Many modern artwork types have come and gone, however only a few survived, and even fewer thrived with age. Anime is an anomaly. It has been an enormous a part of Japan’s tradition for the final century and has since change into certainly one of its largest industries.
AI picture mills might have been superb, however they could not mimic the intricacy and keenness behind gifted animators. Midjourney goals to seize that magic with its Niji mannequin, and it is attainable that they’ve already executed it with Niji 6.
The one query is: how good are we speaking?
All through this text, I will be placing Niji by way of its paces with a wide range of prompts based mostly on totally different genres of anime. We’ll discover its strengths and weaknesses, share a few suggestions for getting essentially the most out of the mannequin, examine it with its earlier mannequin and base V6, and showcase a number of the superb creations that solely Niji can produce.
What’s the Niji Mannequin?
Niji is an AI artwork technology mannequin made by Midjourney in collaboration with Spellbrush, an AI generative studio that makes a speciality of anime artwork. This latest mannequin borrows closely from Midjourney V6’s newest options, permitting it to grasp prompts higher and create comprehensible (however imperfect) textual content.
How Can You Use the Midjourney Niji V6 Mannequin?
For those who’ve used Midjourney up to now, then utilizing Niji can be a stroll within the park. You simply want to connect the “–niji 6” parameter on the finish of every immediate. Because it’s a powerful mannequin, you may additionally want to show down the stylization to 250 or decrease. For instance, right here’s a picture of Luffy from One Piece at “–s 250” and you’ll already see that it has a stronger type even at 250.
Some Examples of Midjourney Niji V6
I’m not going to tease you any longer.
Listed here are some examples of Midjourney Niji V6, together with the prompts that created them:
Sci-Fi Anime
Base Immediate: an astronaut touchdown on a complicated moon base
Base Immediate: lush alien forest at night time, bioluminescent vegetation, floating jellyfish within the sky
Base Immediate: a technologically superior metropolis constructed on the underside of a large asteroid, impressed by cowboy bepop
Fantasy Anime
Base Immediate: eren from assault on titan
Base Immediate: a pleasant ghost in the midst of a subject, impressed by spirited away, studio ghibli, hayao miyazaki
Base Immediate: a girl protagonist who can management monsters based mostly on the 4 primary parts, preparing for a battle, epic anime scene
Horror Anime
Base Immediate: a creepy dimly-lit hallway, impressed by corpse get together 2013
Base Immediate: a person watching an unknown spiral within the sky, unfathomable, junji ito
Base Immediate: a girl with blood on her face, impressed by excellent blue 1997, satoshi kon aesthetic, analog
Mecha
Base Immediate: A colossal and battle-scarred mecha emerges from the depths of a volcano, mappa animation
Base Immediate: Two smooth and futuristic mechas have interaction in a high-speed aerial dogfight, laser beams, interfacing
Base Immediate: A mecha and kaiju hybrid with electrical energy powers, mappa, rain, atmospheric, night
With Textual content
Base Immediate: exterior, a espresso store named “Kohi”
Base Immediate: yui hirasawa holding an indication that claims “Good Morning”, within the type of Ok-On!
Character Design
Base Immediate: a mage casting a rune, fantasy
Base Immediate: a lovely blonde woman with one inexperienced eye and one brown eye, heterochromia, slice of life
Base Immediate: a girl along with her basilisk, combating stance, character design
Ideas So Far
These are completely unbelievable. The prompts are extra correct, it has a deeper anime database so it is aware of who I am speaking about after I specify a personality, you are able to do textual content, and it is expressive.
Nevertheless, if I have been to be nitpicky, I’d say that Midjourney actually understated the power of this new mannequin. Even at –s 100, which ought to solely be a tenth of its stylization energy, it’s nonetheless actually opinionated. My solely hope is that they’d recalibrate the mannequin sooner or later for a extra correct technology.
Direct Comparisons With The Niji 5 and the Base Mannequin
On this part, I’m not going to generate the bottom mannequin photographs with the identical immediate. As a substitute, I’ll connect an “anime artwork” or one thing comparable on the finish of every base mannequin for a greater 1:1 comparability.
Sci-Fi Anime
Midjourney Niji V6
Midjourney Niji V5
Midjourney Base V6
Fantasy Anime
Midjourney Niji V6
Midjourney Niji V5
Midjourney Base V6
Horror Anime
Midjourney Niji V6
Midjourney Niji V5
Midjourney Base V6
Mecha
Midjourney Niji V6
Midjourney Niji V5
Midjourney Base V6
With Textual content
Midjourney Niji V6
Midjourney Niji V5
Midjourney Base V6
Ideas So Far
High quality-wise, I’d say that Midjourney V6 and Niji 6 are fairly shut. Nevertheless, Niji 6 is extra trustworthy to creating anime artwork, whereas V6 is broader and extra versatile with artwork (accurately). Alternatively, Niji 5 was nice for its time, however after seeing them aspect by aspect, it’s fairly clear how massive of a distinction there’s between these two Niji fashions.
The Verdict
This latest Niji 6 mannequin is one other welcome boost to Midjourney’s already succesful arsenal. Whereas not excellent, Midjourney confirmed a capability to create anime characters, backgrounds, and scenes when prompted with the correct inputs. The pictures are extremely wealthy, trustworthy to the supply materials, and imaginative.
They do, nevertheless, have to enhance their stylized parameters to be extra correct. However as soon as they’ve that sorted, I wrestle to see different areas of enchancment for this mannequin moreover getting higher at imitating sure types.
Midjourney’s Niji 6 mannequin is superb for anime artists, creators, and even simply followers of anime generally. For those who’re not happy, I extremely counsel studying our different articles on Midjourney. Have enjoyable!