😺NKD Face Rig

The classic way to change a face's expression in ComfyUI is a wall of sliders - brows, eyes, mouth, each a number you can't see the effect of until you run. 😺NKD Face Rig flips that: handles hang off the detected landmarks on the face itself, you drag them, and the result re-renders live while you drag. One raised brow, a wink, a one-sided smirk - every side of the face moves independently, and there's a mirror toggle for symmetric edits.

Under the hood it's LivePortrait (vendored into the pack, MIT), which is why the rig is a facial rig on the picture rather than a bank of number boxes - and why the author can promise it's byte-exact with the slider values of classic expression workflows.

How it works

The editor lives right in the node - no modal, no extra window. Handles hang off the detected landmarks and follow the face when it turns. Head turn/tilt and gaze get their own corner gizmos so the face stays clear. Ctrl+Z undoes while your pointer is over the editor, Shift is fine-adjust, double-click resets a handle. The expression presets are the standard FACS combinations rather than invented ones, which matters if you're trying to land a specific, recognized expression.

The node runs standalone - no other custom nodes needed. You don't even need a Load Image feeding it: feed it a VAE Decode, a subgraph, even a 😺NKD Face Crop that straightened the head first, and its Run button computes just that branch so the rig picks the face up from there.

Inputs and outputs

• image - the portrait to pose. Only the first frame is used, so this is a stills tool, not a video one.
• crop_factor - how much around the face to take in. Larger keeps more hair and shoulders but gives the model less face to work with.
• src_ratio - how much of the expression already in the photo to keep. Lower it to neutralise a face that's already smiling before you pose it. This is the knob I'd reach for first on a photo of someone mid-laugh.
• stitching - blends the posed face back into the original shoulders. Turn it off only to inspect the raw crop.
• rig - the pose, written by the editor. Editing it by hand is allowed but the editor is easier.

Outputs: image, plus face_mask (the feathered paste region, aligned with the output - feed it to a face detailer to refine exactly what the renderer touched) and expression (an NKD_EXPRESSION you can layer onto another rig via the optional input).

Install and gotchas

Install via ComfyUI Manager (search ComfyUI-NKD-Basic-Tools) or:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/Nekodificador/ComfyUI-NKD-Basic-Tools

This is the heavyweight of the pack's face nodes. It needs onnxruntime (a real pack dependency, used for the LivePortrait landmark model), and the LivePortrait weights (~600 MB) download automatically from Hugging Face into models/liveportrait on first use. That download is the #1 "why isn't it working" moment - give it a minute and an internet connection. If ultralytics is installed the crop uses the standard YOLOv8 face detector; otherwise OpenCV's own detector stands in.