Installing dwpose in ComfyUI sounds like a developer chore, but it is honestly one of the friendlier setups in the AI image world. There is no big framework to build and no model files to hunt down by hand. You install one custom node pack, restart ComfyUI, drop in a node, and the first time you run it, the dwpose models download themselves. This guide takes you through the whole thing in order, from a plain ComfyUI install to a working skeleton map of your own test photo, and it flags the couple of spots where people usually get stuck.
What You Need Before You Start
Keep this short and simple. You need:
- A working ComfyUI install that opens in your browser.
- An internet connection for the first run, since the model files download automatically.
- A test photo with one clearly visible person in it.
- Optionally, an NVIDIA GPU. Dwpose runs on CPU too, just slower, so a GPU is a comfort rather than a requirement.
You do not need to download dwpose separately from a research page or a code repository. The version you want lives inside a ComfyUI node pack, and that pack handles the model files for you.
Step 1: Install ComfyUI Manager
ComfyUI Manager is a helper extension that lets you browse and install custom nodes from inside the ComfyUI interface, instead of cloning folders in a terminal. If your ComfyUI install already shows a Manager button, you are set. If it does not, add it first by following the Manager project’s own install steps for your setup, then restart ComfyUI. Nearly every ComfyUI user ends up with Manager installed sooner or later, because almost every useful node pack, including the one carrying dwpose, is distributed through it.
Step 2: Install the comfyui_controlnet_aux Node Pack
Now open Manager, go to the custom nodes browser, and search for comfyui_controlnet_aux. This pack, made by Fannovel16, bundles a whole family of ControlNet preprocessors: line art detectors, depth estimators, and the one you came for, the DWPose Estimator. Click install, let it finish completely, then restart ComfyUI and refresh your browser tab. Restarting matters here. ComfyUI only loads new nodes at startup, so a pack that looks missing is often just a restart that has not happened yet.
Step 3: Find the DWPose Estimator Node
Back in ComfyUI, double-click an empty part of the canvas and search for “dwpose”. You should see the DWPose Estimator node appear. Add it, then build the smallest possible test chain:
- Add a Load Image node and pick your test photo.
- Connect the image output of Load Image to the image input of DWPose Estimator.
- Add a Preview Image (or Save Image) node and connect the estimator’s output to it.
That is the whole skeleton of the workflow. The estimator takes your photo in and pushes a skeleton map out, and your preview node shows you the result.
Step 4: Let the Models Download on First Run
Press Queue Prompt and give it a moment. The first run is slower than every run after it, because the node pack downloads the dwpose model files automatically: the pose model dw-ll_ucoco_384.onnx and the person detector yolox_l.onnx. Together they come to a few hundred MB, and they are stored inside the node pack’s model storage folder so future runs just load them. Watch the ComfyUI console window while this happens. A healthy first run shows download progress, then finishes with a skeleton in your preview node. If the download fails, it is almost always a blocked connection or an interrupted transfer, and the fixes article below covers that case.
Step 5: Check the Skeleton Looks Right
Look at your preview. You want a clean stick figure that mirrors your photo: arms and legs in the right places, little finger fans on the hands, and a ring of points around the face. Check the hands especially, since good hand keypoints are the main reason people pick dwpose. If the skeleton is there and it matches the pose, your install is complete and healthy. From here, the natural next step is feeding that skeleton into a ControlNet workflow, which the ControlNet guide below covers in full.
Keeping the Node Pack Updated
ComfyUI moves fast, and the controlnet_aux pack moves with it. When ComfyUI itself updates, there is a decent chance the node pack needs an update too, and version mismatches between the two are a classic source of strange errors. Make a habit of opening Manager after a ComfyUI update and updating comfyui_controlnet_aux at the same time, then restarting. Newer versions of the pack also add fresh dwpose model options based on RTMW, so staying current quietly improves your results as well as your stability.
Installing Without Manager
If you prefer the manual route, or your setup has no Manager, you can install the pack directly. Custom node packs for ComfyUI live in the custom_nodes folder inside your ComfyUI directory. Clone or download the comfyui_controlnet_aux project from its GitHub page into that folder, keeping the project’s own folder name, then restart ComfyUI. The result is identical to the Manager route; Manager simply automates the downloading and updating for you. One caution with the manual route: you are now responsible for updates, so when ComfyUI changes and your dwpose node starts misbehaving, refreshing that folder with the latest version of the pack is your first move. The models still download automatically on first run either way, so nothing else about the process changes.
A Quick Word About Disk Space and Model Storage
People occasionally worry that dwpose will swallow their drive. It will not. The automatic download is a few hundred MB in total, tucked inside the node pack’s own model storage, and it happens once. If you later want to confirm the files arrived, look inside the comfyui_controlnet_aux folder for its model storage area and check for the two ONNX files named earlier. Finding both files there, fully downloaded, is a good sign when you are troubleshooting. Seeing a tiny partial file instead usually means the first download got interrupted, and deleting it so the pack can fetch a clean copy is the standard fix.
What If the DWPose Node Does Not Appear?
Do not panic, and do not reinstall ComfyUI. Work through the boring causes first, because one of them is nearly always responsible. Restart ComfyUI fully rather than just refreshing the browser tab, since nodes load at startup. Open Manager and confirm the comfyui_controlnet_aux pack shows as installed and up to date. Check that the pack sits in the custom_nodes folder under its own project folder, not flattened or nested twice by an unzip gone wrong. Then search the node menu for “dwpose” again, and try “estimator” if the short search finds nothing. If the node is still missing after that, the fixes article linked below walks through the deeper causes, including reading the startup log for a failed import.
Conclusion
That is the entire install: Manager first, then the comfyui_controlnet_aux pack, a restart, the DWPose Estimator node, and one patient first run while the ONNX models download themselves. No manual model hunting, no code to compile. Once your test photo produces a skeleton you are happy with, dwpose is installed properly, and you can move on to the fun part of actually steering Stable Diffusion with it.
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