---
title: AI Comic Factory
emoji: 👩‍🎨
colorFrom: red
colorTo: yellow
sdk: docker
pinned: true
app_port: 3000
---

# AI Comic Factory

## Running the project at home

First, I would like to highlight that everything is open-source (see [here](https://huggingface.co/spaces/jbilcke-hf/ai-comic-factory/tree/main), [here](https://huggingface.co/spaces/jbilcke-hf/VideoChain-API/tree/main), [here](https://huggingface.co/spaces/hysts/SD-XL/tree/main), [here](https://github.com/huggingface/text-generation-inference)).

However the project isn't a monolithic Space that can be duplicated and ran immediately:
it requires various components to run for the frontend, backend, LLM, SDXL etc.

If you try to duplicate the project, you will see it requires some variables:

- `LLM_ENGINE`: can be either "INFERENCE_API" or "INFERENCE_ENDPOINT"
- `HF_API_TOKEN`: necessary if you decide to use an inference api model or a custom inference endpoint
- `HF_INFERENCE_ENDPOINT_URL`: necessary if you decide to use a custom inference endpoint
- `RENDERING_ENGINE`: can only be "VIDEOCHAIN" for now, unless you code your custom solution
- `VIDEOCHAIN_API_URL`: url to the VideoChain API server
- `VIDEOCHAIN_API_TOKEN`: secret token to access the VideoChain API server
 
Please read the `.env` default config file for more informations.
To customise a variable locally, you should create a `.env.local`
(do not commit this file as it will contain your secrets).

-> If you intend to run it with local, cloud-hosted and/or proprietary models **you are going to need to code 👨‍💻**.

## The LLM API (Large Language Model)

Currently the AI Comic Factory uses [Llama-2 70b](https://huggingface.co/blog/llama2) through an [Inference Endpoint](https://huggingface.co/docs/inference-endpoints/index).

You have three options:

### Option 1: Use an Inference API model

This is a new option added recently, where you can use one of the models from the Hugging Face Hub. By default we suggest to use CodeLlama.

To activate it, create a `.env.local` configuration file:

```bash
LLM_ENGINE="INFERENCE_API"

HF_API_TOKEN="Your Hugging Face token"

# codellama/CodeLlama-7b-hf" is used by default, but you can change this
# note: You should use a model able to generate JSON responses
HF_INFERENCE_API_MODEL="codellama/CodeLlama-7b-hf"
```

### Option 2: Use an Inference Endpoint URL

If your would like to run the AI Comic Factory on a private LLM running on the Hugging Face Inference Endpoint service, create a `.env.local` configuration file:

```bash
LLM_ENGINE="INFERENCE_ENDPOINT"

HF_API_TOKEN="Your Hugging Face token"

HF_INFERENCE_ENDPOINT_URL="path to your inference endpoint url"
```

To run this kind of LLM locally, you can use [TGI](https://github.com/huggingface/text-generation-inference) (Please read [this post](https://github.com/huggingface/text-generation-inference/issues/726) for more information about the licensing).

### Option 3: Fork and modify the code to use a different LLM system

Another option could be to disable the LLM completely and replace it with another LLM protocol and/or provider (eg. OpenAI, Replicate), or a human-generated story instead (by returning mock or static data).


### Notes

It is possible that I modify the AI Comic Factory to make it easier in the future (eg. add support for OpenAI or Replicate)

## The Rendering API

This API is used to generate the panel images. This is an API I created for my various projects at Hugging Face.

I haven't written documentation for it yet, but basically it is "just a wrapper ™" around other existing APIs:

- The [hysts/SD-XL](https://huggingface.co/spaces/hysts/SD-XL?duplicate=true) Space by [@hysts](https://huggingface.co/hysts)
- And other APIs for making videos, adding audio etc.. but you won't need them for the AI Comic Factory

### Option 1: Deploy VideoChain yourself

You will have to [clone](https://huggingface.co/spaces/jbilcke-hf/VideoChain-API?duplicate=true) the [source-code](https://huggingface.co/spaces/jbilcke-hf/VideoChain-API/tree/main)

Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to write the documentation for VideoChain yet.
(When I do I will update this document to point to the VideoChain's README)

### Option 2: Use another SDXL API

If you fork the project you will be able to modify the code to use the Stable Diffusion technology of your choice (local, open-source, your custom HF Space etc)

### Notes

It is possible that I modify the AI Comic Factory to make it easier in the future (eg. add support for Replicate)