How do you compare, review and select AI-generated variants?
Keep related attempts as sibling Variants under one Asset, compare their actual media and stored Recipes, and explicitly Activate the completed Variant that should represent the Asset. Generate starts a new Asset; Regenerate replays a Recipe unchanged; Vary adds a deliberately changed sibling; Retry reruns one failed Variant unchanged. Copy starts a separate Asset from existing media, while Delete permanently removes an eligible result. The main Variant records the current selection without inventing a separate review state.
Which attempts belong under one Asset?
Use one Asset for alternative results of the same creative object and media family. Use a new Asset for a different object or dependent deliverable. The public Night Market recorded session shows Mara the Lantern-Keeper as one Asset with three image Variants; the derived Mara — idle loop is a separate video Asset.
What should you compare before selecting a Variant?
Compare the media against the brief, then inspect its Recipe and References. The recorded Mara sequence generated 37045c43, regenerated pose as e3fc8162, regenerated expression as 4904331f, and kept 4904331f main.
When should you Generate, Regenerate, Vary, Retry, Activate, Copy, or Delete?
| Decision | Action |
|---|---|
| Start a new object | Generate creates an Asset and first Variant. |
| Replay a completed result unchanged | Regenerate creates a sibling from the same Recipe. |
| Deliberately change a completed result | Vary creates a sibling from a patched Recipe. |
| Repeat an unchanged failed attempt | Retry keeps its identity and Recipe. |
| Select the representative result | Activate changes the main Variant. |
| Start a separate Asset without generation | Copy records copied provenance. |
| Permanently remove eligible work | Delete has no trash or restore. |
Recorded regeneration output:
✓ sibling asset:mara-the-lantern-keeper~0f4af497@4904331f · now main
What protects the current selection?
The main Variant remains selected while regeneration runs; failure never changes it. Success selects the sibling only if nobody selected another Variant after submission. Activate another completed Variant before deleting the current one, and delete the Asset to remove its only Variant.
Review the lifecycle in Core Concepts, compare visually with the Web Workspace guide, and connect decisions to evidence in the reproducibility guide. Start with the MakeFX quickstart to compare results in a Space.