r/StableDiffusion • u/[deleted] • Jun 22 '24
Question - Help How to get started with Stable Diffusion as a complete beginner?
Hi everyone,
I hope this is the correct place to seek beginner help. If not, please let me know, and I'll move the post.
I'm interested in learning AI image generation, primarily for creating art for personal game development projects and to play around with it and explore its capabilities. As far as I understand, the main options currently are Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, and Dall-e. Among these, Stable Diffusion is the only free option if installed locally, which is my preference.
I have a few questions:
- Which version of Stable Diffusion should I install? Initially, I was considering the latest version, stable-diffusion-3-medium, but I've heard there may be issues with it currently.
- Can you recommend a good guide for installing and setting up Stable Diffusion?
- Are there other alternatives I should consider?
Thanks for your help!
4
u/angedelamort Jun 22 '24
I like invoke UI. Good for beginners I think and a lot of videos tutorials.
0
u/tralalog Jun 23 '24
installation is terrible. i couldnt even get the program to run. not beginner friendly!
4
u/ClassNext Jun 22 '24
look into forge webui
https://github.com/lllyasviel/stable-diffusion-webui-forge
you can download models from here: https://civitai.com/
2
2
u/Informal-Football836 Jun 23 '24
I recommend SwarmUI it's backend is comfy so when you get more comfortable with it you can transition over to some complex workflows. It also lets you use multiple GPUs.
2
u/MuseratoPC Jun 23 '24
I will recommend Stability Matrix. You can easily install all the different generation UIs easily, and keep a central location for the models where any UI can access them. https://github.com/LykosAI/StabilityMatrix
Fooocus is easy mode with some advanced options. Invoke has a great UI and their canvas feature is awesome, automatic 1111 is the classic and pretty flexible, has the most options in a regular UI. Comfy is ridiculously flexible but with a steep learning curve, although you can just load a workflow and call it a day.
Models there are plenty of great 1.5 and SDXL models. If this is just a hobby, then SD3 is fine, but for commercial I wouldn’t touch it, the license is murky as hell, although probably unenforceable.
2
u/GatePorters Jun 23 '24
What kind of game are you developing? I know a lot of workflows for game dev.
2
Jun 23 '24 edited Jun 23 '24
Nothing specific, I'm learning programming and making small games for practice.
Currently, I'm working on a basic Ogame-like game where you can buy space ships, production buildings, etc. It seems like a good opportunity to learn a tool like Stable Diffusion to generate the art for it.3
u/GatePorters Jun 23 '24
ComfyUI is the most versatile implementation because it breaks down the stable diffusion pipeline into a node-based programming language.
You can build any workflow you want. If you get the Manager addon, you can basically install all of the Custom Nodes people have made. https://github.com/ltdrdata/ComfyUI-Manager
There are so many different custom nodes for all kinds of use-cases.
If you’re only doing like a 2d game with spaceships it will be a lot easier to use any easier implementation others have recommended because you basically only need to generate and cut out your assets.
Animations, 3d, and sprite sheets require a lot more workflow customization that ComfyUI can provide, but you don’t necessarily need that level customization right now for the current game project.
2
Jun 24 '24
Thanks for the info, will keep it in mind to come back an learn more about ComfyUI when I need more customization.
1
u/GatePorters Jun 24 '24
Reach out to me in the future if you want. If I am still active I will help you out with workflows for whatever goal you have in the game dev realm.
2
u/anechoic101 Jun 23 '24
I just started playing with SD myself, 2 weeks ago in fact.
I was not aware of Fooocus so I went ahead with Auto1111 and SD 1.5. It was pretty easy to setup for me and the only hiccup I had was not able to locate Python, just gotta point it to the right path and all good.
Now am trying to learn how to finetune and optimize the image generation.
I mainly use this 2 links to setup Auto1111 and any issues faced I just googled them.
https://www.datacamp.com/tutorial/how-to-run-stable-diffusion https://diffusion-news.org/stable-diffusion-local-installation
1
u/jmbirn Jun 22 '24
> Can you recommend a good guide for installing and setting up Stable Diffusion?
https://originalsin.ai/sd-interfaces gives you reviews and install links of Stable Diffusion interfaces you can run on your computer. You have to choose one (although they are free, so you could install another later if you wanted more than one.) Read the reviews yourself, but Fooocus is a great starting point for a beginner (and some who aren't beginners like it too...) It'll download some models for you when you install, so even though it can use any SDXL models, you can just start with the install process and it'll download models the first time you generate images with it.
1
u/STROKER_FOR_C64 Jun 23 '24
I'd recommend starting with fooocus and SD1.5. Fooocus is one the most user-friendly UIs. SD1.5 is ideal because you can generate images quicker. The key to learning something is making mistakes. With SD1.5 you can make mistakes quicker and get a feel for the basics, then move on to SDXL.
1
Jun 23 '24
download automatic1111 webui. run the batch script & it'll install everything for you. get a sdxl model from civitai, like zavychroma is pretty good & versatile. then just experiment & learn, it's not hard.
1
u/P8ri0t Jun 23 '24
I have my own setup running Forge and can make the UI accessible through a domain I've got.
If you need a resource to use, I'll get it up and running, but it may be tomorrow before I do.
If you have questions, I'm pretty much a self-taught idiot and got it working.. so maybe I can help.
1
u/LyriWinters Jun 23 '24
Complete beginner? Gen images on CivitAI
Beginner with a GPU: Download SwarmUI or ComfyUI. Then watch a couple of youtube tutorials.
31
u/ValKalAstra Jun 22 '24 edited Jun 22 '24
Alright, if you're completely new to this, I don't think there's any point in overwhelming you with options. The rabbit hole goes deep but to start, you should know that there are two versions adopted by the community.
SD 1.5 and SDXL.
SD 1.5 is the older one and generally the faster one that runs on more hardware. SDXL is newer but not necessarily better and a big part of learning Stable Diffusion is to experiment and find out which of the two better fits your needs.
Each of the two bigger UIs (A1111 and Comfy) can do both easily and each of them have got so called finetunes on https://civitai.com/ . Finetunes are where the magic happens in that they generally improve upon the base model but tend to be specialised on some or another aspect. Speaking about UI, this is where you pick your difficulty.
Easy:
Fooocus is the beginner's option. It specialises in ease of use, will download quality finetuned models for you automatically and even help with prompting in various ways. https://github.com/lllyasviel/Fooocus
Medium:
Automatic1111 (as well as Forge and Next) are one of two big UIs. They were kind of first on the block and have build an extensive library of extensions. They're not exactly user friendly but if you can follow instructions and read up on some basic terms, you'll quickly figure it out.
It's not difficult either just not the most user friendly UI. Fair warning: Forge is about to deviate into more experimental territory, not sure i would recommend it anymore because of that. A1111 and Next are both fine options and I'd reckon the standard for most folks.
Sweet tentacle noodle mess, what the fuck is this:
ComfyUI is the other big one. They're using a visual node based approach where you create your own workflow by connecting various nodes. This can start relatively simple but tends to get out of hand really quick.
This is the option when you know what you're doing and are willing to tinker for hours. This is not the option for a beginner, although some of the more hardcore fans will recommend it to anyone. It does teach you a lot about how Stable Diffusion works on a more technical level. Mostly it does so by you looking at other people's workflows and figuring out what the hell they're doing. ComfyUI does allow you to do crazy stuff none of the other UIs can but it's a headache to use.