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Elements (/library/characters) are reusable reference subjects: a character, product, vehicle, logo, location, or anything else you want to look the same every time it appears. Build one once, then reuse it across as many projects as you like instead of re-describing it in every prompt.
Elements

Elements: reusable reference subjects

Elements used to be called Characters: the page’s URL and some older references still say characters, but the surface, the canvas node, and the API resource are all named Element.

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Categories

Every element belongs to a category: Character, Creature, Object, Product, Vehicle, Logo, Environment, Location, or Other, or Auto, which lets Flowy infer the category from your reference images instead of picking one yourself. The library page’s tabs filter by these same categories.

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Create an element

1

Choose a category

Pick the category that fits, or leave it on Auto and let the compiler infer it from what you upload.
2

Add reference images

Upload at least 1 and up to 4 images of the subject. More angles give the compiler more to work with.
3

Name it and add optional details

Give it a name, optionally steer how the compiler should treat the references (for example, ignoring an accessory), and optionally record a voice sample if the element should also speak consistently.

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Compiling the reference sheet

Once created, Flowy’s reference-sheet compiler analyzes your images and builds a production sheet: multiple consistent views of the subject rather than the source photos alone. An element moves through a short lifecycle while this happens: draft while it’s waiting to compile, parsing and rendering while the compiler works, then review once a sheet is ready for you to check. Approve the sheet to mark it ready, or recompile it if the result needs another pass, recompiling re-analyzes the references and rebuilds the sheet from scratch, so you’ll render and approve it again afterward.

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Use an element in a generation

Add an Element node to your canvas, its keyboard shortcut is ⇧K, and connect it into a workflow the same way you would any reference. Generations that use it draw on the compiled sheet with identity lock, keeping the subject’s appearance consistent across outputs. How much of the sheet a generation can draw on depends on the output type: image generations use up to 4 sheet views, video and 3D/Flam generations use up to 3.
Elements are also available over the API as /v1/elements, if you’re integrating rather than working from the canvas.
Last modified on August 29, 2026