Future iterations of AI-generated art are set to be more realistic thanks to an upcoming version of Stable Diffusion that specifically tackles the problem of depicting fingers and hands.
According to a recent Bloomberg report, the company Stability AI, which develops the Stable Diffusion AI image generator, has plans to release a new SDXL 0.9 model that will propel the abilities of Stable Diffusion.
Stability AI shared a blog post on Thursday, which has since been deleted, detailing the specs and launch details of the SDXL 0.9 model. This leaves questions on exactly what Stability AI has planned for the update.
However, from what the post revealed, the new model succeeds the Stable Diffusion XL version that was released in April and will focus on improving hand generation and overall “image and composition detail,” according to Bloomberg.
The blog post includes sample images generated from the same prompts to show the improvement in quality between the Stable Diffusion XL beta and SDXL 0.9, with the brand saying that the new model stands as “a leap in creative use cases for generative AI imagery.” Some of the prompts include aliens, a wolf, and a person holding a coffee cup.
The upcoming SDXL 0.9 update also follows the Midjourney v5 rollout launched in March, which also focused on improving hand generation. Midjourney AI develops its own proprietary models and has a similar issue where earlier models often generated with an incorrect number of digits on hands, anywhere from four to between seven and 10 on human subjects.
PC compatibility for SDXL 0.9 includes a minimum of 16GB of RAM and a GeForce RTX 20 (or higher) graphics card with 8GB of VRAM, in addition to a Windows 11, Windows 10, or Linux operating system. The model is expected to work through Stability AI’s Clipdrop web tool and will also be added to the company’s DreamStudio app. As per the deleted blog post, there will also be an open-source SDXL 1.0 version. It said this version would launch in mid-July, but now this date is uncertain.
Stable Diffusion is also the source code behind many popular AI image generators, including Starry AI and Night Cafe. Once the SDXL 0.9 update becomes available, it will likely benefit the other partner generators as well.
