AI Video Relighting: How to Change the Light in a Video (2026)

In short: to relight a video with AI means to change the lighting in an already shot clip without reshooting it: remove bad light, move the frame to another time of day or match the hero to the light of a new background. The technology that does this is relighting: the AI breaks the video down as a 3D scene (where the light is, where the shadow is, how the material lies) and recalculates the lighting from scratch. In practice, the video-to-video model Beeble SwitchX can do this: it relights the hero for a new scene while keeping their face, facial expressions and movement. In Pixyn, SwitchX works right in the browser, and new accounts get welcome tokens to start.

TL;DR

• What relighting is: changing the lighting in a finished video without reshooting. The AI estimates the geometry and materials of the frame and recalculates how the light should fall.
• Three main tasks: (1) save a clip with bad or uneven light, (2) move the scene to another time of day or mood (day to evening), (3) match the hero to the light of a new background so they do not look "cut out and pasted in".
• What we use: Beeble SwitchX, a video-to-video model. It is controlled with two tools: a mask (what to change, what to keep) and a reference (what the new light and scene should look like).
• The lineage: SwitchX grew out of Beeble's SwitchLight technology, AI video relighting with extraction of PBR passes (normal maps, albedo). This is a dedicated relighting team, not "light bolted on from the side".

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What relighting is and why relight a video

The light in a video is usually "baked" into the footage at the moment of shooting. You shot at an unlucky time, the window gave a hard shadow, warm and cold sources mixed in the frame, and reshooting is either expensive or impossible. Classic color grading masks this but does not change it: it pulls the tone and contrast of the whole frame rather than recalculating exactly how the light falls on the face and objects.

Relighting (AI relighting) works one level deeper. From a flat video, the AI restores a representation of the scene: where a surface faces the viewer, where it is in shadow, what color the material has without lighting (albedo), how the normals lie. With this "3D markup", the model recalculates the lighting from scratch: you can set a new source, a new time of day, a new mood, and the light lands physically plausibly, with shadows and highlights in the right places, rather than just recoloring the picture with a filter.

Why you need it in practice, three recurring scenarios:

• Save bad light. The shoot happened, you cannot reshoot, but the lighting lets you down. Relighting pulls out a frame that would otherwise go to waste.
• Move to new light or a new time of day. You shot in the daytime but need evening; you shot under work lights but need a cinematic mood. Relighting changes the atmosphere of the frame without a reshoot.
• Consistent light in the frame. When the hero is placed on a new background, the main mismatch is light. If the background has a sunset and the hero has office lamps, the brain sees a fake immediately. Relighting brings the light on the hero in line with the new scene.

Relighting is related to AI image editing: the same principle of "change part of the frame by a reference, keep the rest". For photos, this role is played by editors like FLUX Kontext for image editing; for video the task is harder, because the light has to stay consistent from frame to frame.

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How SwitchX relights: mask plus light reference

Beeble SwitchX is a video-to-video model where relighting is built into the scene replacement process itself. It does not redraw the frame from scratch: the source pixels of your footage work as a control signal, so the hero does not "blur". Controllability rests on two things, and they decide whether the result works or not.

The mask: what to relight, what to keep

The mask tells the model which part of the frame to touch and which to leave.

• The unmasked area (usually the hero): the original pixels are kept but relit for the new scene. This is the key point: the hero is not just moved into a new background, their lighting is recalculated to match the surroundings.
• The masked area is generated anew from the reference (a new background, surroundings, props).

According to Beeble, SwitchX itself detects the main subject in the first frame and carries the mask through the whole clip, so in a simple case manual selection is not needed. In Pixyn the mask has four modes: automatic, fill (relight the whole scene), select an object right in the frame, and your own ready alpha mask (for example, from Nuke or After Effects), which the model reads pixel by pixel.

The reference: what the new light should look like

The reference is a visual blueprint of the result: the background, the lighting, the mood, the props. SwitchX extracts the light and style from it and applies them both to the new area and to the kept hero. Want to move the scene into sunset light? Give a frame with a sunset. Want cold night neon? Give a reference with neon.

An important nuance from Beeble's materials: even if the person in the reference differs slightly from yours, SwitchX relies on the pixels of the source video and does not rewrite the hero's identity: it takes the light and the setting from the reference, not the face. As Beeble recommends, for a serious result it is worth refining the reference in advance, adjusting the color, mood and props in an editor, and only then feeding it to the model.

Where SwitchX's expertise in light comes from: the SwitchLight line

Relighting in SwitchX is not an accidental feature. Beeble (a team of former Krafton employees, Korea) is known for SwitchLight technology: AI video relighting and extraction of PBR passes (normal maps, albedo and so on), which lets you relight shot footage as if it were a 3D scene. SwitchLight 3.0 is the current version, and the separate desktop app Beeble Studio runs it locally on a GPU for 4K rendering.

SwitchX is the next step of the same team and their first video-to-video model (announced around February 2026). If SwitchLight answered the question "how to relight what was shot", SwitchX adds replacement of the background and props to relighting: it builds a new scene around the kept, correctly lit hero. So relighting here is not bolted on from the side but grew out of a dedicated relighting technology.

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How to relight a video in Pixyn: step by step

1. Sign up in 30 seconds via email, Telegram or Google. Create an account. New accounts get welcome tokens, so you can try it without paying.
2. Open the Studio, the main generation screen.
3. Choose the Beeble SwitchX model in the list of models.
4. Upload the source video, the one whose light you need to change.
5. Set what to relight. To change the atmosphere of the whole scene, use the fill mode; to keep the hero and relight the background, use the automatic mode or select the hero in the frame. SwitchX lights the hero for the new scene automatically.
6. Add a light reference and a prompt. The reference sets what the lighting should become (for example, a warm sunset or cold night neon); refine the mood with the prompt.
7. Run the generation: the finished clip appears in the feed, and you can download it.

Plans are on the pricing page.

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Scenarios: where relighting pays off

Save a shoot with bad light

You shot, you cannot reshoot, and the light let you down: a hard shadow from a window, mixed color temperature, flat work lighting. Feed a frame with the right, clean light as the reference and relight the clip. A frame that would otherwise go to waste is back in work. This is the same "save the footage" logic as with replacing the background in a video with AI, only the light changes rather than the surroundings.

Day to evening, a change of time of day and mood

You shot in the daytime, but the story needs evening or night. A reference with sunset or night lighting, and SwitchX moves the scene into the new time of day, recalculating shadows and highlights rather than just darkening the picture. Useful for music videos, commercials and atmospheric scenes where reshooting at the right time of day is unrealistic.

Bring the hero to the light of the background

The most common case in compositing: the hero was placed on a new background, but the light does not match, and the fake reads instantly. Here relighting is a mandatory step: SwitchX lights the hero for the lighting of the new scene so that a warm sunset in the background does not argue with cold light on the face. Without this, even a perfect background replacement looks fake.

Advertising and marketplaces

Move a model or a product into an environment with the right "expensive" light without renting a studio and lights. For a marketplace video card, a commercial or product footage, this is a way to bring varied shot footage to a single, controllable lighting for the brand.

If there are many similar edits, relighting is convenient to automate with a visual pipeline: set it up once and run it in one click. How this works is in the article What Workflow in Pixyn is. And the overview of AI video models will help you choose the model itself for a video task.

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What it costs in tokens

Beeble from 10 tokens per clip and from 4 per image. Before relighting a clip, check the light setup on a single frame: it is much cheaper.

The studio shows the exact charge before the run: check against it rather than the article, because the catalog gets updated. Pack contents are on the pricing page.

FAQ

Can I change the light in an already shot video with AI?

Yes. This is relighting: the AI estimates the geometry and materials of the frame and recalculates the lighting from scratch, so you can set a new time of day, source or mood. In Pixyn, the Beeble SwitchX model does this by a light reference. A full reshoot is not needed.

How is AI relighting different from ordinary color grading?

Color grading pulls the tone, contrast and saturation of the whole frame: it masks the light but does not change its direction and character. Relighting works deeper: the model restores a "3D markup" of the scene and recalculates how the light falls on the face and objects, adding shadows and highlights in the right places. These are different tools for different tasks.

How do I relight the hero for a new background so they do not look pasted in?

In SwitchX, mask the background and leave the hero unmasked: the model keeps their face and movement but relights them for the lighting of the new scene set by the reference. A light mismatch is usually what gives away a fake when replacing a background, and this step removes it.

How long a video can I relight?

According to Beeble's specification, up to 240 frames per task. These are short clips; split longer footage into parts and keep the light consistent at the joints. Plans are on the pricing page.

Will the hero's face be kept during relighting?

Yes. SwitchX relies on the pixels of the source video, so, according to Beeble, it keeps the identity, facial features and audio sync: the lighting is recalculated, not the hero. The light on the face changes, not the face.

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Ready to relight your video?

Sign-up takes 30 seconds via email, Telegram or Google, and new accounts get welcome tokens to start.

Relight a video in Beeble SwitchX →

Already signed up? Open the Studio, choose Beeble SwitchX, upload a clip and set the new light with a mask and a reference.

Sources

• Beeble, the developer of SwitchX