Skip to main content

Glif (Alpha) - Make Your Own Tiny AI Powered Niche Image Generator Apps

Duck Characters made with my first Character Generator Glif.

I
 first heard about Glif through a YouTube video that mentioned you could get access to Flux Pro (the latest 'game changer AI' generative image model) through the site for free.

While I had a vague notion from the video of what Glif was, I wasn't expecting it to be so easy to get started with, and so good with my very first results.

Glif is an easy to use, low-code platform for creating tiny AI-powered generators called Glifs. While that may not sound inspiring, what Glifs allow you to do is create a tiny app that niches down to a specific type of AI generation that the user modifies with their own inputs.

The best way to really understand is with an example. 

My First Glif

I've recently been using VivaGo's AI platform (free and unlimited at the time of writing) to consistently generate full body characters in a front facing T-Pose that I can rig as front facing characters in Cartoon Animator. Unfortunately it can be a bit hit or miss maintaining the T-Pose part of my prompt.

After having heard about Glif and that free access to Flux Pro, I decided to take my best prompt from VivaGo, that consistently seemed to give me a T-Posed/A-Posed character almost every time, and try it out with Glif.

I created a simple Glif that outputs any 2D cartoon character you request, already posed in a T-Pose/A-Pose in front of a neutral grey background (for easy background removal).

The user simply responds to three inputs:
  1. Character is: Male, Female, Anthropomorphic Male, or Anthropomorphic Female?
  2. Describe your character: (enter a short description of the character).
  3. Character style: Pixar, Anime, Flat Color, Outlines and Flat Color, Whiteboard, or Photo Realism?
Once they run the Glif an image is generated of their character in a T-Pose/A-Pose with the palms of the hands facing forward, legs slightly apart, on a neutral gray background in 1024x1024 pixel resolution.

I recommend upscaling the output to 4K (x4) and then using a background remover before using the characters with Cartoon Animator.

You can see some examples of characters generated below. Click the link to try out my character generator for yourself (you may need to sign up for a free account to run it). You are free to use any characters you generate however you like.

Character Samples generated with my Glif.
Character Samples generated with my Glif



If this looks interesting to you, Glif can make far more powerful apps than this. Getting started is not hard at all. There's no coding involved. You simply add blocks that do specific things such as ask the user for input, or run one of several AI image generators, and more.

I had the basics of my first Glif together in under an hour, and I barely read any instructions trying to work it out. Try making a similar Glif to mine with one of your favorite AI Image prompts. You can even remix my Glif to save you building it yourself.



At the time of writing Glif is currently in Alpha and completely free to use, though you are limited to 20 app runs per day (your own and other apps inclusive).

It's actually a lot of fun once you get your basic Glif up and running, and your mind starts thinking, how can I make this better.

o---o--- ---o--- o---

Did you find this article useful?
Subscribe to my newsletter and get the
latest articles delivered to your inbox.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Eight 2D Animation Apps For Your Phone or Tablet Mobile Device

M obile productivity apps have become so capable that they can be great alternatives to their PC/MAC equivalents or serve as great tools in their own right when you're away from your desk. While some apps simply mimic their desktop counterparts, others offer well thought out, touch-friendly interfaces that are easier and more fun to use. Every so often I check out what's available for 2D animation for Android devices, since that's what I use, that can complement my workflow with Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5. Some may be available for Apple devices as well. Below I've listed six free (F) apps (with optional paid (P) upgrades) on the Google Play Store that you might want to explore. Some are just fun apps on their own while others may be useful as part of your workflow on bigger animation projects. Not all are exclusively animation apps and could be used on any production. JotterPad (F/P) The name JotterPad makes this sound like a notepad application but it's ...

The Family Guy Method - Animating Talking Hand Gestures in Cartoon Animator

Once you start getting into character animation you learn pretty quickly that people don't just speak with their mouths. Hand gestures and movements play a pretty important part of how people communicate too. The problem is, animating hand gestures and movements is extremely time consuming... and who knows what gestures and movements should be used and when? In Reallusion's Cartoon Animator I use pre-animated talking character motions that I chop and move gestures around so the arm and hand movements 'feel' right based on my own understanding of body language (and I also act out dialogue to get a sense of what arm and hand movements I might make with what's being spoken). Recently I came across a video by the creator of Culpamland Extra , an online animated series, in which they briefly outlined how they animate talking using the Family Guy Method. I'd never heard of this, and if you try to search for it online you'll be hard pressed to find anything. So I...

Review: Animaker - 10X Better than other Online Animation Video Making software (#DIY)... or is it?

Animaker's bold claim, right on its homepage is that it's  10X Better than other Online Animation Video Making software (#DIY). Also featured on their homepage is a cool promotional video that's dynamic, full of charming lip synced characters, with high quality animation that matches perfectly to the story being told. If I could make anything even half as good with their studio, I'll at least buy that they're better than most of their competitors. Let's see if they live up to their tagline 'Animated Videos, Done Right!' Animaker is a flash based, cloud animation studio application that gives you access to an entire library of thousands of characters, props, backgrounds, sounds and more, to create almost any kind of 2D animated video. In fact they make the bold claim that theirs is the largest animated library in the world of any similar online application (it's not... or if it actually is, it's not as versatile as other comparable librari...

Inochi2D - Free Open Source 2D VTuber Avatar Rigging and Puppeteering Software (Part 1)

Inochi2D Creator - Free Open Source VTuber Software. If you've been looking for a way to live perform as a 2D cartoon avatar on camera, whether it be for a live stream or for pre-recorded content like educational videos, then VTuber software is a low cost (or even no cost) option worth looking into. In my previous post, How to Become a VTuber - 2D and 3D Software for Creating and Controlling Your Avatar , I took a brief look at the relatively new but completely free and open source Inochi2D  which I thought showed great potential for my own needs of creating a live performance character rig for my own TET Avatar that I use for all my promotional materials. While it is possible to live perform my character using Cartoon Animator itself, Reallusion's MotionLive2D capture system isn't great - with lip sync in particular. More importantly though, I can't exactly teach people how to use Cartoon Animator if I'm using Cartoon Animator to control my Avatar. What is Inochi2D...

Inochi2D - Free Open Source 2D VTuber Avatar Rigging and Puppeteering Software (Part 2 - Inochi2D Session)

In part one of my deep dive into the free VTuber software, Inochi2D , I focused mainly on Inochi2D Creator, which is used for rigging your character avatar in the correct file format for use with Inochi2D Session, the puppeteering part of the software. The two sides of the software are still very much in development and the documentation, particularly for Session, is very thin on the ground. To the point where I don't think I could even do a comprehensive tutorial because I'm not sure I'm even doing things right, and the software could change significantly in a single update. As a result, in this part of my Inochi2D deep dive I'm changing tact from presenting my finished Cartoon Animator TET Avatar, and will be summarizing my experience of getting Session up and running using OpenSeeFace as the recommended webcam motion capture software. To do this I will be using  the TET avatar I created in my review of Mannequin , since that can be exported as a full, ready to go r...

Software Review: CrazyTalk 8 Pipeline by Reallusion

Reallusion released the newest version of its CrazyTalk software during December 2015 and I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a free copy CrazyTalk 8 Pipeline version after buying a truckload of Reallusion content in order to get the special deal. If you're not familiar with CrazyTalk it's basically specialized software for creating and animating talking heads quickly. CrazyTalk 8 extends the original capability of creating a semi 3D head from a 2D image to creating true 3D heads that can be imported into iClone and Reallusion's new 3D Character Creator (Pipeline version only).

The Ultimate Independent Animator's App and Resource List - Animation and Video Life

Image created with Cartoon Animator 4. Being an independent animator is not like a studio animation job. There's so much more to do that is indirectly related to the actual task of animating. Over the years I've sought out many apps, tools, and services that can help me achieve that one single task, expressing myself through animation. Below is my Ultimate Independent Animator's Resource List for 2024 (last updated Oct 2024). It started out as a list of free or low cost apps that could help you in every stage of producing either 2D or 3D animation, and then just kind of grew from there. You may not have been looking for a Time Management App as much as you needed something to get you started in 3D animation but when those commissioned projects start coming in you'll have a head start on maximizing your time. All the apps and services on this list had to meet two main criteria: They had to be useful and relevant to an Indy Animator/artist. The base app/se...