Just a few days in the past, I acquired a brand new notification in Discord. After scrolling for a bit, I found that Midjourney simply launched a brand new function known as character reference. It did not take me greater than two minutes of studying earlier than I opened Midjourney bot and gave it a strive.

Spoiler alert: It is actually good, like every little thing else in Midjourney. On this article, I will be masking what character reference truly is, how one can use it, some examples, and my general ideas above the function.

What’s Character Reference and Why It Issues

If you happen to’ve been utilizing Midjourney (or any AI picture generator, for that matter) for some time now, I’m certain you’ve grow to be aware of its pitfalls. Moreover moral points and potential abuse, the most important downside with Midjourney is consistency.

Just a few weeks in the past, that problem was partially solved thanks in large half to model reference, the place you may enter a picture and use it as its personal reference with out extracting a immediate that may replicate it. Nonetheless, AI artwork has two principal parts: the topic and the background. The latter’s inconsistency is addressed by model reference, however what concerning the latter?

That’s the place character reference is available in. With character reference, Midjourney can copy the topic of any picture and use their likeness (face, garments, physique) in your subsequent immediate.

How To Use Character Reference

It’s essential put together two issues: your immediate and a reference picture. The latter ought to comprise a transparent view of your character’s face and different options. After you have a reference picture, merely enter its URL following a “–cref” parameter. For instance, I’ll use the immediate “a person sitting at a throne” with Samuel L. Jackson’s face. Right here’s what it seems to be like:

I’ll be trustworthy, one thing’s off. Nonetheless, it’s nonetheless much better than what it was earlier than while you’re simply utilizing a picture as part of the immediate. We’ll speak extra concerning the accuracy and high quality of character reference, however for now, let’s transfer on to parameter changes.

After including the –cref parameter, you may add a “–cw” which adjusts the power of the mannequin. Midjourney mentions that the default 100 worth copies the face, physique, and garments of an individual, whereas the 0 worth solely follows the face. Right here’s an instance:

Character Reference Examples

For the next photographs, all the time maintain this in thoughts: the primary one will all the time be the reference picture, and the three subsequent photographs would be the Midjourney outputs utilizing character reference. So, with out additional ado, right here’s how constant Midjourney has grow to be:

Actual Individuals

Man

Lady

Non-Human

Cartoon

Anime

General Ideas

It is nearly eerie how correct most of those are. In a single fell swoop, Midjourney fastened its inconsistency problem. I can solely think about how efficient this might be when paired with its model reference function.

I’ll say although that it appears to be more practical if the topic are folks. It struggled with capturing the essence and appears of the inexperienced fluffy monster above, which made it look totally different it each image.

It additionally struggles a bit with actual folks, however in all equity, Midjourney did point out that this function works finest with different Midjourney photographs. Additionally they mentioned that the present mannequin will seemingly distort the faces of actual folks, which is what occurred to the Abraham Lincoln photographs above.

General, it is a large replace to Midjourney and one other optimistic step in direction of changing into the undisputed finest AI picture generator available in the market.

The Backside Line

Whereas all of the eyes on the planet are turned in direction of Sora, Midjourney continues to enhance its AI picture generator with updates like this one, model reference, and Niji. These days, different AI picture instruments really feel stagnant. As soon as they’ve achieved “adequate,” they stopped making drastic to their mannequin or add any new options.

However Midjourney is not like that.

Midjourney’s V6 continues to enhance its already spectacular base mannequin. I actually battle every other AI picture generator on the market that may catch as much as its capabilities. Who is aware of what they will come up tomorrow? All I do know for certain, no matter it’s, we’ll cowl that right here in Gold Penguin, so keep tuned! Within the meantime, you may learn certainly one of our many Midjourney articles like this one. Have enjoyable!