Object Set Empty Image Side

Object Set Empty Image Side is one of Avatar Graph's "ObjectSet" family - a group of nodes that, unlike most of the pack's other mesh-editing tools, don't run a Blender operator at all. Instead they set a single property directly on an object. Avatar Graph is Avatech's node pack for turning static character illustrations into real-time interactive avatars inside ComfyUI, and this node handles a small but genuinely relevant piece of that: how a flat "empty" image object faces the camera.

In Blender, an Empty object can be set to display an image (instead of the usual axis/plain-axes gizmo), and that image-empty has a side-visibility property controlling which face(s) of the flat plane it's actually shown on: front only, back only, or both. This node sets that property directly. It matters for avatar rigs built from layered 2D artwork - think eyes, mouth pieces, or other sprite-style parts placed on flat planes or empties in 3D space - because if a part is only visible from one side and the rig rotates or the camera angle shifts even slightly, that part can vanish. Setting it to double-sided, which is this node's own default, sidesteps that problem entirely.

There's really one thing to configure:

• value - a string, defaulting to "DOUBLE_SIDED". The other options that make sense here, matching Blender's own empty-image side property, are "FRONT" and "BACK". Unless you have a specific reason to hide a part from one particular angle, leaving this on the default double-sided setting is the safe call for anything meant to stay visible as your rig moves.

Output is the same BPY_OBJ, with the property applied.

Because this is a property setter rather than an operator wrapper, it's simpler and more predictable than most of this pack's mesh nodes - there's no dependency on prior selection state or edit-mode context. It just needs a valid empty (image-type) object wired in.

Installing it: this node ships as part of the full Avatar Graph pack, not standalone. Easiest install path is ComfyUI Manager, searching "Avatar Graph" or avatar-graph-comfyui. Manual install: cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes, then git clone https://github.com/avatechai/avatar-graph-comfyui, cd into it, pip install -r requirements.txt, restart ComfyUI.

The install snag most people hit: Avatar Graph requires Python 3.10.x specifically, because its bpy dependency - Blender's Python API packaged as a standalone library - only ships wheels for that exact version. If your ComfyUI environment runs anything newer (the default on most current installs), the pack won't install correctly. The README's own fix is a dedicated conda environment: conda create --name comfyui python=3.10, activate it, install ComfyUI's requirements, then this pack's on top. If you want the live avatar preview inside Avatech's own web editor, also launch with --enable-cors-header (Mac users add --force-fp16); without that flag everything still computes fine, you just export .glb/.gltf and view results in Blender instead of getting a live in-browser update.

Given the whole pack is explicitly labeled work-in-progress in its own README, treat small property nodes like this one as reasonably stable but not guaranteed unchanged forever between versions.