RDBT [Anima]
Finetuned + distilled model. Doesn't have a default style. I use it to stack style LoRAs.
See Update Log section for version info. See this page for LoRA version.
All cover images are "raw" output, 1024px, no editing/upscale etc. Metadata included.
Sharing merges using this model is not allowed. It has special trigger words. There is no false positive. Known model thieves: NukeA.I (closed-weight on tensorart)
Usage:
Settings:
CFG scale: 1~4. This model has been guidance distilled. You can disable CFG (CFG 1) and run the model 2x faster. Cover images are without CFG for demonstration.
Prompt
Specific style is required! This model does not provide a default style. You should always prompt specific style. Or use a style LoRA. Otherwise, you will get random/mixed style. This is a feature, not a bug. I use this model as a starting point to stack more style LoRA.
(v0.32+) There are some "roughly classified" trigger words, they are trained so they have effect, but they are not "specific style":
@anime sketch: Low complexity. Rough outlines.
@digital anime illustration: Typical "anime". Clear and fine outlines. General complexity.
@digital art: More complex lighting, textures than typical "anime".
@cinematic digital art: More lighting, postprocess effects, semi-realistic, etc.
Quality tags:
It's recommended to omit all the quality tags, or just keep the "masterpiece".
Quality tags have been reinforced during distillation. Thus they don't have noticeable effects. Same as negative tags. If you use cfg, there is no need to dump "score_1, blurry, worst quality, jpeg artifacts, extra arms,... x100 words" in your negative prompt. Those things have been distilled out.
Omitting those redundant tokens also allows LLM to better focus its attention on other words.
Training:
Anima pretrained base ckpt -> 10k general image finetuning -> 500 high aesthetic images finetuning -> guidance distillation.
All captions are NL from Google Gemini.
Optimizer: adamw, constant lr 0.00002.
Guidance distillation target CFG 4.
Block 0-2 and adaln linear layers are skipped. Those are much more sensitive. Usually I won't train them for better compatibility (just intuition, no experimental verification).
Update Logs
(5/18/2026): b1 v0.35:
No step distillation. Just guidance distilled.
I'm dropping step distillation. Anima official has their plan to do step distillation (aka, turbo, 4/8-step, or whatever). They have the money and recourse and full dataset. I don't. And my cheap step distillation is kind of sh*tty, tbh.
If you need higher stability or speed, you can stack the extracted cosmos dmd2 lora the anima-turbo, basically can achieve the same thing, probably even better. I prefer 0.2x cosmos dmd2 lora.
(5/12/2026): p3 v0.32.b:
Less step distillation (means higher diversity but less stability). 12 steps is still doable, 24 steps is recommended for complicated prompt.
Styles reinforcement learning. I did this in v0.29, but not in v0.32.
(5/10/2026): p3 v0.32:
No more green-ish, color shifting.
Trigger words have been reclassified to avoid model learning a unified style. See updated "Usage" section.
Old trigger words for backup (v0.29 and before):
"digital anime illustration": common 2d anime.
"digital art", 2d art but not anime, mostly digital art.
"anime sketch": simplified/unfinished anime drawing.
(4/27/2026): p3 v0.29: Distillation algorithm was almost completely rewritten.
Increased diversity. This also improved lighting range, styles and LoRA compatibility.
Better details. This version can squeeze every single pixel out of the VAE.
(4/23/2026) p3 v0.27: Improved stability, details.
(4/18/2026) p3 v0.25: It's based on anima p3.
Previous testing versions, see this page
Description
FAQ
Comments (32)
im using anima model with 4-7 cfg sometime it can get good prompt adherence , does that doing the trick with this ckpt with 1-3 cfg ?
Just reuploaded the same ckpt again. For those who found and downloaded previous ckpt through notification system. You don't have to redownload. Cvitiai model api is still f***ked, previous assigned model ID was desynchronized and didn't get indexed, it disappeared across the site, didn't even show on my own profile page.
Would it be possible for you to adapt the NAG comfynode to support Anima? I remember this was done by a third party for ZIT because the official creator do not update model support of NAG (normalized attention guidance). NAG is allowing us to have negative conditioning even with turbo distilled models at CFG=1, while not really slowing down the model. Imo its even more effective for negative guidance than CFG in normal undistilled models.
In any case would be a great addition to the workflow.
https://github.com/BigStationW/ComfyUI-NAG this the most advanced fork of nag but still does not support anima :(
@brahianvalles It got now anima support!
0.25 version is an actual "RIP illustrious/noobai" the model has gotten too good.
Holy shit, man, you're a monster. Do you even sleep? I can't keep up with testing your models at the rate you release them!
this is actual black magic. how the fuck does this work? how the fuck CAN this work?
besides my bewildered amazement that we got a distilled finetuned model this soon for anima,
it definitely does not handle loras + text very well, text without loras mostly generates just fine like other models but introducing a lora totally destroys its coherency. otherwise, yeah this is pretty amazing it's up there with wai and animaika from what i've tested so far. and doing all that in only 12 steps ,very impressive.
Anima getting too good now
Can you run for president?
Nice update (v0.25), i tried the original one, Yume and WAI, but yours is better just by the low step requirement and i tried some style LoRas and they work well.
The ultimate Anima checkpoint so far. Have you ever thought of integrating the Cosmos-Predict2.5-2B base distilled extracted DMD2 LoRA into your great distillation work.
No. I prefer a clean model status, trained (optimized), no merge conflicts, for better stability.
Adding more LoRAs, that's up to you guys.
@reakaakasky actually I did notice that as I have tried using two DMD2 LoRA two your one and the cosmos one. And I did notice while it is good, especially regarding adding a bit more contrast. It also gives me a little bit more inconsistent results. So yeah I do agree with you on that.
Also the official anima team has released a turbo LORA however, it's not as stable as your one. I've noticed it does allow a little bit more diversity, but regarding stability and actually prompt adherence it's not as good as yours. Just wanted to say.
nice model, thanks
"Sharing merges using this model is not allowed"
But why?
You're not allowed to merge this checkpoint or LORAs with other models and share them I think. That's what it means as far as I'm aware.
@AnimaXx Yeah that's why i'm asking why author decided to not allow merges.
https://civitai.red/articles/26855/dev-story-stabilizer-and-rdbt
might be the answer
@ikekph5 Yeah that's explains, thanks.
For anyone unaware, this model can do photorealism, but it's not particularly great, since it isn't the focus. A lora could maybe make it work.
I keep getting photorealism when I don't want it 😭
Yeah, anima is still very bad with photorealism🫤
Something went downhill with V0.25, it is worse than V0.24
1. Listen to prompt less
2. Adds elements to image that were not in prompt
3. Is unstable
4. At times throws plasticy 3d/2.5d looks when it is clearly against prompt and art style
5. Consistently worse at generating texts in ratio 7:3 (+/-)
6. At times fails at anatomy (melted hand, melted feet)
here are examples/comparisons:
https://civitai.red/posts/28090228
https://civitai.red/posts/28093793
+ Can generate realistic looking people/photo-realism meaning some undesirable material got in and is littering the model. Anima was supposed to be 2D model, please don't do out of it 2.5D or 3D model, model for everything is model for nothing.
Thank you for your work, you made Anima usable model when it can work on CFG1, will cross my fingers and wait for V0.26 (perhaps p4 variant) Keep up the good work ❤️🙏 Muchas gracias
I'm writing an article about dmd2 anime model. It's really a shi*hole. I know lots of people wondering why I keep changing distillation settings drastically, wtf is this guy doing.
Short answer, I was trying to find a solution, but after 1 mouth, I now believe there is no such solution.
How to improve contrast in Forge NEO without increasing CFG above 1
I don't use Forge but try to look for cfg loras, they do exist, it might help x) I have one called "CFG Scale Boost"