Visual AI Experiments

Today I worked on creating various elaborate seaside rooms for Isca island. The architecture is based on Greek Island architecture, with that wonderful whitewashed look. Traditional cave houses (yposkafa) are literally carved into volcanic rock or slopes and are partially or fully underground. Eventually I need to make the Isca style not an exact duplicate of that style.

Main problems working with Midjourney and Nano Banana:

1. Midjourney kept adding Santoini style islands just offshore in the ocean view. This was obviously due to the fact that the interiors are inspired by Greek Island style.
2. I struggled with getting the bright, warm light filling the rooms. I ended up using an external editor to adjust brightness and contrast.
3. To get a sense of depth I need to use the “zoomed out 2x” feature in Midjourney, which create a kind of corridor that leads to the original room that was produced.

I started with this prompt:

A vast, carved-into-the-cliff Greek island cave interior, entirely whitewashed in Cycladic style, on the scale of a cathedral or airport terminal.

The living space is extremely large and elaborate: endless smooth plaster walls, vaulted and domed ceilings, thick rounded columns, and flowing cave-like corridors. Dozens of built-in niches, alcoves, and sculpted cubby holes line the walls, some used as seating, bookshelves, or display shelves with ceramics and seashells; others are empty, purely architectural recesses.

Rounded doorways and archways of varying sizes connect semi-hidden rooms and mezzanines, creating a labyrinth of softly curved openings. The ceiling is high and organic, with continuous curves and occasional skylight shafts where daylight pours in, making the white surfaces glow.

The floor is pale stone or polished white plaster with gentle level changes, built-in benches, and low, integrated sofas, all in the same continuous white material. Style references: Santorini and Cycladic cave houses with no sharp edges, minimal decor, and sculpted built-in furniture, but expanded to a monumental, almost surreal scale. The mood is serene, cool, and airy, with subtle shadows emphasizing depth in the niches and round doors.

Here are variations each having slightly different brightness adjustments. In this regard, I was most happy with first image here:

I added a character to make the sense a bit less empty. I uploaded a photo of her for reference:

The scene looked a bit pristine so I added “Make the rooms look lived in but not messy. I also changed her clothing: “She walks down the lower staircase in summery black wool wear (two piece)”.

She looks like a bit floaty and precarious, but it’s not bad overall.

I added a few more people as a test:

Well, now she’s walking quite daintily and not descending the lower staircase. Also, the other people shouldn’t be Caucasian. New attempt: “she walks down the lower staircase in summery black wool wear (two piece). make the rooms look lived in but not messy. also having a couple of other people of mixed race walking around and sitting.”

OK, not bad. I’ll call it a day. To truly finish I need the following, at least:

• More unique Iscaian take on cave buildings
• More authentic people and activities
• Encourage even less pristine interiors, make it look less like an architectural mock-up
• A mechanism to close the roof of this room
• Make the woman less dainty and more like an amateur investigator
• Maybe a little railing to protect people from falling down the lower stairs!

Here is the prompt to create this, using the photos below as inspiration:

Create a grand living room that’s 100 foot tall, with many tiers and seating areas. with light streaming through skylights. popular with plants and use the interior photos for inspiration. huge tall windows look out onto the crashing waves of the ocean. The pictured woman is seated in the room.

But it wasn’t sunny enough so, I asked Perplexity to rewrite the prompt:

Create a grand, sun‑drenched living room that is around 100 feet tall, with many tiers and seating areas cascading down toward the center. Harsh, bright midday sunlight pours through large skylights above, casting strong beams and long, well‑defined shadows across the floors, steps, and furniture. The space is lush with plants, especially large tropical varieties, thriving in the intense sunlight, and the layout and style feel like a modern, sculptural interior photograph. Huge, tall windows look out onto crashing ocean waves, with glittering reflections of the sun on the water. A woman is seated comfortably in the living room, partially lit by the sunlight, relaxing and observing the space. Overall lighting: bright, warm golden sunlight, high contrast, crisp highlights and deep but natural shadows, soft haze in the sunbeams, slight lens flare, sun‑kissed atmosphere, no artificial lights turned on, no gloomy or overcast mood.

Yielded this:

Yeah, definitely not bright enough for me. So I asked perplexity to make it a stark white, bright sun:

Create a grand living room that’s around 100 feet tall, with many tiers and seating areas. The room is flooded with stark white, very bright daylight, like clear midday sun. Hard white sunlight pours through the skylights, creating crisp, high‑contrast shadows with no warm golden tint. The plants and seating areas are lit by this pure white light, with bright white highlights and deep, clean shadows, almost high‑key. Huge tall windows look out onto crashing ocean waves, also lit by harsh white daylight with bright white reflections on the water. A woman is seated in the room, clearly visible, her face and body lit by stark white sunlight from above and the windows. Lighting: neutral 5600–6500K daylight, very bright, high contrast, strong white highlights, no warm color grading, no golden hour, no moody or dim lighting.

Now that’s brighter but too much of a cool white. The crashing waves seem a little too close to, and we lost the nice second floor. I went back to the previous image, and ask to make it brighter and warmer. I got this as a results:

A test of skylights and teardrop chairs: