What I learned using AI to make maze art
When I started this blog series on AI image generators I said I wanted to answer some questions. After spending a full month using and working with a dozen text to image generators let’s see what I have learned. Here is the original post with the questions, and my added answers:
What do I hope to accomplish ?
See what the competition is. How good is the output.
The output was mixed, with some generators producing intriguing abstract patterns while others struggled with basic maze structures. I did not find any generator who could actually make maze art if only because the current text to image generators can’t make a solvable maze. They can make maze and labyrinth inspired images that are wonderful. They just can’t be solved. I think this will be fixed just like “hands” were fixed.
Become more familiar with what AI image generators are capable of
It seems the standard is to generate 4 images from every prompt text you input, allowing you to pick the best. Many of them also have pre-selectable styles. Each site has a slightly different style and strengths. I found the sites I like to use and those I don’t.
Evaluate and compare the different sites to determine how well they create based on my prompts
As discussed in my previous post there are 4 sites that were better than the rest in my challenge ! Different prompts may mean slightly different results but I imagine the order would not meaningfully change much with new prompts. Some sites just work better than others.
Be inspired (hopefully)
Yes. So many interesting takes on my text prompts (many more terrible ones, but..). I think these sites are a good place to look for inspiration.
Answer: Can I compete with AI generated maze art ?
Right now, they cannot compete with the current quality of maze artists. The odd thing is that a standard program for computer programmers to write is an algorithm to create a maze. There are dozens of sites, many that I have reviewed before to do this. At some point an AI text to image will learn from these sites and I will need to come back to reevaluate this.
And some additional things I learned:
Asking for a famous building means you may not get the full building - usually the top is cut off for some reason. Here is a gallery of the prompt “Make a medium difficulty maze of the Eiffel tower in black and white with arrows at the start and finish” from many different sites. I think none of these actually came out as I expected and none of them were able to execute the prompt.
Prompts are often ignored. Expect the AI’s to miss some things. It might be you and a bad prompt…it might be the AI. A few sites allow you to select an image to “start” with as inspiration. So if things aren’t quite what you want, keep manipulating an image until you get it right.
Sometimes you write a bad prompt. If you keep getting bad outputs on multiple websites, the problem is your writing. I would give the example I used for #7 “Make a maze of a slice of an orange in color” didn’t work. My bad.
It's best to approach AI image generation with an open mind, rather than trying to achieve a specific outcome. Better to try a prompt and see what comes out. I cannot tell you how many times I have prompted “make a maze on the surface of the Death Star” because I knew it would be awesome and I have yet to be impressed. Here is one from StarryAI. It looks cool but is not what I wanted because I was expecting a specific look.
While this is the end of this blog series, I will continue to play around with AI generators and you can expect more content from me on the subject !
Conclusion:
While AI image generators can create visually interesting maze-like patterns, they still fall short of producing truly solvable mazes.
If you missed any of the previous 13 blog posts in the series here is the full series with links:
An exploration into Al Image Maze Generation
Making mazes with AI: Stable Diffusion
Making mazes with AI: Dream by Wombo
Making mazes with AI: Nightcafe
Making mazes with AI: StarryAI
Making mazes with AI: AI Image Generator
Making mazes with AI: Photosonic
Making mazes with AI: Bing AI Maze Generator
Comparison of 12 AI generating websites - Who did mazes the best ?
See you soon with more maze content ! And don’t forget to check out my maze art !