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CyberIllustrious blends the artistic flair of Illustrious-XL with a big dose of CyberRealistic’s style. You still get all those cinematic, dreamy strokes, but now they come through with crisp, realistic detail.
If you want that painterly, elegant look but still want your images to feel sharp and lifelike, this is your model. It’s great for editorial vibes, soft glam, or even fantasy art that looks like a real photo. Basically, it just nails it.
It’s powerful, easy to use, and honestly? Prompting it is seriously fun.
📘 Get the most out of this model with the Illustrious / NoobAI Prompting: Master Guide.
⚙️ Recommended Settings
Sampling method: DPM++ SDE Karras / DPM++ 2M Karras - SGM Uniform / Euler a
VAE: is already Baked In
Sampling steps: 30+ Steps
Resolution: 896x1152 / 832x1216
CFG: 4-5About (DMD2)
The special DMD2 edition of CyberIllustrious is created for faster, cleaner generations while requiring fewer steps.
DMD2 takes the balanced improvements of the standard release and optimizes them for speed, precision, and responsiveness, making it ideal for both SFW and NSFW workflows.
Expect tighter results, smoother control, and a model that reacts beautifully to the classic Illustrious prompting style.
Recommended Settings
Sampler: LCM
Schedule Type: Exponential
Sampling Steps: 8 (12 for extra fine detail)
CFG Scale: 1.5
⚡ These settings are optimized for DMD2 and are different from my standard Illustrious workflow!
🧠 Prompting Made Easy
Positive Prompt:
masterpiece, best quality, high quality, ultra-detailed, realistic, ... rest of promptNegative Prompt examples (optional):
cartoon, illustration, anime, painting, CGI, 3D render, low quality, watermark, logo, labeldeformed, deformed face, low quality, bad quality, worst quality, (drawn, furry, illustration, cartoon, anime, comic:1.5), 3d, cgi, extra fingers, deformed teeth, watermark, logo🩺 Optional ADetailer Settings
Adetailer model: face_yolov9c.pt
If you only want the main face being refined set 'Mask only the top k largest' to 1.🔗 Resources
Backup location: HuggingFace
☕ Support the Madness
Liking what you see? Grab me a digital espresso (or a couple!). It keeps the creative energy going and helps bring more cool prompts and models your way.
⚠️ Heads Up
This model can spit out some mature stuff. Use it wisely, and please, no cursed creations—we’ve really seen enough of those.
💬 Want Better Prompts?
Use this custom ChatGPT to auto-generate polished prompts for CyberIllustrious:
🔗 [Try it now on ChatGPT]
Description
First version of CyberRealistic Illustrious-XL. It got some training from CyberRealistic XL 4.0.
FAQ
Comments (27)
Hi, I love the Pony model and would love to try this one. Is there any chance of being able to use this with the civitai online system in the future?
Unfortunately, I don't have control over this; the decision is made by Civitai.
Very nice, as usual! It looks like you have a new negative embedding you're using with this? Is that ready to share?
It's a modified (small) CyberRealistic SDXL negative embedding. You can use the version on civitai or when I release the modified version. But it's not really ready
Nice. Is the base Illustrious or Noob? I ask because Noob includes e621 in its training data which means e621 tags which are different from Danbooru tags.
Illustrious XL.
This is a great model! It is the first realistic Illustrious based model I tried that generates realistic faces. Other models only produced catoonish looking faces with big eyes.
Can you post some of the realistic images? Every single image currently showing in the gallery below is super cartoonish and not the least bit realistic. Regular SDXL is far more realistic. I would love to see some your realistic ones. I have never heard of this Illustrious model, but based on what I see so far, I wouldn't need to.
@AskarK Illustrious-XL isn't inherently a realistic model at its core - it's primarily an illustration (anime) model that's been adapted to create realistic results.
Why make it realistic? Because its capabilities are exceptionally powerful.
More info: https://arxiv.org/html/2409.19946v1
@Cyberdelia OK, but the claim was "the realistic adaptation of the incredible Illustrious-XL checkpoint, is here!"..."the results are truly stunning", yet all the output demonstrations just look like a cartoonier version of SDXL. I guess that's fine if that what somebody wants for some reason.
holy shit it's here
Users requested this, so I gave it a try at the beginning of December. I was immediately hooked and ended up working on it throughout the Christmas holiday period. It was a lot of fun!
I'm cautious with Illustrioud realistic models because I still don't have understood why it's better than SDXL for realism or Pony for "poses" (and realism), and but this one gave me good results, even if I often got bad hands.
Finally a good realistic model based on Illustrious! This is definitely way ahead of the others.
By the way, I don't know if you plan to use any finetunes with future merges, but if so I'd suggest looking into this merge here (the v3 eps): https://civitai.com/models/835655?modelVersionId=1023901
It is by far the best illustrious based model around, prompt adherence and anatomy are off the charts. It also seems more knowledgeable about danbooru tags when compared to other illustrious models.
(also, the author mentioned using CyberRealistic XL in the merge)
Really cool model, best I've tried so far!
i can't seem to find "CyberRealistic_Negative_New_SDXL"
do i just write it in neg prompt?
You can use CyberRealistic Negative or just use standard negative prompts 'worst quality, multiple views, bad quality, low quality, lowres, bad anatomy, bad hands, scan artifacts, monochrome, greyscale, twitter username, jpeg artifacts, extra digits, fewer digits, jaggy lines, unclear'
@Cyberdelia oh and also, can i use this checkpoint as a refiner? for example if i use the https://civitai.com/models/1045588?modelVersionId=1173150
or should i use the pony ckpt as refiner instead of the illustrious?
why are this and thrillustrious so much the same?
If you start with the same core foundation, the outcome can be similar, but the level of realism in the results must differ.
cool
Is it just me, or does this model struggle with landscape orientation? Any tips?
Yes, you’re the second person to mention it. I’ll need to check and fix it if possible.
Hi Cyberdelia!
It seems, another one bite the dust. Is Illustrius capable for realism? The answer is no. Funny to see, the best realistic checkpoint makers struggle with it. I think thats it, no need for further development.
What is better, than in realistic Pony? Lightning.
What is worse? Every other else.
Its just not worth it to try make a realistic version from every anime model.
It would be better, if you could make your XL hardcore capable.
Nah, and i like it, when my fav pony model gets an update.
Good day.
Thanks for the input! But I’ll keep doing what I’m doing, regardless of the opinions. Cheers!
@Cyberdelia Its ok. Just make XL for hardcore:)))))))))
What a crazy comment, lol!