For seasoned Midjourney users, creating a character that appears consistently across a series has always been a challenge. Previously, even with the same prompts, generated characters could have subtle differences in facial features, body type, or hairstyle. Now, Midjourney's new Character Reference feature directly addresses this core pain point, allowing creators to easily lock in character traits and achieve true cross-scene character consistency.
Why Character Consistency is a Creative Necessity
Whether conceptualizing comic stories, designing game characters, or creating virtual images for brands, the stability and recognizability of characters are crucial. In AI painting, the issue of character "drift" has made it difficult to advance many series creations. You may have generated a perfect character portrait, but when you try to place this character in forest, urban, or futuristic scenes, the results are often unsatisfactory, as if it becomes a different person. The emergence of this new feature directly targets creators' most urgent needs.
Core Command: The Character-Locking Magic of -cref
The core of the new feature is the "-cref" (Character Reference) tag. Its usage is very intuitive. First, you need a source image containing the target character and obtain the link to that image. After entering a new scene description prompt, simply add "--cref [image link]" at the end, and Midjourney will strive to maintain the key features of the character from the source image when generating new images. This means that the character's facial contour, features, basic posture, and even clothing style can be maximally preserved, ensuring it remains the same person across different scenes and actions.
