Weekly MidJourney Office Hours Recap
🔄👯 New MidJourney “Character Consistency” Feature Can Pull Characters Through Across Style Barriers
A Comprehensive Recap of MidJourney’s Weekly Office Hours (March 6)
Hello and welcome, lovely creatives! I hope your week has brimmed with creativity and happiness! 🎨😊✨
This is your weekly dose of “Exciting Updates from MidJourney”: Join me here every week for a detailed recap of the highlights from the MidJourney Office Hours — where David Holz, the founder of MidJourney, shares the latest developments and engages with the community’s questions within the MidJourney Discord channel every Wednesday.
So, let’s not beat around the bush — let’s dive straight into the latest news from MidJourney. We have a lot to cover this week! 😄
🎭 A Brand-New “Character References” Feature for Character Consistency 👯
The brand-new “Character References” feature aims to enhance character consistency across images. It is one of the most requested features by the MidJourney community.
🗨️ Quoting what David Holz said about the new “Style References” feature in this Office Hours:
“The coolest thing about “Style References” is that you can pull the character through across style barriers, for example, pulling a character in arty/abstract style to a photorealism image.”
“It’s really neat when you can keep the character the same while changing styles.”
“It will be different than what you might expect if you are super obsessed with replicating particular details like the same logo or same mole in specific area, etc.”
- It will work similarly to the “Style References” feature that was just released.
- Initially, this feature will only support MidJourney-generated images as references, but plans are in place to expand it to include any internet images in the future.
- The new feature will include weight adjustments, just like
--swin the “Style References” feature, allowing users to fine-tune the character’s influence. For example, increasing the weight will capture more details like hair and clothes, while decreasing it will focus more on the face. - At launch, it will be limited to editing a single character, but this will change in the future.
- There will be “fairly intense moderation” to begin with to prevent the misuse of the new feature, such as creating inappropriate content.
🗓️ David Holz has confirmed that testing is complete, and the feature could be released at any moment. The team is working hard to roll it out this week.
🎨 An Upgraded “Style References” Feature ✨
The MidJourney team is working on upgrading the current “Style References” feature to merge with the upcoming “Character References” feature — allowing users to utilize both features together.
💡Just in case you missed it, “Style References” is a new powerful feature that MidJourney recently released — you can now replicate any art style with just a reference image. To gain a deeper understanding and to see some stunning visual examples, don’t miss out on this Ultimate Guide:
The upgrade will introduce a more sophisticated “Style References” version that will replace the current one upon release.
- The current version of “Style References” sometimes replicates not only the art style but also certain objects from the reference images. The new version will be way more accurate in replicating only the art style, avoiding unintended object duplication.
- In the previous Office Hours, David also mentioned the upgraded “Style References” enable users to distinguish between “styles” and “colors” more effectively.
🗨️ David explained: This new system has multidimensionality to it. On the website, you can upload the images, and it will give you a list of checkboxes to select what aspects of the image you want to keep in the images; We are figuring out how we could do it on Discord.
🗓️ The release of the upgraded “Style References” feature is scheduled for next week.
⚠️ To maximize the potential of MidJourney’s “Style References”, be sure to check out this secret hack that I recently discovered:
🗣️ An Upgraded /describe Feature ✍🏻(Mar 8 Update: It has been released!)
Mar 8 Update: The new “Describe” feature has been released — and it works way better than the previous one! Check out this user-friendly guide to learn how it can assist you on your creative journey with MidJourney:
The
/describefeature is a long-existing MidJourney feature: You can upload any image to MidJourney, and the AI will ‘describe’ the image to give you a reference of what should be included in the prompt if you want to duplicate a similar image.
- The new version of /describe will be significantly more accurate, providing prompts that are much closer to the image than the current one.
- I’m excited to see how the upgraded /describe feature will work in harmony with the new “Character References” feature and the enhanced “Style References” feature — it will potentially bring a seamless workflow for creating images with remarkable stylistic consistency on MidJourney! 😍
🗓️ The team planned to release it today, but they encountered an issue when deploying, so it will be delayed.
Other MidJourney Updates
🚀 New Turbo Mode Just Released
- At the time of writing, a new V6 Turbo Mode has just been released. It can create an image approximately 3.5x faster (~10 seconds vs. ~35 seconds) than the current Fast Mode.
- It is the fastest Turbo Mode ever released. (For comparison, the previous Turbo Mode with V5 took about 15 seconds.)
- How it works:
😍 MidJourney V7
Part of the MidJourney team has already started working on V7. David said, “The jump from V6 to V7 will be a bigger jump than V5 to V6.” The launch timeframe for V7 is set for several months from now.
🎲 “Style Random”
- The MidJourney team is exploring adding a new feature called “Style Random” for randomly selected art styles.
⛵ “Style Explore”
- A potential new tool to allow users to explore and find a style they like.
💻 New Social Feature on the MidJourney Website
- The team is working on a “pretty big” update that includes adding a new social feature to the MidJourney website.
- David is keeping the exact social features as a mystery for now on how exactly that will be, teasing that “it may be kind of dramatic, but in a good way.”
- Additional features such as “News” and “Feedback” will also be introduced soon.
😣 MidJourney Server Outage
- MidJourney suffered a 24-hour outage last Saturday due to heavy bot activity from a paid account linked to Stability AI, which appeared to be an orchestrated attempt to rapidly scrape prompt and pair image data from the community, occurred during the night and was sophisticated enough to disrupt part of MidJourney’s database.
- Consequently, all Stability AI employees have been banned from the service. David Holz reminds users to refrain from aggressive automation that could jeopardize the service for the entire community.
🫱🏻🫲🏻 Potential AI Lab Partnerships & API
- Over the next six months, MidJourney is exploring the possibility of partnering with multiple big AI labs.
- It will mark the first time ever MidJourney has offered API access.
- MidJourney will team up with some big language models (chatbots) in V7 or V8 to improve its model's language understanding.
🐲 China Version of MidJourney Rolling Out
- Using MidJourney in China has been challenging, but a dedicated Chinese version is now starting to roll out. This version offers a China-dedicated interface, enabling users to access the platform without the need for a VPN.
📖 MidJourney Yearly Magazine
- The team is working on publishing a collected edition featuring all of last year’s MidJourney Magazines.
- Personally, I’m a big fan of the MidJourney Magazine; the beautiful images and the prompts have not only fueled me with creative ideas, they are also perfect for gracing a coffee table! 🍵🎨
😊 I appreciate you taking the time to read this! It’s been a pleasure to share today’s exciting updates from MidJourney with you.
Stay tuned to this space for the latest news, comprehensive how-to guides, and insider Tips & Tricks as we continue to explore all the upcoming features and upgrades MidJourney has to offer! ✨
— Bee Lee 💃🏻
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🤗 Hiya! I’m Bee Lee — An 8X Top Writer on Medium and a (seriously) Passionate Enthusiast of Generative AI
My passion lies in creating beautiful things and exploring the boundless creative possibilities offered by Generative AI and MidJourney. Sharing the insights and knowledge I’ve accumulated on this incredible journey fills me with immense joy! ❤️😊 Why not join me as we dive deeper into the fascinating world of AI together? 🎨🤖⛵ Learn more about me here.
Meanwhile, feel free to check out all my other articles here to learn more Tips and Tricks on using MidJourney:
Here is the folder for all the previous MidJourney weekly Office Hours comprehensive recap:
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