This is an experimental checkpoint that combines some of the best realistic Illustrious models with bigASP 2.5. It worked.

BTW, v2.4 is now available here! Give it a try!

❤️ If you like Snakebite, you can help offset the cost of training:

Buy liftweights a Coffee

Why it matters

bigASP has great prompt adherence but it is wildly inconsistent as far as style and composition. It feels like a base model with untapped potential. Dialing in the right settings is like trying to solve a Rubik's Cube.

Illustrious models, on the other hand, lose many concepts when going 3D. They're hit-or-miss even with fairly popular booru tags. But the lighting and composition of these weights are still 👌

I wanted to see if we can get the best of both worlds, and it turns out we kinda can! Careful block merging is the key. We can inject bigASP's output_blocks.0 to acquire much of its conceptual knowledge. Adding its middle_block.2 seems to reduce anatomical issues (otherwise, you'll get a lot of extra arms and fingers.)

First impressions

• Best prompt adherence for a realistic SDXL model I've ever seen. And no, not just for smut. (But especially for smut)

• Compatible with booru tags as well as natural language. I think a mixed prompt approach is best: I use about 70% tags (no underscores) and 30% natural language in a prompt.

• Understands bigASP's style tags to an extent, including stuff like masterpiece quality and 35mm.

• It *feels* like something new and worth exploring. Don't sleep on bigASP!

Drawbacks

• Illustrious 2.0 models support resolutions up to 1024x1440 or 1024x1536 without horrific stretching of ??????? (e.g. longcat-type torsos), but bigASP's optimal resolution is only 832x1216... and I don't recommend going above that in Snakebite. If you do, the ??????? will be mostly okay (which is surprising), but image composition becomes very odd and unpleasant.

• Since we're in a strange new latent space, your existing LoRAs won't work very well. But they're worth retraining.

Recommended Settings

The Turbo variant is better for inference. It's super fast and has slightly improved aesthetics. The non-turbo version is useful for finetuning, and it can produce nice textures if you don't mind waiting 25+ steps.

Turbo

• 8 or 9 steps

• LCM sampler

• CFG 1

• Custom sigmas below, or simple


Full

• 20 to 28 steps

• Euler ancestral sampler

• CFG 3 to 4

• Custom sigmas below, or simple
  

Custom sigma curve (you can use comfyui-kjnodes to apply):

15, 8, 4, 2, 2, 1, 0.4, 0.2, 0

If you're getting mangled limbs, you can often salvage the image by adjusting the first few values of your sigma curve. Here's one that is more stable for certain prompts:

14, 5, 2, 2, 2, 1, 0.4, 0.2, 0

If you're still getting body horror, you can try the following quality tags (you'll need ComfyUI-ppm to apply negative weights to your positive prompt):

masterpiece quality, realistic photo, (worst quality,:-1) (mutated,:-1)

Snakebite is very responsive to stylistic terms, especially by IL standards. Keep the extra "fluff" to a minimum - almost every token I've tried has a significant impact on the picture.

Finally, I suggest trying the CLIPAttentionMultiply node. If you boost the q and v parameters, it will effectively cause your image to become more "Illustrious-like": cleaner, more stable, but less realistic and (usually) less adherent to the prompt. Set both values to 3 for a very clean image.

BIGASP'S CLIP IS NOW IN PLAY!

In versions 1.3 and up, Snakebite includes a little of bigASP's CLIP, which means you can take advantage of more style prompts. Experiment with different terms to see what works. Personally, I keep it simple - this will usually improve your image without any side effects:

high quality, sharp focus

Which version is for me?

If you're wondering which version of the model to use, here's a TL;DR:

• v1.4 = next-level realism, jaw-dropping textures, very stable, slightly less vibrant than previous versions and less capable of non-photographic images

• v1.3 = good ???????, good backgrounds, good coherence

• v1.2 = best punchy colors

• v1.1 = most influence from bigASP (excluding CLIP), dull colors, a failed experiment TBH

• v1.0 = impressively creative but very unstable

If you like the model or use it for further finetuning, please let me know! I'd love to see the results. 💪