Anima Artist Chain Builder

The Anima artist chain syntax - 1.2::wlop::, @layers, %timing, ~fade - is powerful and, let's be honest, fiddly to type by hand. AnimaArtistChainBuilder exists so you don't have to. It takes plain per-artist values (weight, layer range, timing window) and assembles a valid artist_chain string for AnimaArtistPack, with a preview so you can see what it generated before you spend a single CLIP encode on it.

The inputs

• artist_table - the real workhorse. One artist per line as artist | weight | layers | timing, e.g. @wlop | 1.2 | 0-8 | 0.0-0.45. Lines starting with # are ignored. The README's advice: the three visible rows are just shortcuts - use this table for anything larger.
• layout - manual (use your per-row layer/timing values), even_layers (split DiT blocks evenly across artists), or layer_scheduled (default; early/mid/late layers plus early/mid/late sampling windows in one click). For even_layers and layer_scheduled, empty routes auto-fill.
• artist_1/2/3 and weight_1/2/3 - the quick rows. Leave an artist blank to skip that row. Weights range −4 to 4 (negative = style subtraction).
• layer_route_1/2/3 and timing_route_1/2/3 - optional per-row routes, only honored in manual layout. Layer routes look like 0-8, 0,2,4, 0%-33%, or 0.33-0.67; timing routes like 0.0-0.45 or 0.0-0.45~0.1 (with fade). Remember: % timing, not @.
• num_blocks - block count for the preview; Anima default is 28.

Outputs

artist_chain (STRING) → AnimaArtistPack.artist_chain. preview (STRING) - the rendered chain plus a visual block map, shown in the node's UI panel (or wire it into a Show Text node on older frontends).

Install

Manager → search "Anima Artist Mixer Forge", or:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/peter119lee/Anima-Artist-Mixer-Forge

then restart. No extra dependencies; standard Anima model trio and the Anima-compatible CLIP loader apply. Don't install alongside the original Anima-Artist-Mixer - duplicate node names shadow each other.

My take

The layer_scheduled layout is the feature that makes this node worth it: one click spreads your artists across layers and sampling windows, which is exactly the thing people hand-tune and then regret. A practical workflow: draft the chain here, run it through AnimaArtistChainPreview to validate the syntax and tag vocabulary before encoding, then feed the result to AnimaArtistPack. The pair costs you nothing but a few seconds, and it catches the typos that otherwise surface as confusing "why is my mix all wlop" renders.