Dials Lab
Experimental dials for MiniMax H3, each with the prompt pairs that made it.
A night of trying odd contrasts: two styles at opposite ends of a slider, a plain prompt against the same prompt with a glitch, an owl against an octopus, and ideas like “order vs entropy”. Every clip below is Pika H3 Flex (6 steps, text-to-video) on one scene, with one dial in the Dial Rack at the strength shown, starting from the same seed as its control. Seed 42 unless a clip says otherwise. Press play to hear the sound too.
style continuumOil painting ↔ pixel art
Style words arrive as an era first, then the medium appears only at the far end. Across two seeds, −3 kept putting a rider on a horse indoors, and +3 seed 43 even drew a game HUD.
−3 … +3
How it was made: h3_x_oil_pixel.safetensors · style continuum
continuum between two hugely different styles: A = Renaissance oil painting, B = 8-bit pixel art
{subject} stands in the room, painted as a Renaissance oil painting with soft brushwork and a varnished glow. ||| {subject} stands in the room, rendered as 8-bit pixel art from an old video game with a limited palette.
{subject} looks up at the camera, an old master's portrait in rich oil paint and chiaroscuro. ||| {subject} looks up at the camera, a blocky retro game sprite made of large square pixels.
{subject} walks slowly toward the viewer in a classical oil painting, brushstrokes visible in the paint. ||| {subject} walks slowly toward the viewer in a chunky 8-bit game, everything made of square pixels.Subjects: subjects_adults.txt (each line replaces {subject}), so 3 templates × 8 subjects = 24 pairs. Made with MAINodes Make Dial, post-refiner hook, debias on. dial file · pair file
plain vs featuredDatamosh
Built as “the plain sentence” vs “the same sentence plus a glitch clause”. Around +2.25 the subject stays crisp while the background breaks into a glitch mosaic (2 seeds); by +2.5 the face changes; +3 is glitch only. The negative side reads as “anti-glitch”: a clean, wholesome vintage scene.
−3 … +3
How it was made: h3_x_datamosh.safetensors · plain vs featured
plain vs featured: A = the plain sentence, B = the same sentence with a datamosh glitch clause added
{subject} stands in the room. ||| {subject} stands in the room, the image breaking into datamosh glitches, smeared pixel blocks and corrupted frames.
{subject} looks up at the camera. ||| {subject} looks up at the camera, the picture tearing into compression artifacts and melting, glitching pixels.
{subject} walks slowly toward the viewer. ||| {subject} walks slowly toward the viewer, every frame smearing into the next in broken digital datamosh.Subjects: subjects_adults.txt (each line replaces {subject}), so 3 templates × 8 subjects = 24 pairs. Made with MAINodes Make Dial, post-refiner hook, debias on. dial file · pair file
combinationTwo dials together: an actual oil painting
Oil ↔ pixel at −3 on its own gives a photoreal period drama. Add a datamosh row at +1.5 or +2.25 and the scene becomes a painted canvas with visible brushwork, on both seeds. A meaningless placebo dial pushed just as hard doesn't do it, and a generic “photoreal ↔ stylized” direction only gets a half-painted mural. Push two dials too far and the scene collapses instead.
Two rows in one Dial Rack
creature continuumOwl ↔ octopus
A creature dial needs its creature in the scene: on a person at a train station it only reshuffled the background. On an owl, the first step is a different owl, then the identity flips between +2 and +2.5 with no hybrid, and past +3 the setting follows the creature.
Owl scene
How it was made: h3_x_owl_octopus.safetensors · creature continuum
continuum between two creatures: A = an owl, B = an octopus; same place, same pose words, settings as subjects
{subject}, an owl sits in the middle of the frame and slowly looks around. ||| {subject}, an octopus sits in the middle of the frame and slowly looks around.
{subject}, a close view of an owl, its eyes turning toward the camera. ||| {subject}, a close view of an octopus, its eyes turning toward the camera.
{subject}, an owl moves slowly across the ground toward the viewer. ||| {subject}, an octopus moves slowly across the ground toward the viewer.Subjects: settings.txt (each line replaces {subject}), so 3 templates × 8 subjects = 24 pairs. Made with MAINodes Make Dial, post-refiner hook, debias on. dial file · pair file
abstractAbstract ideas
Abstract pairs are written in three framings (presence in a space, light and colour, motion and sound) so the mean isn't one metaphor. Memory arrives as haze and fade; entropy arrives as disaster and motion.
memory ↔ present
order ↔ entropy
How it was made: h3_x_memory_present.safetensors · abstract
abstract: A = the vivid present moment, B = a half-remembered memory; three framings
{subject} stands in the room, seen sharply and clearly, right here in the present moment. ||| {subject} stands in the room, seen as a half-remembered memory, hazy, faded and dreamlike.
{subject} looks up at the camera in vivid, immediate, true-to-life colour. ||| {subject} looks up at the camera in soft, washed-out colour, like an old remembered photograph.
{subject} walks slowly toward the viewer, every sound and detail present and distinct. ||| {subject} walks slowly toward the viewer, sounds muffled and details slipping away like a fading memory.Subjects: subjects_adults.txt (each line replaces {subject}), so 3 templates × 8 subjects = 24 pairs. Made with MAINodes Make Dial, post-refiner hook, debias on. dial file · pair file
How it was made: h3_x_order_entropy.safetensors · abstract
abstract: A = order, B = entropy; three framings (space, light and colour, motion and sound) so the mean is not one metaphor
{subject} stands in the room, everything around them perfectly ordered, aligned and symmetrical. ||| {subject} stands in the room, everything around them sliding into entropy, scattered, crumbling and dissolving.
{subject} looks up at the camera in clean, even, geometric light and calm colours. ||| {subject} looks up at the camera in fractured, flickering, disordered light and clashing colours.
{subject} walks slowly toward the viewer in a still, quiet, orderly moment. ||| {subject} walks slowly toward the viewer in a restless, noisy, disintegrating moment.Subjects: subjects_adults.txt (each line replaces {subject}), so 3 templates × 8 subjects = 24 pairs. Made with MAINodes Make Dial, post-refiner hook, debias on. dial file · pair file
styleEras, formats and a negative result
Medium words mostly arrive as an era, setting or format: silent film gives 1920s clothes and carriages, VHS gives a 4:3 frame and older trains. Describing the artifact instead (grain, dust, scratches) gave a cool grade and no grain, a negative result kept on purpose.
silent film ↔ cyberpunk
VHS and film-artifact
How it was made: h3_x_silentfilm_cyberpunk.safetensors · style continuum
continuum between two hugely different styles: A = 1920s black-and-white silent film, B = neon cyberpunk anime
{subject} stands in the room, shown as a 1920s black-and-white silent film with flickering grain. ||| {subject} stands in the room, shown as a neon cyberpunk anime with glowing magenta and cyan light.
{subject} looks up at the camera in an old hand-cranked silent movie, grey tones and an iris vignette. ||| {subject} looks up at the camera in a futuristic cel-shaded anime, holographic neon colours.
{subject} walks slowly toward the viewer in scratched, sepia-grey 1920s film footage. ||| {subject} walks slowly toward the viewer in a glossy, neon-lit cyberpunk anime scene.Subjects: subjects_adults.txt (each line replaces {subject}), so 3 templates × 8 subjects = 24 pairs. Made with MAINodes Make Dial, post-refiner hook, debias on. dial file · pair file
How it was made: h3_x_vhs.safetensors · opposites (look)
opposites (look): A = clean modern digital image, B = worn analog VHS tape; action and framing identical
{subject} stands in the room, filmed on a clean, sharp modern digital camera with true colour. ||| {subject} stands in the room, filmed on a worn VHS tape with tracking lines, colour bleed and static.
{subject} looks up at the camera, a crisp, noise-free high-definition image. ||| {subject} looks up at the camera, a fuzzy, warped analog videotape image with scan lines.
{subject} walks slowly toward the viewer, the picture stable, clean and perfectly sharp. ||| {subject} walks slowly toward the viewer, the picture wobbling, smeared and crackling like old VHS.Subjects: subjects_adults.txt (each line replaces {subject}), so 3 templates × 8 subjects = 24 pairs. Made with MAINodes Make Dial, post-refiner hook, debias on. dial file · pair file
How it was made: h3_x_film_artifact.safetensors · artifact described, no era words
artifact-described counterpart of silentfilm: A = clean modern colour footage, B = the visible SURFACE of old film (no era, place or costume words). Tests the skill's "describe the artifact, not the medium" advice.
{subject} stands in the room, shown in clean, sharp, modern colour footage. ||| {subject} stands in the room, shown in black-and-white footage with heavy film grain, dust and scratches.
{subject} looks up at the camera in smooth, steady, full-colour digital video. ||| {subject} looks up at the camera in grainy monochrome film, the exposure flickering, specks of dust crossing the frame.
{subject} walks slowly toward the viewer, the image clean, colourful and stable. ||| {subject} walks slowly toward the viewer, the image black and white, scratched, jittering and flickering.Subjects: subjects_adults.txt (each line replaces {subject}), so 3 templates × 8 subjects = 24 pairs. Made with MAINodes Make Dial, post-refiner hook, debias on. dial file · pair file
existing dialsThe villainy pack on Pika H3 Flex
The eight evil dials at +2 on the same scene. They form a light-to-dark range: seductive and impish keep the warm sunset, the rest take it away. They move the soundtrack up to ±10 dB, so listen. The last clip is a meaningless placebo pushed as hard as sinister at +2: it changes the background but not the person.
+2 each
How it was made: h3_x_template_placebo.safetensors · control
placebo: the three villainy-pack templates with a meaningless slot difference (grey vs blue scarf), same length. Question: do the shared template words ("looks up at the camera", "walks toward the viewer") leak into a dial on their own?
{subject} stands in the room with a calm presence, a plain grey scarf around their neck. ||| {subject} stands in the room with a calm presence, a plain blue scarf around their neck.
{subject} looks up at the camera with a grey scarf loosely tied at their collar. ||| {subject} looks up at the camera with a blue scarf loosely tied at their collar.
{subject} walks slowly toward the viewer wearing a simple grey woollen scarf. ||| {subject} walks slowly toward the viewer wearing a simple blue woollen scarf.Subjects: subjects_adults.txt (each line replaces {subject}), so 3 templates × 8 subjects = 24 pairs. Made with MAINodes Make Dial, post-refiner hook, debias on. dial file · pair file
How it was made: h3_x_sinister_noview.safetensors · control
sinister with the SAME slot text as the released pack but templates that never mention the camera or the viewer. Question: is "she turns to face the camera" (seen with most evil dials) carried by the templates or by the trait?
{subject} stands in the room with a warm, friendly presence, soft even lighting on their face. ||| {subject} stands in the room with a sinister, menacing presence, deep shadows across their face.
{subject} sits by the window with a kind, open expression. ||| {subject} sits by the window with a cold, threatening stare from the shadows.
{subject} waits at the end of a long corridor in a gentle, welcoming way. ||| {subject} waits at the end of a long corridor in a looming, predatory, menacing way.Subjects: subjects_adults.txt (each line replaces {subject}), so 3 templates × 8 subjects = 24 pairs. Made with MAINodes Make Dial, post-refiner hook, debias on. dial file · pair file
audioDoes the dialogue survive?
Two scripted lines, scored with Whisper against the script. On Pika H3 Flex every evil dial at +2 kept the words: word error 0.00 for sinister (with or without audio protect), seductive and creepy, 0.00 to 0.05 for unhinged (which shouts). One seed, one scene; on base H3 sinister +2 had crushed the same lines.
Office scene
notesWhat these taught us about making dials
- Pair agreement is a floor, not a verdict. Make Dial's agreement score was 0.75 to 0.85 for dials that worked and for dials that failed alike. Only renders tell them apart.
- Style words arrive as an era first. Silent film, oil painting and VHS gave clothes, carriages and aspect ratios before (or instead of) the medium itself.
- Check against a placebo. Any push the size of a dial reshuffles the background. What a meaningless dial of the same size doesn't do is what your dial does.
- Put the subject in the scene. A creature or object continuum has nothing to act on if the prompt has none.
- Two rows can do what neither does. Glitch + period drama made a painting; too much summed push breaks the scene.
One prompt and one or two seeds per finding, so treat these as starting points. Each dial file carries its own description, labels and useful/overcook strengths (open ⚙ on its row in the Dial Rack).