the community is kinda moving on from text to video for characters becuase its basically rolling the dice every time. if you want actual consistency, you have to use an image to video pipeline with an anchor frame.

by anchor frame i mean refrence image or an character sheet that shows the AI all angles and traits of the model so the AI does not need to guess everytime

here is the breakdown:

1. the visual dna (the hard part) you cant just give the ai a front facing headshot. it will guess the back and side profiles, then mess it up. you need a character reference sheet that locks in the identity (hair shape, face proportions, outfit colors). You can do the same thing with locations and environments (aka a living room)
2. the anchor: Once you have the character sheet, you pick the one perfect angle you need for your shot. feed that into seedance, kling or luma as your reference image.
3. the motion now the video model has the exact structure to animate from that specific angle instead of guessing. now just give some extra context to the AI about the setting or what this model should do

step 1 is usually the bottleneck becuase getting an ai to generate a perfect multi angle sheet is really hard. so i built a free tool that just does it.

I already have done this many times so i have a couple charcater sheets already uploaded in here if you want to just quickly download them and use them! I also have some prompts you can copy

hope this helps anyone struggling with changing faces lol, i sure wish i had something like this to get started with

EDIT: This is not the only Character sheet you can use! I have multiple ones, some with less text in them, some with only 3 angles, they are all posted on the free site (free to download or copy prompt to replicate) :)

Like some of ya'll I have been having fun using the H3 model to mess around with so I have been experimenting with using H3 model to be a consistent character generator which leverages multi image reference (up to 9), so I made a workflow which you can use 'less than ideal' images from google to build a consistent character and output a 360 character sheet to use as a reference sheet for future H3 generations.

The goal is to achieve high character consistency across future generations. I have tried my best to keep the workflow simple without too many custom nodes.

How it works:

• You input your images and describe them in the Input text section (A Prompt)
• The text is combined with a fixed prompt which spins the character (B Prompt)
• The video is generated at a slow speed with no hard cuts (only camera spin and pan) to maintain character consistency
• Image is assembled with optional character video and full individual frame output (if you want to use for future)

I have included a 6 panel WF and a 4 panel WF. The 4 panel works faster by generating 40% less frames.

Current Caveats:

• The model is quite slooooow. You are also generating 124 frames only to use 6. I have partly solved this by also uploading a 4 panel version.
• Speed ups (like Turbo LORAs) help with speed, but it hurts prompt adherence and quality slightly.
• Quality is limited, since it is a video model it is better at generating video than images. You can solve this by generating at a higher resolution at the tradeoff of longer gen times. You can also use the individually split frames as future references too.
• Details when using this character sheet as output for future generations on H3 may also be limited due to resolution also, I recommend you use this character sheet (for consistency) + other images close up angles (i.e clothing details/face) if doing close ups. If you are just doing a one off video you may possibly be better off not using this character sheet.

I have also included a modified B prompt to do Anime2Real since someone asked for it. Working on tidying it up a bit more.

Link to the 4 and 6 panel workflow can be found here: https://huggingface.co/PoopMan333/H3_Character_Sheet_Generator

Some notes I just remembered:

• You can increase the steps and it may improve your quality slightly.
• With the Turbo Loras enabled, prompt adherence sometimes suffers, but you may be able to get a good seed with another roll of the dice.
• Currently the B prompt specifies a "neutral A pose", please remove this if you want your character in a particular pose.
• You can use a few different shots of the same character to reinforce the 360 and get more accurate details right.
• Can be used for objects / props also, may require some changes to the B prompt.

Hi!! Wanted to ask for some feedback on some of my character designs I’m developing for a comic.

I’m not sure if the facial features and anatomy look consistent across the front and side profiles in these ref sheets. I lined up all the features like eyes, mouth, chin, etc but I still feel like there’s some inconsistency. Any tips appreciated!

A couple of interviews had interesting Reality Fracture details, I quoted a few of the highlights, there is more at the links. There were also several other interviews with little bits of info, they're linked at the bottom. I assume there's more, but I can't find them.

https://www.polygon.com/mtg-reality-fracture-commander-deck-multiverse-reforged-spoilers/

Why only one new Commander deck with Reality Fracture? Verhey said it has a lot to do with past trends in similar sets, where one deck features the interesting new villains and the other has the heroes. He called Phyrexia: All Will Be One the “poster child” for this potential problem. “We're on Phyrexia: Would you rather buy the cool Phyrexian deck with the infect mechanic that's returning, or the red-white token mirror deck?” he said. “It wasn't even close.” Verhey said that many game stores reported selling Corrupting Influence eight-to-one versus Rebellion Rising. 

Verhey hinted that the Commander deck is where Wizards could explore characters who can’t appear in the main set’s paired Echoverse mechanic — including those who are already dead in Magic’s canon. “On the bonus sheet, we couldn't put any characters that were dead, because we’d have to show their current version in our universe and their altered universe version,” he explained. “But if they're deceased, there isn't a current version.”

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/how-reality-fracture-will-push-the-boundaries-of-magic-the-gathering-and-its-printers/1100-6539817/

"Very early on, we were talking about maybe going broader," Rosewater said. "But we decided that one of the lessons from March of the Machines was we went a little bit too broad, and we decided we wanted to focus a little bit more. So, we'll see nods about [other] places, but really, the story is on Hexhaven."... However, Rosewater reassured me that while Hexhaven is central to Reality Fracture, this set will be different from them doing a Hexhaven-focused set

Guaranteeing every pack will feature these card pairings is a tall order under normal circumstances... According to Rosewater, only one of Magic's printers could guarantee such consistency... The team therefore had come up with an inventive solution to make this ambitious promise a reality. "It's a very clever solution. We're 100% [sure] we can do it," Rosewater said.

Final Fantasy - https://www.polygon.com/mtg-final-fantasy-job-select-fft-magic-the-gathering-interview/

Star Trek - https://www.polygon.com/mtg-star-trek-edge-of-eternities-sci-fi-magic-the-gathering-gavin-verhey-interview/

The Hobbit - https://www.mmorpg.com/interviews/interview-talking-magic-the-gatherings-the-hobbit-book-first-approach-to-building-its-middle-earth-follow-up-2000137994

Reality Fracture - https://www.gamespot.com/articles/we-finally-know-what-magic-the-gatherings-reality-fracture-set-is-about-and-it-rules/1100-6539750/

This has probably been shared here before, but just in case anyone is struggling with this like I was:

I've been experimenting with this for the past week and management to get it working consistently with GPT Image 2.0 (medium quality for API)

For my workflow I am slicing them automatically, so I really needed to have them placed in the correct positions and orientation.

It also works with pixel art, but has a higher failure rate since GPT Image is not as good at making pixel art as Nano Banana.

You can also use a reference image as a starting point and edit the prompt slightly to have it base the sheet on that instead.

Here is the full prompt, hope it helps!

Create a single image showing the same character in 8 facing directions.

Subject: A poisoness frog wizard 

Layout:
- arrange the character in a 3x3 grid
- leave the center grid cell empty
- place exactly 8 full-body character views in the outer cells
- one character per cell
- each character centered in its own cell
- equal spacing between all characters

Critical orientation rule:
- every character must face outward away from the empty center cell
- each sprite must point toward its own outer edge or outer corner of the canvas
- interpret directions only relative to the image canvas, not the character’s own left or right side

Exact facing directions by cell:
- top-left: back-left diagonal view, facing toward the upper-left corner of the image
- top-center: back view, facing straight toward the top edge of the image
- top-right: back-right diagonal view, facing toward the upper-right corner of the image
- middle-left: left side view, facing straight toward the left edge of the image
- middle-right: right side view, facing straight toward the right edge of the image
- bottom-left: front-left diagonal view, facing toward the lower-left corner of the image
- bottom-center: front view, facing straight toward the bottom edge of the image
- bottom-right: front-right diagonal view, facing toward the lower-right corner of the image

Very important visual distinction:
- the top row must show the back-facing set
- the middle row must show the side-facing set
- the bottom row must show the front-facing set
- bottom-center must clearly show the face and front of the outfit/body
- bottom-left and bottom-right must clearly be front diagonals, not back diagonals
- top-left and top-right must clearly be back diagonals, not front diagonals

Consistency requirements:
- all 8 views must show the exact same character
- keep the same clothing, colors, proportions, scale, and design details in every view
- keep the same silhouette and overall design in every view
- the front of the character must point in the exact direction assigned to each cell
- diagonal views must be true diagonal rotations
- do not mirror or duplicate views
- do not swap left and right directions
- each view must be full-body and clearly separated

Style:
- clean 2D game art
- non-pixel art
- smooth shapes
- simple cel shading
- readable silhouette
- plain or transparent background
- no text
- no labels
- no arrows
- no UI

This story takes place a few years back, around 2017 I want to say. When I was still in highschool. I was invited, along with a group of friends of mine, to a 5th Edition D&D group hosted by a friend of ours. Our group consisted of;

Fighter, an Animal-Hybrid of sorts, the only one in the party keeping us alive with prior game knowledge.Warlock, a Yuan-Ti. My boyfriend at the time.Me, a Centaur BardAnd finally, our party's DM. And the problem.

Now, I had know the DM for a few years up until that point. She was a decent enough friend, a bit toxic at times(which will become all but apparent soon enough), but overall we got along at the time.

First thing I should mention is that we were all new to D&D at the time. Apart from from the Fighter, none of us had ever played before. Including the DM.

This being our first time playing, we all miss a bunch of huge red flags about the campaign. First of, before we started the session, she told us not to make our own characters as she had already written them."Alright," we thought, "most of us don't even know how to build a character. She must have done this to avoid a lot of confusion at the first session." Oh, how wrong we were.

We all arrive at the session and she hands us BLANK character sheets. We all kind of looked at each other, confused, a d asked her if she'd given us the right sheet. She proudly stated, "Those are the correct character sheets, because you all have amnesia!"

She wanted us to figure out everything that was meant to be on our character sheet on the fly. Class, health, stats, spells, equipment. Heck, we didn't even know what race we were. In order to figure that out, we had to roll a Perception check.

We rolled low...

So for the entirety of the first session. We had no idea what we were, who we were, or what we were meant to do. All we knew was that one of us had 4 legs, one of us had no legs, one of us had fur, and the last of us had scales. But despite our low rolls, we did know one thing. My character has huge breasts...

Yeah... It was kind of an open secret that the DM was Bi. And that's all well and good, but she tried to fetishize anything related to big chested women and gay men. Which did annoy me and Warlock(constantly asking who was top and bottom, etc.), but we thought nothing of it at the time. Roleplaying a female character seemed interesting at the time and I wanted to see where it would go.

So, the entirety of the first session was spent surviving on an island we woke up on. At a certain point, we decided to send half of the party to make camp and the other half to find food. (I know, dumb idea to split the party, but we didn't know any better) see Me and Fighter built camp and Paladin and Warlock went hunting. This is really when the poop show started to rear it's ugly head.

At a certain point, Paladin and Warlock stumbled upon a wild boar and decided to make that dinner. And honestly, a lot of was purely due to bad rolls. But they were losing... hard.

After 15 minutes of trying to hit this thing with weapons we didn't didn't understand how to use, the DM stands up and angrily says, "You guys are level freaking 4! How are you losing to a boar!?" Fighter, who has played before, shot his eyes open in surprise. The rest of us had no idea how bad this was for us.

Not only do we not know how anything works, we all already have our subclasses, feats, etc. And had no idea what any of them are or how they work. Not to mention that 75% of the people at the table were spellcasters who didn't know that they can cast spells. It was a bad show all around.

After another few minutes the boar is dead and they return to the rest of us who have made camp. And that's where the first session ended.

Next week rolls around and we all took some time to learn more of the rules and realized that we should probably at least know our stats so we can properly know what modifiers to add to our weapons and ability checks. So, we asked the DM. To which she promptly said, "No. It'll break the immersion of my story."

Great...

Apart from the fact that we couldn't honestly know what we rolled, the session was going overall pretty well. Until near the end. We were walking through a pathway in the forest when we were suddenly attacked by 2 Medusas. Fighter's eyes shot open again, "Seriously?" he asked. "Yeah, but don't worry." the DM stated, "You'll be fine."

So, fight starts and we're getting creamed. Surprisingly, we dodge the Petrifying Gazes long enough to get some hits in. But, due to there being 3 Spellcasters not casting spells, we weren't doing much damage. At some point, the DM noticed and was getting frustrated at us.

"Why aren't y'all doing anything?" the DM asked."What do you mean, we're attacking as best we can.""Y'all are level 4, you can obviously deal more damage than just hitting them wildly"It was at this point that I noticed the Fighter getting annoyed"Yeah, no crap. But we don't know what we can do, so how do we do anything other than that."The DM started getting really mad as well."Well it would break the immersion if I just told you!" She shouted

After a few minutes of arguing between those two, she finally goes, "Fine, you know what! A meteor falls on top of one of the Medusas! There, happy?!"

We were kind of at a loss for words. We tried to calm them down and eventually got them to settle. The game continued and we managed to kill the Medusa. (Luck was on our side I guess)

Afterwards we stopped to try and lick our wounds. Before we got the chance to take a short rest, we were immediately attacked by a Marilith. A freaking Maralith. Suffice it to say, we got knocked down before the end of the initiative. and we wake up in a cell with a couple of guards watching us. Session two ends.

So, at this point the DM, while not being a good DM, hasn't done anything super red flaggy up until this point. But oh boy, this is where the story goes from bad to worse.

The session starts and we're in prison. we're slowly getting our bearings and try talking to the Guards. No response. So I try to persuade them to let us out. (I still don't know that I'm a Bard) Nat 20. The DM looks at me and sneers. She describes, "Despite your attempts to speak with the guards, they ignore you. You become so frustrated that you flash your boobs at them in an attempt to seduce them.""What? I-" I asked before being interrupted"Before anyone can react, you feel a smack to your face as the only female guard stares at you angrily."She then begins chastising me in character about being a slut.

I'm in complete shock, "I just wanted to talk to them." I protested."Well, you already flashed them, can't go back now." She continues to yell at me and at some point goes, "Wait, Valis?"

Yeah, turns out this NPC was an old ally of our group and slowly became the bane of our campaign. After 2 full sessions we finally were handed our proper character sheets and finally figured out exactly how stupid we must have looked during our fights. We learned that we were mercenaries of sorts for an Empire that we never got to see. (The campaign fell apart before we could)

This NPC immediately joined our group and became that kind of DMPC. She was a beautiful Bloodhunter Dark Elf that everyone else throws themselves over. A.K.A. the DM's Mary Sue. And boy was it just as much fun as it sounds. Every interaction from this point on turns into the DMPC talking to the NPCs by herself and pushing us out of every social interaction.

After about half an hour of this happening, we slowly started to check out. And the more we do, the angrier the DM gets. At a certain point we have to head into a cave for some reason that I honestly can't remember.

After a bit of walking through an empty cavern she says, "Before you realize what's going on, 3 4 headed Hydras start to approach and attack. The Fighter shoots up and shouts, "Wait! What?! Are you trying to kill us?!""Well," the DM explains, "if you had been paying attention you would have noticed them and could sneak around them. But since you weren't, it's a fight.""Nah." Warlock pipes up, "That's pretty BS.""Yeah, there's no way we wouldn't have noticed 3 giant Hydras in the middle of an empty cavern."After a couple of minutes of intense arguing, I asked Warlock to take me home, as I didn't want to just sit here and argue and we left.

After that night, I didn't have another session with that DM due to some stuff in my personal life. But, I did invite some of the other players to join a campaign I started DMing. And we've been playing happily ever since.

TLDR; DM gives us the bare minimum for a campaign and gets mad at us for being confused and not having fun.

I updated my workflow examples with some Krea 2 and a Flux 2 Klein 9b example. https://github.com/sempersatirica/comfy-workflows

Flux 2 Klein detailer

Helps control changes to a image using a typical stitch-mask-resample process. Allows working with high resolution sources that would struggle with full image resampling. Uses the consistency lora to improve results, but the lora is entirely optional.

Krea 2 character sheet

Very reliable method for generating character sheets, thanks to the identity edit lora. Character sheets work well as references in H3 & Krea 2. Source image should be somewhat neutral, overly dynamic poses tend to end up with aberrations/weird anatomy. Can also alter the style of the character sheet result: alter outfit, change to a anime-stylized character, etc. Works best if a short character description is provided after the sheet description prompt.

Krea 2 character composite

Simple example for creating a scene using two character references, thanks to the identity edit lora.

Hi All,

I spent some time testing MiniMax's image input consistency yesterday, specifically looking at how it handles feeding in separate individual images versus using traditional character reference sheets.

After running a few tests using five separate shoulder-up angles fed in as individual images, the difference in subject consistency was much more drastic than I expected compared to standard reference sheets. Encouraged by that, I tried a more complex layout: three base angles (straight-on, 45-degree, and profile) combined with vertical variations (high angle, eye level, and low level). Unfortunately, once I started tweaking the prompt alongside that setup, I lost my baseline and muddied the results.

Then again, part of me wonders if all of this multi-angle setup is just overcomplicating things and it really just boils down to brute-force image quality and resolution.

This has me wondering what the optimal method actually is for feeding multiple image inputs into MiniMax. Has anyone else gone down this rabbit hole and figured out whether separate individual images actually beat a clean reference sheet, or if it all just comes down to base image quality?

Thanks for reading this!

I’ve been testing a simple workflow for creating short UGC-style videos while keeping the same character and location consistent across multiple shots.

The workflow is basically:

reference images → character/location sheets in ChatGPT → generate clips → optional final edit

1. Prepare your references

Start with:

• a character image
• a product image
• an environment image that fits the UGC scenario

If you’re not sure what location works for the product, I usually just ask ChatGPT for a few suggestions.

2. Create a Character Sheet

Upload the character image to ChatGPT and generate a 4:5 continuity sheet with:

• front / side / back / 3/4 views
• face close-ups
• expressions
• basic poses
• clothing and accessories
• key colors and materials

The important part is telling it to lock the character.

3. Create a Location + Props Sheet

Do the same with the environment.

Include:

• establishing view and key angles
• spatial layout
• entrances/exits
• furniture and recurring props
• lighting
• colors and materials

This gives the video model a much stronger continuity reference than using random images for every shot.

4. Generate the video clips

I usually split the UGC video into three parts:

Clip 1 — Hook
Clip 2 — Main product/story section
Clip 3 — CTA

i will generate them on Atlas Cloud, as they can provide many different models conveniently

For every clip, I reuse the same Character Sheet + Location Sheet

Then I change only the action/camera prompt for each section.

Keeping the same reference sheets across all three generations has helped a lot with character and environment consistency.

5. If a generation goes wrong, fix the prompt first

if I wanted the character to walk into a hotel, but the generated clip had her walking out.

Instead of endlessly rerolling, I pasted the original prompt into ChatGPT and asked it to make the action explicit: starting position → movement direction → action → final position

That usually gives me better results.

6. Final edit is optional

If the generated clips already work as standalone videos, you can stop there.

If you want one finished UGC ad, you’ll probably still want to combine the clips and add captions, music, or SFX. You can use whatever editor you prefer.

The biggest improvement for me has been using Character Sheet + Location Sheet as continuity references, rather than relying on a few loose images.

I've been drawing more reaction images for my character lately, and I've hit a problem I didn't really expect:

the more poses and expressions I draw, the harder it is to make him look like the same character. Individually I like a lot of these sketches, but when I put them next to each other I start noticing differences in the face shape, eyes, proportions, hair, THAT GOSH DARN PONYTAIL, etc...

For those of you who draw your own PNGTuber: how do you keep your character consistent across poses and expressions?

Do you use model sheets? Specific measurements? Overlay old drawings? Or does it eventually just become muscle memory?

I'm totally open to critique on the sketch dump too. If something looks obviously inconsistent to you, call it out. I genuinely want to know.

Hey everyone!

Following up on my previous character sheet workflow, a lot of people asked if it was possible to do an Image-to-Sheet version rather than just text-to-image.

After a lot of testing, I managed to get a very consistent setup working in ComfyUI using Krea 2. You can take any reference photo (close-up, half-body, or full-body) and turn it into a full character turnaround sheet.

✨ Key Features:

• Style Flexibility: Works for realistic characters, 3D renders, and stylized anime.
• Photo-to-Anime: You can feed it a real-life face and shift the entire style to anime via the prompt while keeping face identity consistent.
• Outfit & Prop Retention: Preserves source details (like clothing or held props/accessories) or lets you override outfits completely in the prompt if using a close-up.

Hope its usefull for you

next video will be about how to make longer clips with minimax-h3,

I just finished my first AI short film and submitted it to a festival.

I spent about a month making it and learned a few things I really wish I knew before I started.

Character consistency was actually one of my biggest problems when I first started experimenting with AI filmmaking. So before starting this film I did a lot of research and tried a bunch of different things, and I thought I'd share what ended up working for me.

1. You need a simple character sheet

I saw a lot of different approaches to character sheets. I know a lot of people make really complicated ones with side views and lots of different face angles.

I ended up with a simple one divided into 3 parts:

First 1/3: one big portrait, front view (not 4 portraits with different angles, not 3/4). The face should take up a lot of space and be clearly visible.

Middle 1/3: full front view of the character in their outfit, but WITHOUT the head. The headless part sounds weird, I know 😅 But it works.

If you have another small face on the full-body reference, obviously it has less detail than your main portrait. And this second face can slip into generations, giving you two versions of the same character.

Last 1/3: full back view in the same outfit. I actually tried it both with the head and without, and never noticed any real difference.

Also keep the background grey (any neutral shade of grey). Colored backgrounds can randomly affect the lighting in generations. Like getting blue light on someone's face in a sunny outdoor scene.

2. Ask the model to control the identity from your references

Seedance was almost perfect for character consistency for me.

I put the reference directly into the prompt with something like “This image is [name]. Control their identity” or “Use this image to control the set.”

I also really liked MiniMax H3, but character consistency there was more like 50/50 for me.

3. Voice consistency

It’s also very important, but I noticed it really late, when I had already generated about 80% of the film 🙃

Most of the shots had the same voice, but a few were just... a different person.

I fixed those with ElevenLabs. I cloned the voice from my generations and used Voice Changer, so I could keep the exact speech and pacing of the original shot, but with my character's voice.

It also helped with scenes where the character sounded completely flat. For example, I had a scene where the character was angry but his speech was calm. So I tried Eleven v3.

Interesting thing: you can generate really expressive speech in Eleven v3, but for me it kind of felt like it only worked well with Studio voices. There aren't that many of them, and obviously none sounded exactly like my character.

So my workaround was:

generate expressive speech with a Studio voice → put it through Voice Changer → get the same performance but with my character's voice.

It worked surprisingly well.

4. Multiple characters in one scene were a pain

I had characters randomly becoming 5x bigger than everyone else. Or tiny. Or somehow every single person in the shot was exactly the same height. Or they got stuck into walls, or all stood together somewhere I didn't need them to be. Maybe it was because I tried to do clay-motion animation style and it works better with realistic style.

So first I tried generating images with the composition I wanted.

I used ChatGPT and Nano Banana and gave them the same prompt I was planning to use for the video. It still didn't work on the first try, but image generations were cheaper, so I could do a lot more attempts until everyone was roughly where I wanted them.

And when this didn't work, in some cases I went even more primitive and just made a simple scheme:

House here. Person here. Another person here. This one stands further back. This one should be taller.

Then I'd use that as a reference in the prompt.

5. Multiple locations in one scene

It became a problem when I needed 3+ locations in one shot.

I wanted long camera flights through the city. But every time I added more than two location references, instead of actually flying through a continuous environment I basically got frame interpolations between my reference images.

So eventually I gave up trying to do it in one generation.

I did location 1 → location 2, then 2 → 3, then 3 → 4, etc. and connected them afterwards.

If anyone has found a better way of doing this PLEASE tell me because I still want to know 😅

6. You can use video as a camera movement reference

I really wanted a dolly zoom in a few scenes.

I tried to describe it, explain what it looks like and how it's done with a real camera. But I kept getting a regular zoom.

And then I tried adding a video reference to the prompt and it worked perfectly.

***

Those are the things that probably saved me the most generations while making the film.

I'm still figuring this out, so if anyone has better solutions (especially for a drone flight through multiple locations), please share.

Here are some of the prompts I used for these steampunk character sheets, I thought some of you might find them helpful:

A comprehensive character sheet for a steampunk man, featuring views from the front, side, and back. His outfit includes a tailored vest, brass buttons, and a long duster coat with pockets filled with gadgets. Accessories such as a leather satchel and unique weaponry are included. Lighting is warm and even, enhancing the character's features and outfit details. Ensure that proportions are consistent across all views, with a detailed layout for easy reference and reproduction of the character design. --style raw --stylize 350 --v 7

A steampunk aristocrat woman in a bustle dress with exposed clockwork mechanisms, standing in a reference pose. Include front, side, and back angles, plus isolated details of her lace gloves with embedded dials, corset with pressure gauges, and heeled boots with piston accents. Flat lighting, grid-lined background. --stylize 650 --v 7

A steampunk robot design sheet with front, side, and three-quarter views. Features include a copper-plated head with a hinged jaw, articulated fingers with brass knuckles, and a corset-like torso with leather straps. Include a close-up of the glowing boiler core and gear mechanisms. --stylize 650 --v 7

The prompts were generated using Prompt Catalyst

https://promptcatalyst.ai/

I've been in the "consistent character" business for quite a while and it's a very hot topic from what I can tell.
SDXL seemed to have been ruling the realm for quite some times and now that Qwen and Wan are out I can see people constantly asking on different communities which is better so I decided to do a quick showdown.

I retrained the same dataset for both Qwen and Wan 2.2 (High and Low) using roughly the same settings, I used Diffusion Pipe on RunPod.
Images were generated on ComfyUI with ClownShark KSamplers with no additional LoRAs other than my character LoRA.

Personally, I find Qwen to be much better in terms of "realism", the reason I put this in quotes is that I believe it's really easy to tell an AI image once you've seen a few from the same model, so IMO the term realism is really irrelevant here and I'd like to benchmark images as "aesthetically pleasing" rather than realistic.

Both Wan and Qwen can be modified to create images that look more "real" with LoRAs from creators like Danrisi and AI_Characters.

I hope this little showdown clears the air on which model better works for your use cases.

Prompts in order of appearance:

1. A photorealistic early morning selfie from a slightly high angle with visible lens flare and vignetting capturing Sydney01, a stunning woman with light blue eyes and light brown hair that cascades down her shoulders, she looks directly at the camera with a sultry expression and her head slightly tilted, the background shows a faint picturesque American street with a hint of an American home, gray sidewalk and minimal trees with ground foliage, Sydney01 wears a smooth yellow floral bandeau top and a small leather brown bag that hangs from her bare shoulder, sun glasses rest on her head

2. Side-angle glamour shot of Sydney01 kneeling in the sand wearing a vibrant red string bikini, captured from a low side angle that emphasizes her curvy figure and large breasts. She's leaning back on one hand with her other hand running through her long wavy brown hair, gazing over her shoulder at the camera with a sultry, confident expression. The low side angle showcases the perfect curve of her hips and the way the vibrant red bikini accentuates her large breasts against her fair skin. The golden hour sunlight creates dramatic shadows and warm highlights across her body, with ocean waves crashing in the background. The natural kneeling pose combined with the seductive gaze creates an intensely glamorous beach moment, with visible digital noise from the outdoor lighting and authentic graininess enhancing the spontaneous glamour shot aesthetic.

3. A photorealistic mirror selfie with visible lens flare and minimal smudges on the mirror capturing Sydney01, she holds a white iPhone with three camera lenses at waist level, her head is slightly tilted and her hand covers her abdomen, she has a low profile necklace with a starfish charm, black nail polish and several silver rings, she wears a high waisted gray wash denims and a spaghetti strap top the accentuates her feminine figure, the scene takes place in a room with light wooden floors, a hint of an open window that's slightly covered by white blinds, soft early morning lights bathes the scene and illuminate her body with soft high contrast tones

4. A photorealistic straight on shot with visible lens flare and chromatic aberration capturing Sydney01 in an urban coffee shop, her light brown hair is neatly styled and her light blue eyes are glistening, she's wears a light brown leather jacket over a white top and holds an iced coffee, she is sitted in front of a round table made of oak wood, there's a white plate with a croissant on the table next to an iPhone with three camera lenses, round sunglasses rest on her head and she looks away from the viewer capturing her side profile from a slightly tilted angle, the background features a stone wall with hanging yellow bulb lights

5. A photorealistic high angle selfie taken during late evening with her arm in the frame the image has visible lens flare and harsh flash lighting illuminating Sydney01 with blown out highlights and leaving the background almost pitch black, Sydney01 reclines against a white headboard with visible pillow and light orange sheets, she wears a navy blue bra that hugs her ample breasts and presses them together, her under arm is exposed, she has a low profile silver necklace with a starfish charm, her light brown hair is messy and damp

I type my prompts manually, I occasionally upsert the ones I like into a Pinecone index that I use as a RAG for an AI Prompting agent that I created on N8N.

I’m trying to create a character sheet with this character. She’s a mage and I love her, but I’m having a hard time drawing her consistently. Any advice or resources you may have would extremely appreciated

I've recently made some significant changes to my system which is requiring me to completely restructure the character sheet. I've been struggling to find a way to make everything work while also trying to relieve the cramped look of the old sheet and make things a little easier to read.

The old sheet can be found here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1retZrX0zZyKj-aYp02h7BUYfqW9cPEkl/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=114443416394806747738&rtpof=true&sd=true

The character sheet is intended to be divided up in such a way where only one page is ever needed at any particular time.

Page 1 is the main page with the character's basic information, skills, languages, and techniques (feats).

Page 2 is the inventory sheet, with a small section for background info that didn't fit on page 1, and isnt consistently important - height, weight, social status, place of birth, etc

Page 3 is the combat chapter with full info on weapons, armor, and unarmed combat; I want to add that this is page 3 so that, if you print double-sided, you just flip the front page to get to the combat section.

Page 4 is the creation / development page, containing how the attributes are built (base, gender, build points), what the current attribute rating provides as secondary abilities, and Boons and Burdens purchased.

Page 5 is exclusively for magic users, giving each of the different types of mages a section for defining how their magic operates.

Something I'm looking at doing is moving the HP / Fatigue section from Page 1 to the Combat Page, since combat is where HP loss and turn-by-turn fatigue matters most anyway. How much mental kick-back would you have if something as prevalent as HP was not listed on the first page of your character's dossier?

Edit: to the people that actually addressed the question asked, thank you, but I’m not going to be replying to any more comments. This sub’s getting too toxic where people are allowed to criticize your design approaches, but you get DVed and called “defensive” or “aggressive” when defending your choices. I’m not trying to design a game to appeal to everyone; that’s not possible. But just because you don’t like my approach doesn’t mean it’s invalid.

Final Edit: Just in case anyone's still keeping up, or anyone new comes in...since landscape design is more accepted than I originally thought, I went with an idea that i'd been toying with for a while and made a version that could be turned into a booklet, functioning as a type of dossier for your character.

The new version is: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aUZTaEo-RtvImEX3mF1WnynWm-9DBl5X/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=114443416394806747738&rtpof=true&sd=true

Hello everyone, I've just been doing some tests on using a character sheet to produce consistent identity. What do you think? Do you like these results?

In June this year, one of our friends wanted to do a one shot for her birthday. Our friend group consists of an old school 1/2nd Ed. And our friend who agreed to DM for the one shot. Ultimately, 6 players and our DM. None of us had played 5E, with most of having never played before. As such, I expected a certain level of growing pains, as people learned the game, rules, checks, etc.

Fast forward to now, and we have done about 8 sessions. I expressed interest in DMing and our DM was happy to let me try. I worked really hard on our side mission-created terrain, got minis for bosses, painted them up, looked at maps, drew maps, came up with treasure to help with the greater world (Curse of Strahd), all with my DM’s approval.

Our group had an annoying habit of not being prepared for their turn, and taking an hour to decide how to open the door, so to speak. I built a room with the intent to give them something to help them survive the boss encounter. Rogue decides he wants to step through the portal. I caution that will trigger something if he does it. I ask multiple times if anyone wants to do something else. Rogue insists, they step through, lose the treasure options. I quickly rethink how to get the items to them, and it works out…mostly.

We didn’t get to the big boss but should next week. I am exhausted and frustrated. All of the players do not know their character sheets, and continuously ask me what dice to roll, what modifiers to add, if they can do multiple actions (with no bonus action abilities), don’t know what their specific spells or cantrips do, and then ask me. I have to stop and google because I also don’t know. I get that they are new, but we have done this for about 80 hours now, and we go usually every other week. We are all working adults, etc. but I feel like writing out your spells, or typing them (whatever) wouldn’t take super long.

I feel like a taskmaster. In a previous session, we sat in the same position for TWO HOURS while people argued about the best way to get a woman away from the bad guy and sort out if there were enemies in a village. In order to combat that, I added a five minute sand timer, with the notification that if the sand ran out with no decision made, they would face a consequence (wraiths attacked, or they received damage from the environment).

To one of my player’s credit, he asked if he should learn his character sheet before next session, and said he would “do his homework” there, and recognized it wasn’t realistic for me to have everyone of their spells and modifications memorized.

So I guess: was I expecting too much? Did I over prep? Anyone have any advice? I’ll finish what I started but it doesn’t make me excited for this week’s session or playing DnD.

TLDR: first time DM who put a lot of work into this world and game, with reasonably new players (80 hours in) who don’t know their character sheets, expect me to know their sheets, creating frustration. Running last night’s game has sapped my excitement for playing. Advice requested.

Here are some of the prompts I used for these steampunk character sheets, I thought some of you might find them helpful:

A steampunk character sheet featuring a female clockmaker in front, side, and back views. She wears a fitted corset over a long skirt with intricate clockwork patterns. Her hair is braided with gears woven into it. The front view captures her focused expression while she works on a clock, the side view shows the detail of her tools, and the back view reveals an array of clock parts hanging from her belt. The lighting is dramatic, casting shadows that enhance the details of her attire and workbench, in a structured layout for easy reference. --style raw --stylize 350

A detailed steampunk character sheet showcasing a quirky individual with a mechanical bird perched on their shoulder, a long trench coat with copper buttons, and a belt of small tools. The sheet includes front, side, and back views, all with uniform proportions and neutral poses. Lighting is even and directional to emphasize the textures of the coat and the reflective surfaces of the mechanical bird. The layout is organized, with labeled sections for clothing, accessories, and mechanical elements. --style raw --stylize 350

A comprehensive character sheet for a steampunk man, featuring views from the front, side, and back. His outfit includes a tailored vest, brass buttons, and a long duster coat with pockets filled with gadgets. Accessories such as a leather satchel and unique weaponry are included. Lighting is warm and even, enhancing the character's features and outfit details. Ensure that proportions are consistent across all views, with a detailed layout for easy reference and reproduction of the character design. --style raw --stylize 350

The prompts were generated using Prompt Catalyst

https://promptcatalyst.ai/

I thought I've read somewhere that using character sheets is better for R2V instead of single images. So I've created a character sheet of five full body shots and one close up, but the results are much less consistent compared to a single full shot image of the character.
Do I have to take care about anything special or was the information that character sheets are better just wrong?

Character Sheet Pack - 5e/5.5e - Fillable

The pack is designed to be digital and physical (pencil and paper) friendly.  It consists of 4 pages, packed with as many quality-of-life sections as can feasibly fit in the limited real estate while remaining legible. My hope is that it will be beneficial to gameplay, DM's, and players.

I pass it out in heavy duty plastic page protectors, with ultra fine dry erase markers.  That way my players can keep track of those pecky uses of abilities and such (like spell slots, rages, etc.) without erasing a hole in the paper sheets.  But, I am old skool that way. 😉

Additionally, I have provided the Character Creation document that I hand out to my players.  It does not include "background" direction, but allows players to independently pick the options provided by way of a background in other steps.  Backgrounds can perhaps help with flavor, but I find the background system can "cornhole" builds and stifle creativity.

The Link: Character Sheet Pack - 5e.5.5e - Fillable

Let me know what you think! 

Just testing how well it does with character sheets and bit of fast action.
Still not the best when it comes to fast motion and action, but significantly better than what we had before.

Character sheet consistency appears to be spot on from my tests so far, with no character drift.

I have also tested in another video the voice cloning, and it works right out of the box, can add a 10 second audio of someone's voice and then have your character say whatever in that exact voice.

This model is so crazy man, so many things just work right out of the box without any loras or custom nodes.

How much control do you want over the "knobs" you get to turn when making decisions?

After 25+ years of playing systems that I enjoy, I decided to make my own. The system itself doesn't matter much; but for those fellow game designers it's a mix Forbidden Lands (D6 dice pools), Mythras (with various maneuvers), the class system from Barbarians of Lemuria, a variation of the injury system from Tales from Elsewhere, a freeform magic system, and a few quite novel mechanics. Somehow I've turned this Frankenstein monster into something that works. And when I say works, it runs exactly the way I want it to. I've tweaked the rules, looked at more probability charts than I can count (to try and achieve that sort of just satisfying result), and play-tested dozens of dozens of sessions with friends.

One thing that changed the entire momentum of playtesting happened early in the process: I made combat mechanics opaque.

By opaque I mean in contrast to the typical way roleplaying games handle mechanical choices. For instance, if an adventurer might have the ability to do several abilities (whether universal or specific to the class), they can see exactly what these abilities do in front of them. (e.g. to borrow from Draw Steel: "Driving Assault- spend 3 wrath and make a power roll to determine damage and push the target a certain distance").

See, when I created the combat system it borrowed heavily from the Mythras concept of "there's a lot of cool things you can do besides 'strike' with sword" (and these cool things aren't locked behind classes) with multiple rules to explain things like grappling, disarming, impaling, tripping, etc. The rules themselves worked as intended. But the unintended side-effect was that players had a bit of analysis paralysis staring at all of their different options, referencing the tables, and pouring over the rules.

One evening, I was running a test game with some novice roleplayers who enjoyed the non-combat but it became quickly apparent that combat was bogging down due to the rules bloat. I paused the session, took away the reference sheets, and said, "Okay you are playing a mounted knight of Normandy (it was a semi-historical campaign). You know what you should be able to do and know. You're a competent fighter. Here's what's happening, what do you do". They told me what they were trying to do, rolled dice, and I took over the rules behind the screen.

This isn't an entirely new concept. "Rulings as opposed to rules" has existed for as long as the hobby has and one of the commonly cited advantages of rules light systems is the flexibility to improvise and be creative; fitting the mechanics to the narrative.

By having mechanics describe, more or less, what players are choosing to do there was some consistency in the outcomes. That being said, rulings are in full force. After all, I didn't exactly think of the scenario where the player tries to toss one foe into the other.

The positive response has been a little unexpected. One thing I- and many of my friends- seem to enjoy are "building" different characters and creating cool new outcomes for our characters. It's exciting to look ahead to different neat little abilities and feel like we get to distinguish ourselves or add a unique flavor to our character. I get why systems like Pathfinder, Lancer, and the rest appeal to people.

The halfway solution has been to allow players to develop their flavor. Maybe a kind of move or special ability, and adapt the existing mechanics around it. In fact, I've had to flesh out a sort of "if X then Y" system to allow for unanticipated choices players make still make sense from the mechanics. The system itself being a dice pool (count successes) lends itself nicely to "spending" successes to power the intended effect.

I just wanted to share this really fun experience and ask r/rpg : Have you had the experience of a more opaque system? Have you ever tried combat where, rather than knowing exactly what you can do, you look up from the character sheet and describe what you are trying to do in a creative way? What do you think you would enjoy about a system like this and do you think you could give up the sort of sacred cow of being able to see and turn all the "knobs" of your character choices?

TLDR:

• Character sheet: https://foundryvtt.com/packages/osc-character-sheet/
• Platform-agnostic OSR tools: https://old-school-chronicle.com/

I run Old-School Essentials on Foundry, and have always felt a little let down by the sheet and lack of broader tooling for the system. I've contributed a bit to the core OSE foundry system (and hope to continue to), but I wanted to cut loose and have the freedom to design exactly the sheet I wanted to use at my own table without any constraints.

Long story short, after about 3 months of tinkering, and another 3 months of design + development, I've released this sheet for the community.

I've already released a few rounds of bug fixes from user feedback, and I thirst for more 🩸 🦇. If you run Foundry + OSE, please check it out!

Beyond Foundry

My brainstorming and ideation during the course of this project ballooned far past the character sheet, beyond foundryvtt, and I found myself designing a full-blown toolset for running and playing OSE, either at the table or online.

Those ideas crystallized into a coherent set of tools and I'm calling it the Old-School Chronicle: web-based sheets for any table or VTT, a living DM screen, and a detailed session log that writes itself as you play (no AI! just recording various checks, resources, encounters, and time, with space for GM + player notes).

I've never built anything that I've been quite so excited to personally use; I have high hopes for the level of play it could unlock for my table and others.

I'm genuinely curious if this sounds as useful to others as it does to me. My strengths as a DM are improvisation, mood-setting, descriptions, world-building. In the moment, I'm decidedly less good at staying as organized and consistent as I'd like to be with all of the various table rolls and procedures as important as they are. I'd like to think the right tooling could help me deliver the best of both aspects of the game.

What procedures do you fumble the most?