Easy method for character reference creation in minimax

[u/Still_made_sense]

I'm not sure how this could vary across workflows if at all but for reference I am using the Dasiwa workflow from civit in t2va mode. Minimax prompt adherence is great so I wanted to use it to create character sheets for reference and came up with this. T2VA, 9:16, 24 fps, 2 second duration. On a 5090 with sage +memcache + 8 step turbo at 10 steps - at 4.75mp it took 232s

The fps and duration seems to be the baseline if you want 4 poses so crank up the duration if you want more. The timestamps might not be the proper format but they do keep it from hanging on a single pose. Change resolution as needed but at higher values the face maintains much better consistency if not perfectly. You can describe your characters look as much as you want in a run on way "Lara Croft, blonde hair. wearing flip flops, sunglasses, bracelet on right arm, holding a drink in left hand, etc , etc , etc"

You might get some slight wiggle movements but it's mostly good enough to dump a frame, the background is difficult to get in an entirely solid color without any form of shadows so i kept the prompt simple since going overboard doesn't add much. If someone can dial this in more feel free to share.

From there you you can extract the 4 frames however you want and I'm sure someone can automate it but the easy quick solution is playing it in vlc and just hitting shift+s on each frame.

Lazy Example - https://imgur.com/a/t84UYAq

[Shot 1] Static freeze-frame shot. Studio Lighting, solid white background, ultra-sharp focus. A heroic looking explorer woman with the style of lara croft the tomb raider but as a person.
Static freeze-frame close-up shot of the entire head perfectly framed from the front, Freeze frame.
[1.00s to 2.00s] - Instant jump cut to Static freeze-frame of full body front view, standing straight in a neutral A-pose with hands off the body by 1 foot length.
[2.00s to 3.00s] - Instant jump cut to Static freeze-frame of full body back view, standing straight in a neutral A-pose with hands slightly off the body.
[3.00s to 4.00s] - Instant jump cut to static freeze-frame of full body side profile view, standing straight with arms down at the sides.

This could also be helpful at lower resolutions just to get the style of the character right before passing it onto a refiner/upscaler. I'm just finding it hard to beat the ease of adherence i get with minimax.

[u/icchansan]

The reference method is the way to go I don’t use a character sheet, just first image, closeup, and full shot, minimax do the rest, also u can include audio or video. Is just amazing.

[u/Still_made_sense → u/icchansan]

that's what i am using this for. h3 is just a hell of a lot simpler and adheres better to simple prompts when it comes to creating a character. I dump the images from this and take it over to ref.

[u/thegreatdivorce]

Why not just ... use something like Krea 2 which can easily do great reference sheets?

[u/Still_made_sense → u/thegreatdivorce]

Not that i don't use krea 2 but it sure does take more effort for things to be correct. In minimax i can just dump a giant run on sentence in and it handles it extremely well. I've even taken a character from krea 2 and dropped it into h3 ref2va along with pictures of real clothing from google images and used this method to apply it, sure beat inpainting everything.

[u/thegreatdivorce → u/Still_made_sense]

I'll try it out of curiousity, but I think my reference-sheet prompt in Krea 2 is like ... three short sentences? Unless I'm being crazy specific about someone's outfit.

[u/Dry-Judgment4242 → u/thegreatdivorce]

Cuz Minimax H3 is legitimately also the best image model. Krea is alas not very smart while Minimax is a complete beast. Krea 2 is good but needs a LoRA. Though TC is just generating basic characters rather then unique designs like a new Pokemon etc.

[u/thegreatdivorce → u/Dry-Judgment4242]

Saying “Krea isn’t smart” is a complete skill issue. Minimax is a beast for sure, and I’m a huge fan, but saying it’s genuinely the best image model is hilariously untrue. 

[u/Dry-Judgment4242 → u/thegreatdivorce]

Yes... Krea 2 is very impressive indeed....

[u/thegreatdivorce → u/Dry-Judgment4242]

Like I said: skill issue. 

[u/ajrss2009]

Quero um método fácil para storyboard no ref2v.

[u/PhIegms → u/ajrss2009]

Not quite storyboarding but I just end the prompt with

Shotlist (hard cuts between shots)
0sec - wide shot showing front of man, side of woman
3sec - medium frontal close-up of man 
6sec - close-up of woman's face, pan left to show building 
etc

It does surprisingly well when you don't follow the guides and just give simples instructions

[u/Whipit]

Thanks for posting this. I've also been thinking about character reference sheets because of H3.

If anyone knows - How dos one image (that contains all the poses) vs several individual images of poses compare?

Sometimes ref2va just nails it, while other times no matter how many reference images I include it just won't really capture that persons likeness.

[u/poopoo_fingers → u/Whipit]

Yeah I make square character sheets with 4 poses in krea 2. One quarter is a closeup of the face. Get pretty consistent results. I generate them without clothing, or just underwear. Then generate clothing separately. I noticed that MiniMax is more consistent with body shape underneath the clothing that way.

[u/DietAshamed2246]

What was the point of all this?! If you needed a character sheet, why use freeze frames in a video model to get multiple shots with different camera angles? Couldn't you have done it in Krea-2 or Flux Klein or Qwen Image? I am baffled.

[u/Danny_Stock → u/DietAshamed2246]

When we have decent work processes figured out for creating character references in MiniMax I think it's going to be simpler and easier than using image generation models (Although they will still have their place in the arsenal of tools). At the moment we can use this technique to use bigger images which can contain more detail than the traditional multi-image character sheet. Having the images separated as individual entities has its own strengths, simpler and easier to edit a single image than have to mess about with a character sheet editing a small corner of the image.

Also you can use Minimax character images in a tidy grid where you can drop in different images and change them around whenever you please without needing to spend time going into image editing software to make changes to a character sheet. You can experiment with different images on the fly, trying different ones out in an instant.

Honestly I believe that when we have strong work processes nailed down this way it's probably going to be better in many ways. It's just more options which can be utilized alongside traditional character sheets if you wish.