flux1 / comfy / createVariant

This is the img2img sibling in the pack's FLUX.1 family. Where createImage dreams from a prompt, createVariant takes an image you already have and re-renders it - same structure, different mood, new seed. It's the "what if this were..." node: restyle a portrait, re-pose a composition, explore a sketch.

What it is

A recipe node under Civitai/Image/flux1/comfy, sharing the ecosystem-first naming with its parent. Required inputs: prompt, model (a CIVITAI_AIR socket from a Model Selector), and image - the source. The tooltip for image says it accepts "a URL, a DataURL or a Base64 string," but on the canvas it's an IMAGE socket, so you just wire in a LoadImage or a prior generation.

The one extra knob that defines this node: denoise_strength (default 0.75, 0–1). That's how much of the source image gets replaced. High denoise (0.7+) reimagines heavily - which is the default and the point of a variant node. Low denoise (0.3 or under) barely changes anything, which is how people get burned expecting a new image and getting a smudge.

Everything else mirrors createImage: steps (20), cfg_scale (3.5), seed, quantity (1–12), width/height, sampler/scheduler, loras, vae_model, control_nets, output_format, image_metadata, and api_config. Outputs are the standard four: images, errors, workflow_id, raw_json.

How it works

Under the hood it's the same imageGen recipe with operation: createVariant in the discriminator - the job runs on Civitai's fleet, and your source image rides along in the request. Locally, nothing is downloaded; the pack just converts the input tensor, submits, polls, and converts the returned blob back into a native IMAGE in your graph.

Install & gotchas

Standard pack install: ComfyUI Manager → Civitai Comfy Nodes (publisher civitai), or comfy node registry-install civitai-comfy-nodes, or git clone + pip install -r requirements.txt. Auth via CIVITAI_API_TOKEN, OAuth, or a wired Civitai Auth node.

The three traps:

1. denoise_strength is the whole game. Start at the 0.75 default, but know the range: too high and you've basically generated something unrelated to your source; too low and nothing visibly changed. Dial it like the KB's ControlNet guidance - match the dial to how much change you actually want.
2. Your source image is uploaded to Civitai's fleet. For anything private or licensed, that's the real cost, not the Buzz.
3. Every variant is a billed call. quantity multiplies it. If you're doing a variant sweep - same prompt, five seeds - you're paying for five generations; raw_json will show you the cost per run.

Honest take: if FLUX.1-ecosystem variants are a once-in-a-while thing and you're GPU-less, this is a clean way to do it. If you iterate on variants all day, a local img2img (or better, Flux 2's native editing) will be cheaper per iteration - this node is convenience, not economics.