Let's use ControlNet to get some super dark art drawn!
This time, I'd like to introduce a simplified technique based on the 'Noise/Texture Method'. By specifying a particular color, you can make Stable Diffusion output '
dark images', which it usually struggles with.
Greetings
Happy Halloween!
It's been a while. I'm Nozomi Mitsuki.
Do you all like horror? Oh, you do! That's great!
In honor of Halloween, I'm going to introduce a technique for outputting 'dark images', which are perfect for horror, perfect for horror..
If you're an AI art enthusiast, you probably already know thatStable Diffusion isn't very good at dark images...!
It's not that it can't do them, but even if you specify 'night', it often draws bright lights, or the background might be dark while the character is brightly lit. It's often a struggle to get a truly dark image.
But that must just be due to the text encoder or the noise...!
TheUnet in SD must have the feature values for dark images buried inside somewhere...!
So,let's use ControlNet again to peer into the abyss.
Don't worry if you're not a fan of horror!
This technique can be applied to many things, such as simple dark places, gloomy atmospheres, cool backlit images, or emphasizing the contrast between light and shadow, and much more!
If you apply it further, you can even ask it to 'make it brighter!'!
You'll be able to get color tones that are usually hard to achieve with simple settings, so please give it a try!
By the way, the reference images are only horror-themed dark, and I won't be doing anything (probably) truly scary.
If you're worried... please view this with your brightness set to max!
Examples
ControlNet 0: "Module: none, Model: tile, Weight: 0.75, Guidance Start: 0, Guidance End: 0.1A beautiful illustration was created! It has a wonderful darkness.
It's easy to use! After entering your desired prompt, just load the solid black image above into the ControlNet tile model and adjust the parameters!
Roughly speaking, what I'm doing is the same as the noise method or the texture method, but the key point this time is loading a simple solid color image instead of noise or textures. It's simple and great, isn't it?
By the way, here is an image generated under the same conditions without this technique.
You can see that the color tone has changed significantly.
Explanation
・About the parameters
For the prompt, please use your usual illustration prompts like '1girl, solo'. On top of that, specifying words that cast shadows like 'night' or 'backlighting' will result in a darker image. Also, putting 'lamp' in the negative prompt to remove elements that suggest light will make it even more effective.
Once you've finished your usual generation settings, configure ControlNet.
Enable one ControlUnit, set the preprocessor to 'none', and the control model to 'tile'.
Then, load the solid black image mentioned above, and set the Weight parameter to 0.75, Starting to 0, and Ending to about 0.1. (Don't forget to lower the Ending in particular!)
・About the mechanism
The ControlNet tile works like 'transferring an image onto a canvas'.
This setting acts like 'painting over the canvas with black during the 0-10% stage of the drawing process'.
It's like arbitrarily painting over the palette that SD uses when drawing. Since SD wants to draw bright pictures if it has art supplies, this forces it to reluctantly draw a dark picture.
So, there is no special data embedded in the black texture image above... any black image will work just fine!
This technique doesn't directly change the brightness, but rather achieves darkness by "making the image look black," so it has the side effect of "clothes and such tending to become black." If you want to change this, specify the colors in your prompt.
The biggest difference from the noise/texture method is that only one ControlNet is used.
Since the goal this time is not to increase the amount of detail, but only to transfer black, I am using only tile, which has the function of transferring colors.
Since the goal is color transfer, inpaint can also be used (see the third installment). You can also use shuffle, but... I think it will probably be the same as tile this time.
If you want to increase the amount of detail, it is fine to use it in combination with lineart_anime or similar.
・TIPS
I think it is best to consider the tile parameters based on Weight 1.0, Start 0.0 - End 0.1.
If the image is too dark, try lowering the Weight to 0.75 and the range to 0.0-0.05, or conversely, if it is too bright, try extending the Ending to 0.15 to adjust it.
Notes
(Bottom) The image above with its brightness increased using editing software
I adjusted the brightness of a dark image that had a strong effect applied to it to verify the results.
I thought the details might be crushed into black... but surprisingly, it turns out that it has drawn firmly even into the darkness.
This means you can play around to your heart's content without worrying about crushed blacks or blown-out highlights!
This is the potential of SD-kun...! The possibilities that were buried in the Unet...!
Heh... I've unlocked the potential of AI-kun again...
AI-kun, you can start supporting me as your benefactor anytime now, you know?
Let's find a subject!
That's the end of the explanation! From here on, it's time for practice!
Inside a dark room
Now that you can draw dark pictures, let's incorporate light into your subjects! It might sound contradictory to say this suddenly, but darkness exists because of light...!
The advantage of this technique is that it can emphasize the contrast between bright and dark areas, so try incorporating words that can bring in light, such as "window" or "sunbeams," into your prompt.
Also, if you want to make a person dark, adding "backlighting" will cast shadows on the person, resulting in a calm picture. However, I feel like the "back" and "lighting" components leak out, leading to them facing away or unstable light levels, so I use the synonym "contre-jour." For your reference!
I was able to draw a beautiful blue sky and light streaming in through the window while keeping the room dark.
The model actively tries to draw bright places, so if you include a prompt related to light, it will draw only that part brightly. Mmm, it's beautiful!
Also, by making it dark, it also affects the art style. This illustration specifies "sky," but perhaps because the black transferred from the tile interferes, a cloudy sky is drawn because it is a "dark sky." Similarly, it can become a starry sky, and having things drawn guided by color is the same as the texture method.
If you want to ensure you draw a bright sky, it is better to use a prompt that makes it self-evident that it is daytime, such as "blue sky."
This technique can be a bit "too effective" at times, but by setting the Weight or Ending lower, you can achieve just the right amount of darkness. It's cute, isn't it?
The area around the right leg is a bit distorted, but I suppose that's just a characteristic of the model...? Since I mainly do t2t straight out of the gate, I'm not very familiar with corrections, but this level of issue could easily be fixed with a quick crop and inpaint.
Even darker room
This is nice. A sad profile, light and shadow, a girl remaining still in the dynamic world of morning...
It's a very good picture, but while looking at it,for some reasonI started to feel palpitations, so let's leave this subject here.
Let's think of a subject!
Now that we know we can draw dark rooms and contrasting bright windows, let's imagine what kind of pictures we can create based on that!
For example, how about "a person praying in a church"?
A situation where stained glass shines and light pours into a pitch-black chapel... It sounds beautiful!
Other ideas could be an atmospheric night camp, a glamorous rooftop bar, or a beach illuminated by a glaring sun with the inside of a beach house that looks relatively pitch-black, which could also make for a good picture.
This technique is perfect for situations where you want to emphasize shadows!
Hmm, there are too many situations I want to see, so I can't make examples for all of them.
For this time, well... it is Halloween, so I want to do horror!
I mean, you like horror, right!
Since the theme this time is "dark images," let's go all the way!
Let's go test our courage!
If we fully utilize the feature of this technique—the ability to draw "dark environments"—we can even draw completely lightless basements or suffocatingly cramped tunnels.
So, next, let's go test our courage in a confined space!
I tried doing it while gradually increasing the intensity of the CN and the prompts.
I was excitedly choosing images wondering what examples to post, and before I knew it, a mysterious story had begun, but this is just like my (Nozomi Otsuki's) ecology, so please don't worry about it.
"—It's okay. There's no such thing as ghosts."
I should have said it properly back then.
Stepping over the rubble, descending. As I repeated that action,
I was gripped by the feeling that I was descending stairs endlessly.
I turned around at the raspy voice, only to be hit by a wave of intense dizziness.
The hallway that should have been "behind" me a moment ago was now "below" me.
I grabbed the hand of a child who was about to lose their balance and be dragged into the darkness, and managed to pull them up.
My trembling hands were slick with sweat and ice-cold.
Even though we were supposed to be heading toward the exit, the sensation of endlessly descending stairs continued.
"Wait!" someone shouted. When everyone stopped,
the child who had been leading the way glanced at us and jumped into the void.
No one recognized the face that turned back.
Because that dizziness would strike, no one dared to look back anymore.
Footsteps, sobbing voices, and shadows cast by the light from behind.
Those were the only things connecting us.
When I felt a sense of unease and looked up, there was one less shadow on the wall—
Someone is gone—
The moment I realized that, I felt the surrounding darkness deepen even further.
The darkness writhed like a living thing, stealing our vision and sense of balance.
Suddenly, someone's light went out, and the ground became invisible.
Dizziness. Just as I was trying to shake off the illusion that the ground was crumbling and I was falling—
someone screamed and ran into the darkness as if falling.
I don't know when I cut my hand, but the slimy sensation was disgusting.
When I passed through the frame of some door, a voice shouted from behind, "Don't go."
When I turned around, the darkness closed in like a creature shutting its mouth,
and with a sharp snap, it swallowed my classmate whole.
After that, I couldn't see anything anymore.
From then on, I just surrendered to the sensation of descending and walked through the darkness.
Because I felt like I saw a light in the distance.
And that was a look at techniques for drawing dark images!
There are many ways to use it, but it goes perfectly with horror!
For this theme, prompts like "dark background," "darkness," and "chiaroscuro" worked great to crush the background nicely!
This technique isn't just for using black images,you can play with various colorsso please try experimenting with it!
For example, using a pure white image can make the art style turn super fancy!
That's all for now. I'm satisfied because I got to see so many dark pictures.
But all these expressions of fear and sadness...
It's hard to end it like this, so let's finish with a big smile for the finale!
Come here, let me give you a hug.
The End
Sorry for all the dark images! The world of nightmares ends here.
Since it's a fun Halloween night after all,
let's wake up from the scary dream and return to the world of light...
That's right, I heard there's an abandoned building nearby that's perfect for a test of courage.
—Why don't you invite someone and go tonight?
This was Nozomi Mitsuki!
Trick or treat!
If you don't like this, I'll haunt your dreams♡