Characters: Generate, Edit, Chat & Visualize

Characters aren't just a feature in DeepFiction. They're the core of the whole platform. You generate them with AI portraits, refine their details, drop them into stories, have real-time conversations with them, and even generate images mid-chat. This tutorial covers the full workflow from creation to conversation.

Part 1: Generating a Character

Getting to the Character Tab

Head to deepfiction.ai/studio and click the Character tab in the top navigation. You'll see three things: a Character Description textarea, a Persona section, and an NSFW toggle.

Write Your Character Description

The Character Description field is where everything starts. Describe the character you want to create. The more specific you are, the better the result.

Here's what to include:

• Physical traits (age, hair, eyes, skin, build, distinguishing features)
• Clothing and style (what they're wearing, era-appropriate details)
• Personality (traits, mannerisms, demeanor)
• Background (optional context about who they are)

Example Descriptions

"A woman in her late 20s with shoulder-length auburn hair, freckles across her nose, pale green eyes, and a small scar above her left eyebrow. Wearing a worn leather jacket over a white t-shirt. Quick-witted and guarded, hides vulnerability behind sarcasm."

"A heavyset man in his 40s with a shaved head, deep-set brown eyes, a crooked nose, and a faded compass tattoo on his neck. In a dark wool peacoat. Former sailor, quiet and observant, speaks only when it matters."

"A gaunt elven mage in his 70s with long silver hair pulled back, deep wrinkles around sharp blue eyes, flowing dark robes with silver thread embroidery. Wise but impatient, carries centuries of regret."

Specificity is consistency. Vague descriptions produce generic results every time.

Set Up Your Persona (Optional)

The Your Persona section is a collapsible panel below the description field. Personas tell the AI who you are, so the generated character knows how to interact with you in conversations and stories.

Nobody talks about this, but personas make a huge difference in chat quality. Here's how to create one:

1. Click Your Persona to expand the section
2. Click + Create Persona
3. Enter a name (e.g., "My main character") and a description (name, age, personality, appearance, interests)
4. Click Save Persona

Once saved, your persona shows up in the list. The active one (marked with ✦) gets included automatically when generating characters and starting chats. You can create several and switch between them by clicking.

Generate

Click Generate Character at the bottom of the panel. Each character costs 2 credits.

The AI builds a full character profile: a portrait image, name, description, personality, appearance, age, gender, and a greeting message. You'll land on the character's profile page once it's done.

Part 2: The Character Profile Page

After generating a character (or clicking one from your history), you'll land on their profile page. Think of it as the character's home base.

What You'll See

The left side shows the portrait image. The right side has the character's name (with a pencil icon to edit, if you own them), their description and personality text, and metadata like age, gender, species, creation date, and visibility.

Action Buttons

Two buttons sit below the character info:

Generate Images opens a prompt modal for creating additional images of this character. So if you want to see them in different outfits or scenes, this is where you do it.

Start New Chat creates a new conversation session and drops you into the chat interface. Pick your persona first (there's a persona selector right below the buttons) because it gets locked to that session.

Images Tab

Shows a grid of all images generated for this character. Empty at first, but once you click Generate Images a few times, it fills up fast. Describe a scene, a pose, a situation. The AI generates an image with your character in it.

Chats Tab

Lists every past conversation you've had with this character. Each entry shows a preview of the opening message, when it was created, which persona you used, and the total message count.

Click any session to pick up where you left off.

Part 3: Editing a Character

Click the pencil icon next to the character's name on their profile page.

You can edit seven fields:

• Character Name (the display name)
• Age
• Gender (Male, Female, or Other)
• Description (a brief overview of who the character is)
• Personality (traits, behavior, demeanor)
• Appearance (physical description, also used as the base prompt when regenerating their avatar)
• Greeting (what the character says to introduce themselves when a chat starts)

Honestly, the greeting field is the one most people skip and shouldn't. A well-written greeting sets the tone for the entire conversation. It's the character's first impression.

Updating the Avatar

Click Update Avatar on the edit page to regenerate the character's portrait. The appearance field is used as the base prompt, so if you update their appearance text, regenerate the avatar right after. Keeps everything in sync.

Deleting a Character

The Delete button (top right) permanently removes the character, all their images, and all chat sessions. No undo.

Click Update to save, Cancel to discard.

Part 4: Adding Characters to Stories

This is where things get good. Characters you've generated are saved to your account and can be imported into any story. Build a roster once, reuse them across as many stories as you want.

How to Import

1. Go to the Story tab in the Studio
2. Scroll to the Characters section
3. Click the Explore button
4. The Saved Characters modal opens with all your characters and their portrait images
5. Click a character to import them (name, appearance, and personality fill in automatically)
6. You can import up to 3 characters per story

Characters already in the current story show a purple checkmark.

Why This Matters

When you import a character, the AI uses their full profile (name, appearance, personality) throughout the story. That's way more consistent than mentioning character names in the prompt and hoping for the best. The AI knows who they are, how they look, and how they behave.

The best workflow: generate characters with detailed profiles first, then import them into stories. Faster, more consistent, better results.

Part 5: Chatting with Characters

Character chat is a real-time conversation where the AI responds in character, maintaining their personality and voice throughout. It's the closest thing to actually talking to someone you've created.

Starting a Chat

From a character's profile page, click Start New Chat. Pick a persona first if you want the character to know who you are. You'll land on a full-screen chat interface.

The Chat Interface

The header shows the character's avatar and name, plus which persona you're chatting as. There's a persona selector up there too, so you can switch mid-conversation.

Your messages appear on the right in blue. The character's responses appear on the left in gray with an "AI" badge. A yellow banner at the top reminds you everything the character says is AI-generated.

Type your message and press Enter to send. Shift+Enter for a new line. Or click the send button.

Chat Actions

Click the hamburger menu (three lines icon) next to the input field. Three options:

• Continue prompts the character to keep talking, extending their last response
• Regenerate removes the character's last message and generates a fresh one
• Visualize This generates an AI image from the current conversation

Visualize This: In-Chat Image Generation

Here's where it gets interesting. At any point during a conversation, you can generate an image that captures the current scene. No separate prompt needed.

Click the Visualize This button. It shows up both in the hamburger menu and as a purple button centered below the latest messages. The AI reads the last few messages for context, generates an image of the scene, and drops it right into the chat.

A tense confrontation? You can see it. A romantic moment? Visualized. A dramatic reveal? There's an image for that. The images are generated automatically from what you've been talking about, so you don't write anything extra.

Picking Up Where You Left Off

All chat sessions are saved automatically. Head to the character's profile page, click the Chats tab, and pick any session to resume. Full message history preserved, including any images from Visualize This.

Part 6: The Image Tab (Standalone Images)

The Image tab in the Studio is a separate tool for generating images that aren't tied to a specific character. Three modes.

Text to Image

Generate images from a text prompt. You get controls for Style (visual preset), Aspect Ratio (1:1, 1:1 HD, 3:4, 9:16, 4:3, or 16:9), Quantity (1 to 4 images, 1 credit each), and Adapters (optional LoRA models for specialized styles).

Edit Image

Modify an existing image with a text prompt. Paste the Image URL, describe what to change, pick your aspect ratio and quantity. 2 credits each.

Upscale

Enhance resolution. Paste the image URL, choose By Factor (2x, 3x, 4x) or By Target (720p, 1080p, 1440p, 2160p). Credits vary by size.

Style Presets

The Style dropdown (Text to Image only) controls the visual rendering. Photo, Medium Format, and Analog Photo give you photorealistic output. Medium Format adds that cinematic film-still quality. Analog Photo leans warm and vintage. Digital Art and Digital Art Vibrant give polished illustration with stronger color grading. Painterly styles work best for fantasy and historical settings. Digital Illustration is cleaner and more graphic.

Match the style to the world. A noir detective looks better in Medium Format. A fantasy mage needs a painterly preset.

Adapters (LoRAs)

Click Browse Adapters to open the gallery. Adapters are specialized models trained on specific visual styles or aesthetics. They layer on top of the base model to get looks that prompts alone can't achieve. Each has a scale slider, and you can stack multiple adapters.

Shot Size and Camera Angle

Expand Advanced Settings for camera controls.

Shot Size goes from Extreme Wide (scenery dominant) all the way to Extreme Close (eyebrows to mouth). The options in between: Wide, Full, Medium Wide, Cowboy, Medium, Medium Close, Close-Up. Or leave it on Auto.

Camera Angle options: Eye Level, High Angle (looking down), Low Angle (looking up), Dutch (tilted), Bird's Eye (top-down), Over Shoulder, or Auto.

These get appended to your prompt automatically. They change the composition more than most people expect.

Tips

Generate characters first, then import into stories. That's the single most consistent workflow you can follow.

Be specific with physical descriptions. "Shoulder-length auburn hair" beats "pretty hair" every single time. And use personas for chats. The character's responses are shaped by who they think they're talking to. Skip the persona and you'll notice the difference, especially in romantic or interactive fiction.

Try Visualize This at dramatic moments. The images land hardest during emotional peaks, reveals, or scene changes.

Don't treat the initial generation as final. Edit characters after creating them. The personality field and the greeting are what make conversations feel alive. Spend two minutes refining those and the chat quality jumps noticeably.

For image prompts: include lighting. One descriptor ("dramatic side-lighting," "soft golden hour") is the difference between a flat image and an atmospheric one. And match your style preset to your genre. Photorealistic for grounded fiction. Painterly for fantasy. Digital art for stylized content.

Common Mistakes

Vague character descriptions. "A pretty woman" gives the AI nothing. Include age, hair, eyes, clothing, and at least one distinguishing feature.

Skipping the persona. Without one, the character doesn't know who they're talking to. This shows up fast in romantic or interactive fiction.

Not editing after generation. The AI gives you a solid starting point. But tweaking the personality and greeting fields makes conversations noticeably better.

Forgetting lighting in image prompts. One descriptor like "dramatic side-lighting" or "soft golden hour" transforms a flat image.

Overloading visual details. Pick 2 or 3 key visual elements per image prompt. More than that and the output gets muddy.

What's Next?

• How to Write Your First AI Story for the Studio basics
• Crafting Better Story Prompts for prompt techniques that work across stories and images