DROP: Same picture as sd_int8 (695), 00b3 only, twice the size.
Opus: Best so far: studio key-art feel, perfect text, rust + damage detail, strong depth and motion.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Both frames hit nearly every brief element including the exact hull text, but AI-typical tells—odd second-fighter anatomy and stray micro-text in Image 1, a naval-battleship-in-space design with rust and paper-like debris in Image 2—keep them at solid-good rather than studio key-art level.
KEEP: Best quality per second: about 700 at 8 s/img, both boxes.
Opus: Pixel-near-identical to sd_bf16 at about half size.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Both images hit their briefs' key beats with correct hero text and strong dynamic staging, but the cruiser melts into its shield flare, the fighters show confused engine/canopy anatomy, and the plastic-grey asteroid slurry and HDR sparkle keep this a notch below studio key art.
KEEP: Undistilled FLUX.3 Klein (50 steps): base for LoRA training and the sd variants.
Opus: Gritty film realism, turret broadside, perfect large text, dense asteroid dogfight with believable original fighter designs.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Two strong, dynamic space-combat frames that nail most brief items including the exact "UNS VANGUARD" hull text, but the one-sided duel against a fighter-sized 'cruiser', the anomalous thin ring line, dorsal engine oddities and stray illegible decals keep this well short of studio key art.
DROP: Same picture as sd_int8, gap in the text, not faster (8.7 vs 8.0 s).
Opus: Same picture as sd_bf16/int8; A seed has a gap in the text.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Both images hit their briefs with a correct hull name and readable hero fighters, but are held back by a mushy underscaled enemy cruiser, weak return fire, artefact streaks, melted wingmate geometry, and an overcooked blown-out lower half.
KEEP: Top tier detail (690), runs on both boxes.
Opus: Sharpest detail of the set: turret broadside, weathered hull, perfect text both seeds, dense asteroid dogfight. Fighters are F-22 lookalikes. Ties the turbo variant at about 4x the steps.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Strong, on-brief set with legible "UNS VANGUARD" and dramatic framing, held back by the one-sided broadside, sparkly game-like VFX, mid-fuselage engine anatomy on the lead fighter, and a generally overcooked CG grade short of film-still quality.
KEEP: Same 690 at 13 s instead of 107 s.
Opus: Dark, moody film still; perfect text both seeds; grounded scale. Fighters F-22-like. Top tier.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Both frames hit their briefs with legible exact lettering and strong cinematic staging, but sit below studio bar due to soft key lighting on the dreadnought, a game-like low-poly shield VFX, indistinct enemy cruiser, and an unreadable canopy pilot in the dogfight.
KEEP: Native 4K-class output with the most cinematic lighting (690).
Opus: Largest output (3872x2176) and the most movie-like lighting; clean text on A_alt (A garbles it); original fighter designs with real pilots. Top tier.
GLM 5.3 Flash: A competent, on-brief pair with strong dogfight staging and correct hull text, held back by a missing planetary ring, an enemy cruiser melted into a glow blob, and a general plastic CG sheen short of studio key art.
KEEP: Most photographic model in the set.
Opus: Most film-like of all: real-photo grain, rusted WW2-style hull, tight close dogfight with visible pilot. Text small but correct. Strong look, 8.8 GB Q4.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Both frames are dynamic and impressively lit with strong depth and motion, but Image 1 omits the enemy cruiser and ships a sea battleship (waterline paint, deck crew, melted prow) into space, and Image 2 misplaces the pilot, drops the nebula fill, and leaks unwanted glyphs, keeping the set in solid mid-tier AI territory rather than studio key art.
KEEP: Fixes base Krea 2's prompt miss; gritty war-film look.
Opus: Krea 2 finetune fixes the mech problem: real ship, clean text on A_alt, heavy action, gritty war-film look. A adds an Earth-like planet by mistake. Dense close dogfight on B.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Both frames deliver cinematic energy and legible key text, but the set misses the brief on the enemy cruiser design, ship positioning, and entirely swaps the requested vacuum/asteroid setting for an atmospheric jet fight, with typical AI mush in ship anatomy and cloud smear keeping it well below key-art standard.
KEEP: Film look at 2.7K in about 15 s/img; part of the H3 stack.
Opus: Film-still look at 2720x1536 in about 15 s; original retro fighters with bubble canopies. Hull text small and partly garbled.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Both frames deliver the requested beats with strong cinematic staging, but garbled hull text, a smeared shield-flare merging into the cruiser, flat shard debris, missile trails with no missiles, and HDR bloom keep this clearly below studio key-art bar.
DROP: Same picture as z_image_int8_convrot (655) at twice the file size and 32% slower (47.9 vs 36.4 s).
Opus: Cinematic, rich planet, hull text readable both seeds, hex shield. Fighters are literal F-22s in space. Same picture as int8 at twice the size.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Both frames hit most brief beats with strong dynamic staging and legible 'UNS VANGUARD' text, but gamey shield effects, physically absurd looping missile trails, mushy secondary craft, and a glossy overcooked CG grade keep this well below studio key art.
KEEP: Clean text and original fighters (660).
Opus: Clean text both seeds, layered hex shield hit, weathered hull; B_alt has an original fighter design. Cleaner than ERNIE turbo.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Both frames hit nearly every brief item with strong, legible composition, but fall below studio key art on render polish, with toy-like cruiser and melted fighter geometry dragging coherence down.
KEEP: Solid all-rounder at 8 s/img.
Opus: Solid all-rounder: clean text both seeds, hex shields, believable turret fire, original fighter designs with motion blur. Slightly CG look.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Both images deliver nearly every brief beat, including the exact hull text, but the underscaled enemy cruiser, atmospheric jet-fighter designs, vacuum smoke trails and overcooked game-render finish keep the set well below studio key-art standard.
KEEP: Z-Image base: keep this copy of the twin pair.
Opus: Near-identical to bf16 at half the size; text clean on A_alt.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Both images hit most brief points with strong, readable staging, but fall short of studio key art due to one-way beam fire and ambiguous shield flares in image 1, misplaced glowing engine anatomy and cluttered, over-cooked effects in image 2.
KEEP: Only FLUX.2 dev; original fighter designs, clean text. Slow (134 s).
Opus: Clean giant text both seeds, original fighter shapes (not F-22 copies). Glossy game-asset look, glassy debris, odd black scratch marks on B_alt.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Both images hit nearly every brief item with clean exact text, but flat clip-art shield hexes, a broken looping missile trail, scribble-style wear and missing motion blur keep this at solid-good AI level rather than studio key art.
DROP: Superseded by Qwen-Image 2.1 (690 vs 650) and 14x slower than 2.1 turbo (183 s).
Opus: Painterly WW2-battleship-in-space; giant text on A, broken 'V NS ANGUARD' on A_alt; best explosions and missile action of the jets set.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Both frames hit nearly every brief item including the exact hull text, but the sea-battleship-in-space hull, merged cruiser superstructure and front-mounted glowing intakes keep this short of studio key art.
KEEP: Fastest model (5.6 s), punchier than base turbo.
Opus: Z-Image Turbo finetune: punchier contrast, more scene density and action than base turbo; text readable both seeds.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Both frames hit their headline beats (correct hull text, pilot helmet, beam exchange) but are undone by shrunk or ambiguous secondary subjects, garbled unwanted markings, anatomically odd engine/shield geometry, and a plastic HDR render that falls well short of studio key art.
DROP: Same picture as the fp8 base, slower and larger.
Opus: Fixed: real empty negative instead of a zeroed one (cfg 5). Now clean: perfect text both seeds, layered hex shields, natural colour. Softer, flatter CG look than the distilled Klein; F-18-like fighters.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Both frames hit nearly every checklist item including the exact 'UNS VANGUARD' text, but the generic modern-jet fighters, the ocean-battleship-in-space with no engines, pasted-on explosion and hex-graphic shield, and flat plasticky lighting keep this well below studio key art.
KEEP: Keep one undistilled FLUX.2 Klein for LoRA training and cfg/negative-prompt control.
Opus: Same picture as the bf16 base at 34-43 s instead of 50-66 s.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Both frames are on-brief with legible hull text and strong dynamic staging, but are held back by a cruiser rendered at fighter scale with no return fire, gamey hex-shield and ocean-liner window detailing, and image 2's forward-firing engine flames plus an explosion engulfing an undamaged fighter.
DROP: Overcooked HDR, text slip; ERNIE base is cleaner and other turbo models beat it at the same speed.
Opus: Rich planet, readable text (A has a 'UNiS' slip), but overcooked HDR look and fiery cockpits on B. Fighters are F-22 copies.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Both frames deliver punchy, legible action compositions that hit most brief beats, but HDR-overcooked, game-cutscene rendering and soft genre coherence — a naval battleship and jet fighters flying with afterburner flames through smoky vacuum — keep this solidly in good-AI-output territory rather than studio key art.
DROP: Same picture as the fp8 copy; beaten by FLUX.3 Klein sd at the same speed.
Opus: Bold poster look, giant clean text on A, 'UNNS' slip on A_alt; jets head-on with big blasts. Flatter than FLUX.3.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Both deliver the core beats with legible "UNS VANGUARD" and a readable hero fighter, but the wrong-scale enemy, naval-battleship anatomy, vacuum smoke, front-mounted engine orbs and overcooked HDR glow keep this at solid-good AI level, well below studio key art.
KEEP: Perfect text, very dense action; newer HiDream.
Opus: Perfect giant text, very dense debris and sparks, but overcooked HDR and a tank turret bolted on a box hull. Busy rather than cinematic.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Image 1 hits most beats with passable centre-focused dogfight energy, but Image 2's naval-ship-in-space blunder, broken scale and stock-flare 'shield' drag the set well below studio key art despite the legible UNS VANGUARD markings.
KEEP: Keep one FLUX.2 Klein for older SimpliGen presets; 6.6 s/img.
Opus: Same picture as flux-2-klein-9b; 'UNSS' slip on A_alt.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Both images hit nearly every brief beat with the required text rendered perfectly, but wet-navy ship logic in space, a 'cruiser' shrunk to fighter scale, wing-mounted engine glows, and stock-looking explosion and streak effects keep this at solid mid-tier AI level rather than studio key art.
KEEP: Only edit model that did the painted-cover restyle.
Opus: EDIT. Only edit model that did the 1980s painted-cover restyle (B_alt: real brush strokes, composition kept). A_alt added the exploding cruiser but no eclipse; A and B seeds are noisy/psychedelic. Seed-sensitive.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Pair 2 nails the style-transfer brief with real craft, but Pair 1 drops the single most important element of its instruction (the eclipse) and pastes in an overcooked flat sun, dragging the set down to solid-but-flawed territory.
KEEP: Best of the SDXL three; LoRA ecosystem.
Opus: SDXL: darkest, most cinematic of the SDXL three; massive hulls, fire on water; no text. B_alt busy squadron with original designs.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Dramatic, well-lit space battles undermined by major brief violations: missing hull text and enemy cruiser plus an off-brief ocean naval battle in Image 1, missing pilot helmet and dense asteroid field with clone-stamped extra fighters in Image 2.
KEEP: 8.6 s/img, clean text; edit-source model and the named-tracks still model.
Opus: Clean but toy-like 3D look; cruiser cartoonish; text big and clean. Jets good. Fast; edit-source model.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Competent mid-tier AI key art with strong framing and correct hero text, undermined by jet/carrier-derived ship designs, a scale-failed enemy cruiser, and plastic CG rendering well below Expanse/Homeworld standards.
DROP: SDXL, no text; Juggernaut does the same look better and faster.
Opus: SDXL: no hull text possible, put the fight over an ocean. Dramatic lighting, chunky Homeworld-like hulls; B is a strong original twin-fighter shot.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Image 2 delivers a dynamic, well-lit chase but misreads the environment, while Image 1 fails the brief outright — wrong enemy, no beams, missing 'UNS VANGUARD' hull text, and an off-brief ocean battleship dragging the set to mid-tier AI quality.
DROP: Same picture as turbo bf16, text slip, only 1.3 s faster, 2330 only.
Opus: Same picture as turbo bf16; 'UUNS' text slip on A.
GLM 5.3 Flash: A set that hits most checklist items—legible 'UNS VANGUARD', beams, shield flares, ringed giant—but is dragged down by unwanted garbled hull text, wet-navy anachronism, and a second image that reads as jets in a cloudy sky with biscuit asteroids and no requested motion blur or rim light, landing it in mid-tier AI territory.
DROP: Read the dreadnought as a sea battleship, 187 s/img, beaten by HiDream-O1 and Qwen 2.1.
Opus: Read 'dreadnought' as a sea battleship: A sails on an ocean, A_alt flies over cloud tops. Clean text, film grade. B solid dogfight, F-22-like fighters. Slow.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Both frames hit the main beats with strong diagonals and motion, but the missing shield flare, mis-scaled enemy 'cruiser', ringless giant, extra third fighter, and smeared corners keep this at solid-good AI level, well below studio key art.
KEEP: Only anime/illustration model in the set.
Opus: Anime illustration style, as built: dynamic speed lines, big explosions, mecha-anime fighters. No text, loose anatomy of ships. Only anime model in the set.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Image 2 delivers a readable, mostly coherent hero shot but misses several brief points, while Image 1 fails the brief outright with garbled text, merged ship anatomy and no dreadnought/cruiser duel as specified, putting the set well below professional key-art standard.
DROP: v3.5 makes nearly the same pictures as Krea 2 turbo, which is kept; darkBeast does the Krea look better. Revisit if v4 lands.
Opus: v3.5 (v4 blocked). Near-copy of Krea 2 turbo's pictures: mech instead of a ship, strong cockpit shot. Text OK on A_alt.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Both frames are dynamically composed and well rendered, but fundamental off-brief subject substitutions (a legged mech and WWII prop fighters), the misplaced/duplicated VANGUARD decals, and muddled geometry keep this set far below studio key-art standard.
DROP: Same edit result as fp8mixed; 00b3 only.
Opus: EDIT. A followed the instruction well (eclipse, second cruiser exploding, hull lights) and kept the text. B: no painted-paperback restyle; it pasted gibberish cover titles instead. Half pass.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Pair 1 is a genuinely successful night-battle conversion, but Pair 2 half-merely restyles the source, slaps on two blocks of gibberish text, and drags the set to average.
KEEP: Missed the dreadnought (drew a mech) but made the most cinematic cockpit shot; base for darkBeast-style finetunes.
Opus: Drew a walking mech instead of a dreadnought and a WW2 battleship as the enemy (prompt miss both seeds). B is the most cinematic cockpit shot of all: real pilot face, film lighting.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Both frames are cinematic and well-lit, but the set fails the brief badly: a walking titan and a sea battleship replace the space dreadnought duel, and image 2's giant cockpit close-up shatters fighter scale, keeping it well below studio key art.
KEEP: Keep one Qwen-Edit 2511: best instruction edit (night battle), both boxes.
Opus: EDIT. Same as bf16/int8: night-battle edit good, paperback restyle failed with gibberish titles.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Pair 1 genuinely executes the night-battle edit with minor integration flaws, but Pair 2 fails the hand-painted style entirely and bolts on four lines of garbled cover text, dragging the set to mid-range.
DROP: Same edit result as fp8mixed; 2330 only.
Opus: EDIT. Same result as bf16: night-battle edit good (eclipse, exploding cruiser), paperback restyle failed (gibberish titles, no brush strokes).
GLM 5.3 Flash: Pair 1 is a strong, mostly coherent night-battle conversion, but Pair 2's half-applied paint filter and huge garbled headline text drag the set well below key-art bar.
DROP: Same picture as the fp8 copy.
Opus: Same picture as fp8 (mech instead of ship). Same strong cockpit B.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Image 2 is a dramatic, well-lit action frame despite off-brief prop-fighter designs, but image 1 badly misses the brief with a sea battleship and a walking mech instead of two capital ships, stray text, and no enemy cruiser, dragging the set to mediocre-tier.
DROP: Returned the source unchanged on the restyle; settings were assumed, so this verdict is soft. New today.
Opus: EDIT. A: eclipse + exploding second cruiser added, text kept. B: returned the source almost unchanged, no paperback restyle. Settings (4 steps cfg 1) are assumed, not official.
GLM 5.3 Flash: Pair 1 is a solid, atmospheric night-battle conversion with minor eclipse/explosion geometry issues, but Pair 2 ignores its style instruction entirely by returning the source CG render, dragging the set down.
