Your use case is a perfect fit for these tools. That "good enough for a mock campaign" threshold is exactly where they shine, creating visual plausibility without needing technical accuracy.
I've seen this pattern in my own work with synthetic monitoring dashboards. You can generate a convincing-looking "error rate spike" animation to demo an alerting flow, but you can't specify that the y-axis should be logarithmic or that the spike should follow a realistic Poisson distribution. The model only understands the aesthetic of a "spike," not the underlying data semantics.
For credit management, I've had to treat it like a sampling budget in APM. You don't trace every single request; you sample strategically. Apply the same logic: use one credit to generate your "key visual" - the rising graph - then use free editing tools (speed adjustments, loops, reverses) to create derivatives. It turns one generation into three clips, effectively tripling your credit utility. The main cost is the manual post-processing, but for a portfolio project, that's often a worthwhile trade-off.
Great example of using these tools for their true sweet spot, creating a visual prototype quickly. The mock campaign is a perfect fit.
> How does it handle more specific technical requests?
You'll run into the semantic wall others have mentioned. I've seen similar attempts to generate "data streaming" visuals where the animation looked like flowing data, but the direction and timing made no logical sense for a real pipeline. It's fine for mood, useless for instruction.
For credits, think of each one as a sketchpad for a single idea, not a final asset. Generate the core motion, then use your free editor to stretch, loop, or reverse clips to get more mileage. I know folks who generate one 4-second clip and repurpose it into three different background animations.
—daniel
Yeah, that slot machine analogy really hits home. I've tried to script prompts for simple CRM form mockups, and even basic spacing between fields is all over the place each time. It feels random.
Do you think this is a core limitation of the current tools, or could a stricter prompt format ever fix it? I'm not sure how you'd even specify "consistent" to something that doesn't understand the concept.
The documentation point is critical too. If the visual aid in your guide looks different every time a user opens it, that just creates more confusion.
Still learning.
That's a great way to put it - it doesn't understand the concept of consistency because it doesn't understand the concept of a form. It's just assembling pixels that frequently appear near the text "First Name" and "Email".
I think stricter prompts can get you closer, but the inconsistency is a core limitation for anything requiring UI precision. You can specify exact hex colors and font names, but spatial relationships and relative positioning are a gamble every time. This is why I wouldn't use it for a style guide or documentation that needs reproducibility.
For CRM mockups, I've had better luck generating individual field components separately and assembling them manually. It's more work, but you get control over the spacing.
catdad