fable 5.1 vs fable 5 vs opus 5 – three lord of the rings landmarks,...

fable 5.1 vs fable 5 vs opus 5 – three lord of the rings landmarks, built in 3d from one image

the setup: one reference image per scene, one html file per build, everything procedural – no meshes, no textures, no image files, nothing past @threejs from a cdn. each model reads the picture, writes its own prompt from it, then builds to that prompt in the same turn. three named camera shots per scene on keys 1/2/3, so it can be screen-recorded. run through @openrouter

tasks:

1. bag end – hobbiton from two frames, outside and in. the round green door has to open onto the room you are standing in

2. barad-dûr – the tower and orodruin from one film still. the eye has to move and track the camera, the volcano erupts on a cycle, the clouds never stop

3. rivendell – jerry vanderstelt's painting. sun shafts that shimmer, water that falls without a break, trees that sway on a gust

models: @anthropicai fable 5.1, fable 5, opus 5

total cost, three builds
#1 fable 5 – $14.97
#2 opus 5 – $18.53
#3 fable 5.1 – $22.38

wall clock, three builds
#1 fable 5 – 38m
#2 fable 5.1 – 92m
#3 opus 5 – 122m

output tokens
#1 fable 5 – 298,592
#2 fable 5.1 – 439,435
#3 opus 5 – 724,418

lines of code shipped
#1 fable 5 – 2,885
#2 fable 5.1 – 4,021
#3 opus 5 – 5,161

biggest single build, lines
#1 opus 5, bag end – 2,410
#2 fable 5.1, barad-dûr – 1,375
#3 fable 5, bag end – 1,319

observations:

• fable 5.1 is the only model that furnished the bag end interior – a live fire, panelling, books on the floor, leaded diamond windows, against fable 5's flat color and opus's dark tunnel. the round door outside opens onto that room, the hard part of the brief

• what it costs is thinking room. the 128k output ceiling is a thinking budget in disguise: fable 5.1 burned 102,116 of it on reasoning and hit the wall mid-file. opus spent 109,241 and hit the same wall. fable 5 spent 61,240 and finished bag end in one call – the only one that did

• fable 5.1's first pass is not the finished thing. its barad-dûr came back with three defects you only catch by looking at it – nothing a read of the code would have flagged

• it is the best of the three at being corrected. handed a plain list of what was wrong, it returned 32 targeted patches over two rounds, every one applied first try, and it worked out one of the causes itself instead of guessing at constants

conclusion: nine scenes, 12,067 lines and 1.46m output tokens for $55.88 all in – and the cheapest model was also the fastest, by 3.2x!

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