Hailuo AI, a MiniMax subsidiary, has launched a groundbreaking new feature for AI image generation: Hailuo Image's Character Reference. According to AIbase, this feature allows users to generate multi-angle, dynamically posed character images with rich expressions based on a single reference image. It supports cinematic lighting and composition, and offers comprehensive prompt control. The community has reacted enthusiastically to this release, with project details publicly available on the Hailuo website and GitHub, marking a significant advancement in character consistency and creative expression. AIbase provides a detailed report.
Core Functionality: From Single Image to Dynamic Character Generation
Hailuo Image's Character Reference feature redefines AI image generation with its powerful character customization capabilities. AIbase has outlined its key features:
Multi-Angle and Dynamic Poses: Generates images of characters from various viewpoints (front, side, three-quarter, etc.) and poses (standing, running, jumping) based on a single reference image, maintaining high character consistency.
Rich Expression Control: Supports the generation of diverse character expressions, from joy and focus to melancholy, ensuring natural and vivid emotional expression suitable for storytelling and brand content creation.
Cinematic Lighting and Composition: Provides professional-level lighting effects, such as golden hour lighting and low-angle dramatic lighting, and optimizes composition to enhance visual impact, resulting in images comparable to movie stills.
Comprehensive Prompt Control: Users can adjust character clothing, background, and scene style (such as cyberpunk or fantasy) through detailed text prompts, enabling highly personalized creation.
AIbase noted that in community tests, users uploaded a single anime character image and, using the prompt "wearing futuristic armor, running in a neon city, side view, nighttime cinematic lighting," generated highly consistent dynamic images, showcasing the feature's potential in advertising and pre-visualization for film.
Technical Architecture: Deep Learning Drives Character Consistency
Hailuo Image Character Reference is based on MiniMax's S2V-01 model architecture, combined with advanced diffusion transformers (DiT) and deep learning algorithms. AIbase analysis reveals that its core technologies include:
Single-Image Character Parsing: Extracts core features (such as facial structure, hairstyle, skin tone) from the reference image through a proprietary identity reference network, ensuring visual consistency across scenes.
Dynamic Feature Generation: Uses a 3D variational autoencoder (VAE) and transformer layers to generate multi-angle and posed character images, supporting natural transitions between complex actions and expressions.
Prompt Optimization Engine: A built-in prompt optimizer automatically enhances user-input text descriptions to ensure generated results align closely with creative intent.
Efficient Rendering: An optimized inference process supports the rapid generation of high-resolution images (up to 1080p), with image generation taking only a few seconds, suitable for iterative creation.
The feature supports single-image input (maximum 20MB), and high-resolution frontal portraits are recommended for optimal results. AIbase believes that its low computational cost (only 1% compared to traditional methods) and open-source code package provide developers with extensive customization options.
Application Scenarios: From Creative Design to Commercial Deployment
The launch of the Character Reference feature offers broad application prospects for creators and businesses across multiple fields. AIbase summarizes its main applications:
Film and Animation: Rapidly generate character concept art and dynamic previews, maintaining character consistency and shortening pre-production design cycles, suitable for both independent animations and large-scale film projects.
Game Development: Generate multi-angle character portraits and dynamic poses, supporting character design and motion testing for 2D/3D games, accelerating the development process.
Brand Marketing: Generate diverse images for brand mascots or spokespersons, such as advertising materials with different clothing, scenes, or expressions, enhancing brand recognition.
Social Media Content: Creators can generate personalized anime or realistic character images to suit the needs of short videos and static content on platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
Community feedback shows that the feature performs particularly well in generating Asian characters and anime-style images, with the detail, texture, and expression control of the generated results praised as "industry-leading." AIbase observes that its seamless integration with Hailuo's video generation tools further enhances workflow efficiency from static images to dynamic videos.
Getting Started: Simple Operation, Fast Creation
AIbase understands that Hailuo Image Character Reference provides an intuitive user experience through a web interface and API. Users can quickly get started by following these steps:
Visit the Hailuo AI website (hailuoai.video), log in, and go to the Image Creation page;
Upload a single reference image (a frontal portrait is recommended, PNG/JPEG format);
Enter a prompt describing the character's actions, expressions, clothing, background, etc., for example, "character wearing a red cloak, standing on a mountain peak, bird's-eye view, epic lighting";
Select a style (such as realistic, anime, cyberpunk) and generate the image, supporting real-time preview and adjustment;
Download the image or directly convert it to video, exporting as PNG or MP4 format.
The community recommends using detailed prompts (such as "low angle, dynamic pose, golden hour lighting") to optimize generation results and recommends pairing it with Hailuo's S2V-01 model for video expansion. AIbase reminds users that for first-time use, ensure the image is clear and free of excessive background interference to improve character extraction accuracy.
Community Feedback and Future Improvements
Following the release of the Character Reference feature, the community has highly praised its character consistency and prompt control capabilities. Developers called it "raising single-image generation to a new level," particularly impressive in anime and advertising creativity. However, some users have reported that complex scene descriptions in prompts may cause slight environmental distortions, suggesting the addition of multi-subject reference support. The community also anticipates expansion to 3D character generation and real-time interactive applications. MiniMax responded that future updates will optimize multilingual prompt processing and support object and scene consistency, further lowering the barrier to creation. AIbase predicts that this feature may integrate with tools like Blender and Unity to build a complete AI creation ecosystem from image to 3D animation.
Website: https://hailuoai.video/create
