Replicate (0xdino/cyberrealistic-pony-v125)

Let's get the big thing out of the way first: this node does not run any model on your machine. "Replicate (0xdino/cyberrealistic-pony-v125)" is a cloud-inference node - it rents CyberRealistic Pony v1.25 by the generation on Replicate's servers, sends your prompt over, and downloads the finished image back into ComfyUI as a regular IMAGE tensor. If you have the GPU and the checkpoint locally, this node is pointless. If you don't, it's a way to get Pony-flavored photorealistic output (the score-tag prompting, the NSFW-friendly behavior, the whole Pony ecosystem feel) without downloading a 7GB file.

CyberRealistic Pony v1.25 sits in that crowded middle of the Pony family tree - a merge tuned for semi-realistic people rather than flat anime, built on the Pony lineage that u/AstraliteHeart's model kicked off and hundreds of derivatives followed. You can tell from the node's default prompt, which is already written in Pony dialect: score_9, score_8_up, score_7_up up top, then a natural-language scene. If you've used any Pony-based checkpoint, the prompting rules are identical here.

How it works

The node is one of the pack's auto-generated Replicate family. Dados Nodes keeps a configs/replicate/models.json, and for each entry it spins up a node class at load time with a pinned model version. When you run it, the node:

1. Uploads your prompt, settings, and any image inputs to Replicate's API (via the replicate Python client),
2. Polls the prediction until it finishes (streaming the model's log lines into the console as it goes),
3. Downloads the output image and converts it to a float IMAGE tensor you can wire into a preview, a save node, or more image processing.

That polling loop is also how you watch it work - progress shows up in your ComfyUI console log, not in the queue panel.

The inputs that matter

The schema is basically a Replicate model card turned into widgets. The ones you'll actually touch:

• prompt / negative_prompt - standard, but remember the Pony score-tag convention. The defaults are a decent starting point for a portrait.
• seed - set it to lock a look, leave it to roll.
• steps (default 40) and cfg (default 4) - these are cloud-side sampler settings; 40 steps at 4 CFG is a sensible photoreal starting point.
• width / height - defaults to 768×1152, a portrait-friendly resolution.
• facerestore with codeformer_fidelity - turns on CodeFormer face restoration on Replicate's end. Leave it on for people shots; it's why hands/faces hold up better than a bare run.
• sampler_name / scheduler - dpmpp_3m_sde / karras by default. Fine to leave alone.

The single output is IMAGE - the finished render, ready for a save or preview node.

Install

Same as the rest of the pack: ComfyUI Manager (search "Dados Nodes"), or manually

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/dadoirie/ComfyUI_Dados_Nodes.git
cd ComfyUI_Dados_Nodes
pip install -r requirements.txt

then restart ComfyUI.

The gotcha: your token

This is the part that bites everyone. The node talks to the replicate client, and the pack's own __init__.py literally sets os.environ["REPLICATE_API_TOKEN"] = "EMPTY" - a placeholder with a "REMOVE LATER" comment sitting right above it. So out of the box, every prediction fails auth until you set a real token. Create one at replicate.com/account, then export it in the shell that launches ComfyUI:

export REPLICATE_API_TOKEN=r8_...

Note this is a paid API - each generation costs you money on your Replicate account, and it's billed by the run, so a long batch of 40-step 1152px portraits adds up fast. Where people get burned: they see the "EMPTY" token, assume the pack is broken, and never realize a five-second environment variable fixes the whole Replicate family in this pack. Set it once and all three replicate nodes (this one, Qwen Image Edit, Wan I2V) start working.