16-Mar-2024: Midjourney Introduces Consistent Characters. Sort of… 

By Christian Heidorn chris@tokenizedhq.com via m.convertkit.com 

• now that Midjourney has finally released the one feature that so many people have been desperately waiting for.
• Consistent Characters!
• Similar to the style references that were rolled out a few weeks ago, this new feature is called “Character References”. 
• It’s still early and there will undoubtedly be adjustments to how it works and what sort of images it produces.
• Nevertheless, I think it’s worth diving into this because as simple as it may seem on the surface, it’s more complex than I thought.
• My initial thoughts were “Wow!” but the more I use it, the more I am noticing its weaknesses too.
• So let me walk you through the basis of how it works and then I’ll share my thoughts on what I believe needs to improve.
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• 1. Character References in a Nutshell
• Alright, so applying a character reference is pretty straightforward.
• First of all, you enter the prompt for the image that you’d like to create.
• Feel free to add all of the parameters that you’d typically want to use.
• Next, you need to add your character reference.
• Similar to how style references work, your character reference needs to be an image hosted on the internet.
• You can use an image that you’ve previously created in Midjourney but it doesn’t have to be.
• Here’s an example of how to use it:
• /imagine photo of a female police officer in new york city –ar 3:4 –cref <URL>
• Notice the new –cref parameter in there?
• That stands for “character reference” and it is followed by a URL to the image that you want to use.
• There is also a second parameter that comes with it: –cw
• –cw stands for “character weight” and if you don’t define it in your prompt, it will default to a value of 100 (the scale is 0-100).
• Remember, you don’t need to set this value unless you want to control the weight.
• Why would you want to do that?
• Well, because a value of 100 will not only use the facial features and hairstyle of your character, it will also transfer most of the clothing.
• Obviously, you don’t necessarily want that for every use case.
• Another side effect of a high –cw value is that the character features of reference will tend to dominate your prompt.
• For example, if your character reference has a very specific hairstyle or outfit, changing that via your text prompt becomes a lot more challenging at –cw 100.
• So let’s look at how different –cw values impact your images.
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• 2. The Impact of Weights
• Understanding how the weights control the effect of your character reference is crucial.
• It can make or break your images, especially if you need to place your character in different locations and situations.
• Based on my initial experiments, there are 4 rough anchor points that you can use:
• –cref –cw 0: Only use facial features
• –cref –cw 25: Facial features and some hairstyle
• –cref –cw 50: Face, hair, and some parts of the outfit
• –cref –cw 100: Face, hair, and outfit
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• These distinctions are important and you can see that in the images below.
• This illustrates quite well that characters, while extremely helpful, aren’t necessarily a one-shot solution.
• It will still require the right balance of reference images, weights, and also a strong text prompt to create precise images with your character.
• And speaking of challenges, it’s not all moonlight and roses.
• However, if I apply the style reference, things change quite dramatically:
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• 3. Midjourney “Sees” Differently
• One thing that I have noticed throughout all my testing is that Midjourney seems to perceive my image references quite differently than I do.
• You may or may not have noticed this in my examples above.
• Although it uses my reference image to create a consistent character throughout all of its generations, it still doesn’t quite look like my original reference.
• And that’s even though the image originated from Midjourney in the first place.
• I’ve noticed that it tends to exaggerate certain facial features, such as the mouth, jaw, nose, eyes, and even freckles.
• In the specific example above, my reference did not have such a wide jaw, nor were her lips as puffy and the freckles are just over the top.
• In other tests, Midjourney would give my character an extremely pointy nose, wide puffy lips, and yet again, a wide jaw and way too many freckles.
• So that’s why I say that Midjourney “sees” differently, or at least differently from how I see things.
• Once it’s decided on how to interpret your reference, it will generate strikingly consistent images.
• However, they’re not necessarily a picture-perfect representation of your reference.
• And honestly, that’s a little disappointing.
• But hey, this feature has only been around for a few days now and I’m sure it will go through multiple iterations of improvements.
• Until then, this is already a huge step forward and I can’t wait to see what people create with these features.
• Applications include climate modeling, carbon footprint analysis, energy optimization, and the development of AI-powered tools for renewable energy production and consumption optimization.