Upload photos, or build from scratch?

What the two cards say, and what they mean

The left card is titled "I already have my character" and describes uploading photos of an existing character directly. The right card is titled "Create from scratch", carries a Recommended badge, and describes sculpting the character trait by trait — origin, body, hair, eyes — with the system generating and you picking. Its bullets promise no photos needed, a guided form with visual previews, and two proposals to choose between.

The distinction is not really about effort. It is about where the character's identity comes from. On the upload route, identity comes from your photographs and every generation reproduces it from them. On the from-scratch route, identity is invented during the build and carried by reference shots that were themselves generated. Both produce a character that holds its look across future generations; they differ in how much of that look you controlled and how much you inherited.

The upload route: how many photos, really

This is where people guess wrong, so here is the verified number. The uploader asks for exactly three photographs, one per slot: a portrait, the full body from the front, and the full body from the back. Each one is checked as soon as it lands in its slot, and you cannot continue until all three have passed.

Three is the whole set, not a floor. There is nothing to gain from more photos, because those three are what every later generation is built from — which is why each one has to be sharp, well lit and clearly the same person.

Clarity matters more than anything else. A cropped portrait, a front shot that cuts off the legs or a back view taken from the side gives every later generation less to work with. If your folder has no full-length shot from behind, you have fewer usable photos than you think.

What each route costs

The upload route is free. There is nothing to generate — you supplied the images — and no training run to pay for, so pressing "Create my character" costs nothing.

The from-scratch route is 12 credits for a clean run, spread across two deductions: 6 for the pair of face candidates and 6 for the front and back body shots. Retries add to that — another 6 per extra batch of faces, 3 to re-roll one body shot.

So uploading costs nothing, and that is a real argument. But the 12-credit gap is not the whole comparison. From-scratch requires nothing but twenty minutes of choosing traits. Upload requires you to already possess three sharp, well-lit photographs of one subject, including a full-length back view — and if you have to go and shoot those, the credits you saved are the cheapest part of the exercise.

Which one you should actually pick

Take the from-scratch route if you are inventing a character. That is the overwhelming majority of cases, it is why the card carries the Recommended badge, and it is the only route that gives you deliberate control over the look. You choose the origin, the hair, the eyes, the proportions, and you get two proposals to choose between at the face stage with cheap retries if neither lands. Nothing about it requires a camera.

Take the upload route if you already have a body of photographs of a specific character and reproducing that exact look faithfully is the point — you are continuing something that already exists rather than starting something new. The card's own bullet says it plainly: best for faithful replication. If that is your situation, the free import and the skipped generation steps are a genuine advantage.

One boundary that is not negotiable regardless of route: you may only build a character from photographs you have the right to use. Photographs of a real person require that person's informed consent. This is not a soft guideline — it is the line that keeps the whole thing legitimate, and it does not move.

If you are torn, build from scratch. It is cheaper to be wrong there. A from-scratch character you dislike cost you 12 credits and taught you what to change; an upload-route character built on weak photos cost you a photo shoot, and the fix is another photo shoot.

The two methods side by side

Everything below is what the builder enforces, not what the marketing copy on the cards suggests.

Frequently asked questions

How many photos do I really need to upload?

Three, one per slot: a portrait, the full body from the front and the full body from the back. Each photo is checked as soon as it lands in its slot, and the button to create the character stays disabled until all three have passed. Three is the whole set rather than a floor, so sharpness matters more than volume: a clear, well-lit, uncropped shot of one subject in each slot. The counter under the drop zone reads out of ten, and the Continue button stays disabled until ten images have finished uploading without error. Be aware that the summary card on the previous screen still says twenty — the uploader is what actually governs, and it lets you through at ten. That said, ten is a floor rather than a recommendation. Twenty to thirty is a better working range, because a trained model generalises from variety, not volume: different days, different distances, indoor and outdoor, a mix of portrait and full-length. Ten photos from a single session in one outfit will teach the model that outfit as though it were part of the character's identity. And remember the requirement that catches people out — your set must include at least one full-length shot taken from behind.

Is building from scratch worse than uploading real photos?

No, and the builder's own Recommended badge sits on the from-scratch card. The two routes optimise for different things. Uploading optimises for fidelity to photographs that already exist — if you are continuing an established character, that is exactly what you want and the free import is a bonus. Building from scratch optimises for control: you decide the origin, skin, eyes, hair and proportions, you see two proposals before committing, and cheap regenerations let you converge on a face you actually like. The result is equally consistent either way; what differs is whose decisions produced the look. For anyone inventing a character rather than reproducing one, from scratch is both the better fit and the only route that does not require a camera.

Can I switch methods after I have started?

You can go back, but the tail of the funnel resets. The method you choose on the first screen determines your entire route — from-scratch gives you Portrait then Body, upload gives you the three photo slots — so switching means the steps you completed on the old route no longer apply. Anything you already paid for is not recovered, since the images were produced. In practice this only bites on the from-scratch route, where face candidates and body shots cost credits. The upload route bills nothing, so abandoning it costs you upload time and nothing else. The safer habit is to decide at the first screen using one question: do you already have a sharp portrait, a full-length front shot and a full-length back shot, right now, without shooting anything? If not, take from scratch.