos, book covers — they'll be blurry nonsense most of the time. This is a limitation across all current video models, not just Veo 3.

Complex multi-character interactions. Two people talking? Usually fine. Four people at a dinner table? Bodies start merging, faces swap, and things get weird. Keep your scenes focused — one or two subjects work best.

Length. Clips are short. We're talking 4-8 seconds typically. You're not generating a movie scene. These are social media clips, b-roll shots, concept visualizations. Plan accordingly.

Prompt Examples That Actually Work

Generic prompts give generic results. Here are specific prompt structures that get good output from Veo 3:

Cinematic landscape:

A slow aerial shot over a misty mountain valley at sunrise, warm golden light hitting the peaks, low clouds drifting between the ridges, shot on 35mm film

The "shot on 35mm film" part matters. Veo 3 responds well to cinematography references — it shifts the color grading, grain, and depth of field to match.

Product-style shot:

Close-up tracking shot of a ceramic coffee mug on a wooden table, steam rising from dark coffee, morning light from a window casting long shadows, shallow depth of field

Keep the subject simple and the environment detailed. Veo 3 excels at mood and atmosphere.

Abstract/creative:

Ink droplets falling into water in slow motion, swirling colors of deep blue and gold expanding in organic patterns, macro photography, 4K

Abstract prompts with physical processes (ink in water, smoke, paint mixing) tend to produce stunning results because there's no "wrong" anatomy to mess up.

Avoid these prompt patterns:

• "A person walking down the street while..." — too generic, you'll get a bland clip
• Prompts with more than 2-3 actions happening simultaneously
• Anything requiring readable text
• Specific celebrity or brand references (will be filtered or produce garbage)

Veo 3 vs Sora vs Runway: An Honest Comparison

Everyone wants the ranking, so here it is — with caveats.

Veo 3 produces the most visually polished output in my experience. The lighting and camera work feel more "cinematic" than competitors. Audio generation is a unique feature. Biggest weakness: access is limited, and clips are on the shorter side.

Sora (OpenAI) generates longer clips and handles multi-shot coherence slightly better. The motion dynamics are impressive — things that should bounce, bounce. Things that should flow, flow. But it's expensive through OpenAI directly and has its own access limitations.

Runway Gen-3/4 is the most accessible option with good editing tools built around the generation. The quality is a half-step behind Veo 3 and Sora for raw generation, but the iterative workflow (generate, edit, extend) is better. Subscription pricing at $12-76/month.

On cost:

Sora's pricing is genuinely absurd for casual users. $200/month to access it through ChatGPT Pro. Runway is reasonable but subscription-based. Veo 3 through Myjourney at $0.50/clip with no subscription is, as far as I can tell, the most accessible way to use a top-tier video model right now.

Image-to-Video: The Killer Workflow

Here's where things get interesting. Veo 3 doesn't just do text-to-video — it does image-to-video. And Myjourney makes this a one-click operation.

The workflow:

1. Generate an image using FLUX Pro Ultra (or upload your own)
2. Find one you love in your gallery
3. Click the video button
4. Get a 4-8 second animated version

This matters because it solves the biggest frustration with text-to-video: getting the look right. With text-to-video, you're describing everything from scratch and hoping the model interprets it the way you imagined. With image-to-video, you already have the exact frame you want — the model just needs to add motion.

I've used this for:

• Turning product mockups into short demo clips
• Animating illustration work for social media
• Creating quick concept videos from a single reference image
• Making AI art that moves

The quality difference between "text prompt → video" and "image I already like → video" is night and day in terms of how often you get something usable on the first try.

Real Cost Breakdown: A Small Project

Let's say you're creating content for an Instagram account and you want 10 short video clips for the month.

Using Veo 3 on Myjourney:

• 10 video clips × $0.50 = $5.00
• Maybe 20 still images to find the right starting frames × $0.10 = $2.00
• A few drafts for prompt testing × $0.03 = $0.30
• Total: ~$7.30

Using Runway Gen-3 Alpha:

• Standard plan: $12/month for 625 credits
• Each 5-second clip costs 50-100 credits depending on resolution
• 10 clips = 500-1000 credits
• You might need the Pro plan at $28/month
• Total: $12-28/month

Using Sora via ChatGPT Pro:

• $200/month
• Clips included, but... $200/month
• Total: $200/month (I'm not being snarky, that's the actual price)

For someone generating 10-20 video clips a month, the pay-per-use model saves you real money.

Getting Started With Veo 3 on Myjourney

You can try text-to-video generation right now:

1. Go to myjourney.so
2. You get 2 free image generations without signing up (video requires credits though)
3. Sign up for 100 free credits
4. A video generation costs 250 credits, so you'd need to purchase credits for video — but you can generate several free images first to see if the platform works for you
5. Once you have credits, switch to video mode, type your prompt, and wait about 30-60 seconds

I'm not going to pretend video is included in the free tier — it isn't, and it wouldn't be sustainable at the cost these models take to run. But at $0.50/clip with no recurring fee, the barrier to trying it is about as low as it gets for a model this capable.

Tips for Getting Better Veo 3 Results

After generating a few hundred clips on Veo 3, here's what I've learned:

Be specific about camera. "Tracking shot," "static wide angle," "close-up with rack focus" — these phrases dramatically change the output. Veo 3 was trained on real footage and responds to cinematography vocabulary.

Describe lighting explicitly. "Warm afternoon sun at 45 degrees" gets better results than "nice lighting." The model can handle specific light descriptions.

Keep it simple. One subject, one action, one mood. The best Veo 3 clips I've generated are almost meditative — a single scene doing one thing beautifully. The worst are the ones where I crammed three ideas into one prompt.

Use image-to-video when possible. Start with a great still image, then animate it. Your success rate goes from maybe 40% (text-to-video) to 70%+ (image-to-video).

Generate multiple takes. Same prompt, different outputs each time. Budget for 2-3 generations per final clip you want to keep. At $0.50 each, three takes costs $1.50 — still very reasonable for a polished result.

What's Next for AI Video

Veo 3 is good. It's not "replace your video production team" good. Not yet. But for the use cases it handles well — social media content, mood boards, concept visualization, animated art — it's crossed the threshold from "novelty" to "actually useful tool."

The trajectory is clear: every new model version roughly doubles the quality and halves the jank. Veo 4 will probably handle longer clips, better multi-character scenes, and more reliable physics. By late 2026 or 2027, we'll likely see AI-generated clips that are genuinely hard to distinguish from real footage in controlled scenarios.

For now, Veo 3 at $0.50/clip through Myjourney is the most practical way to start using AI video generation without committing to an expensive subscription. Browse the video gallery for examples, generate a few clips and see if it fits your workflow. That's a more productive use of 10 minutes than reading another comparison article — including this one.