Emergent Mind

Abstract

Subject-driven generation has garnered significant interest recently due to its ability to personalize text-to-image generation. Typical works focus on learning the new subject's private attributes. However, an important fact has not been taken seriously that a subject is not an isolated new concept but should be a specialization of a certain category in the pre-trained model. This results in the subject failing to comprehensively inherit the attributes in its category, causing poor attribute-related generations. In this paper, motivated by object-oriented programming, we model the subject as a derived class whose base class is its semantic category. This modeling enables the subject to inherit public attributes from its category while learning its private attributes from the user-provided example. Specifically, we propose a plug-and-play method, Subject-Derived regularization (SuDe). It constructs the base-derived class modeling by constraining the subject-driven generated images to semantically belong to the subject's category. Extensive experiments under three baselines and two backbones on various subjects show that our SuDe enables imaginative attribute-related generations while maintaining subject fidelity. Codes will be open sourced soon at FaceChain (https://github.com/modelscope/facechain).

Comparison of SuDe-generations with and without loss truncation, based on Custom Diffusion.

Overview

  • Introduces Subject-Derived regularization (SuDe) to improve subject-driven image generation by allowing a subject to inherit attributes from its broader category.

  • SuDe enhances attribute-related generation capabilities to overcome the limitations of generating images based on a single example.

  • Employs a regularization method to ensure images belong to the subject's category while maintaining fidelity to the subject, supported by experiments across different models.

  • Opens new avenues for research by integrating object-oriented concepts into generative AI, potentially extending to personalized content creation and adaptive learning systems.

Enhancing Subject-Driven Generation with Subject-Derived Regularization

Introduction

Subject-driven generation has emerged as a fascinating niche within the text-to-image generation domain, focusing on personalizing generation for specific subjects, like pets or characters, based on minimal user-provided examples. A novel paper in this field introduces an elegant solution to a persistent problem: the inability of existing models to capture the full breadth of attributes related to a subject, particularly when only a single example image is provided. This work proposes an innovative method, named Subject-Derived regularization (SuDe), that frames the problem in terms of object-oriented programming, enabling a subject to inherit attributes from its broader category to fill in gaps left by the limited user-provided data.

Core Proposal

At the heart of the proposed SuDe method is the conceptual modeling of a subject as a derived class that inherits public attributes from a base class, its semantic category, found in a pre-trained model. This dual-focus approach ensures that while specific, private attributes are learned directly from the provided subject image, a wider range of generalized, public attributes are inherited from the category, enhancing attribute-related generation capabilities. This insight addresses the shortcoming where models fail to generate images of a subject performing actions or displaying attributes not explicitly present in the provided example image but are typical for the subject's category.

Subject-Derived Regularization

The implementation of SuDe involves a regularization method designed to ensure generated images of a subject semantically belong to its category, for example, ensuring images of "Spike," a specific dog, are recognized as belonging to the broader "Dog" category. This method crucially depends on revealing the implicit classifier within the diffusion model employed for generation, exploiting the model's inherent understanding of categories to guide the generation process. Additionally, a strategy to prevent over-optimization, termed loss truncation, ensures the method respects the intrinsic uncertainty present at each step of the diffusion process, maintaining the generative model's stability and fidelity to the subject.

Experimental Validation

Extensive experiments conducted under various configurations and backbones solidify SuDe's effectiveness in bolstering imaginative, attribute-rich generation while conserving the subject's fidelity. The method is evaluated across different baseline models, showcasing its plug-and-play compatibility and the substantial improvements it delivers in terms of both attribute alignment and subject fidelity. Notably, the method demonstrates significant strides in performance when applied to one-shot scenarios, presenting a compelling solution to a widely acknowledged challenge in the field.

Theoretical Insights

Beyond the technical implementation, the paper provides a robust theoretical analysis illustrating how SuDe effectively models the conditional distribution of generating a subject with both private and inherited attributes. This insight further clarifies the operational mechanism of SuDe, grounding its empirical success in a solid theoretical foundation.

Future Directions

The introduction of SuDe not only addresses a current limitation in subject-driven generation but also opens avenues for future research. The paper's object-oriented framing introduces a novel perspective that could inspire subsequent methods in both generative AI and other domains. Furthermore, the practical and theoretical implications of this work hint at broader applications, potentially extending beyond image generation to areas like personalized content creation or adaptive learning systems.

Conclusion

In summary, this paper presents a significant advance in subject-driven generation through its intuitive yet powerful Subject-Derived regularization method. By enabling subjects to inherit attributes from their broader categories, SuDe enriches the generative model's capacity for attribute-related imagery, underscoring the potential of integrating object-oriented concepts into generative AI.

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