Rebels PiD + Z-Image (low vram)

PiD reformulates the latent-to-pixel decoder as a conditional pixel-space diffusion model, unifying decoding and upsampling into a single generative module. It denoises directly in high-resolution pixel space and produces a super-resolved image in one pass. This repository hosts the released decoder checkpoints, plus the encoder/decoder ("VAE") weights they depend on.



To install the ComfyUI-PiD custom node and utilize its automated model downloader, follow these steps specifically tailored for the ComfyUI Windows Portable environment.

1. Custom Node Installation

Do not just drag and drop files. For a portable installation, you must use Git to ensure the node's internal structure and submodules remain intact.

1. Navigate to your ComfyUI_windows_portable root folder.

2. Open a terminal (CMD) in this folder.

3. Navigate to your custom_nodes directory:

   DOS

   cd ComfyUI\custom_nodes
   

4. Clone the repository:

   DOS

   git clone https://github.com/Merserk/ComfyUI-PiD
   

5. Return to the root folder:

   DOS

   cd ..\..
   

6. Install the required dependencies using the embedded Python:

   DOS

   .\python_embeded\python.exe -m pip install -r .\ComfyUI\custom_nodes\ComfyUI-PiD\requirements.txt
   

LINK TO Z-Image Base Model Files:

https://civitai.com/models/2342907/rebels-z-image-base

2. Using the Auto-Download Feature

The PiD nodes are designed to pull models automatically upon the first execution of a prompt.

1. Restart ComfyUI completely.

2. Load a workflow that utilizes the PiD Decode or PiD Prepare nodes.

3. Ensure the auto_download parameter is set to True in the node properties.

4. Queue your prompt.

5. Monitor the Terminal: Watch the CMD window. You will see HTTP requests appearing as the node validates and begins downloading the required weights from Hugging Face.

3. Troubleshooting "Stalls"

Because there is no progress bar, a silent CMD window can look like a stall. However, if the download actually hangs (no new INFO lines for 5+ minutes):

1. Kill the Process: Close the CMD window completely to force the download attempt to terminate.

2. Restart ComfyUI: Open the terminal and restart ComfyUI to clear the failed request from your GPU/Network cache.

3. Disable Auto-Download: Before queuing again, go into the PiD Decode node settings and set auto_download to False.

4. Verify/Retry: With auto_download set to False, the node will skip the network request and attempt to load existing files. If you suspect the download partially finished before stalling, check ComfyUI\custom_nodes\ComfyUI-PiD\vendor\PiD\checkpoints to see if a folder has been created. If it is empty or incomplete, remove that partial folder before trying the download again.

Pro-Tip: If the auto-downloader consistently fails, it is usually due to network timeouts on large files. If this happens, you must perform a manual download once to place the .pth file into the vendor directory as described in the repository's documentation. Once the file exists locally, you can keep auto_download set to False permanently.