Create Printable Mazes

If you are a Pro Member at The Problem Site, you have the opportunity to use our maze creator to build, print, and share your own mazes based on a base image you upload.  On this page you will find detailed instructions on building your own mazes.

Step One: Pick an Image

The very best kind of image to use is a silhouette, since the site uses the dark areas of the image to form the interior of the maze.  You don't need to use a silhouette image, but for non-silhouette images, please be sure your image has areas of stark contrast, so the site can "find" the image you want to use.

If you don't want to use an image, you can build a maze based on a freehand picture you create right on the site.

Step Two: Create a New Maze

From the "Mazes" module of your Pro Control Panel, click "New".  You will be able to choose from the following options:

• Title: Select a descriptive name which will make it obvious what the maze subject is.
• Keywords: keywords are helpful if you intend to share the maze on the site.  Visitors will be able to search for your maze based on the keywords.  This is the least important part of the maze setup, and you are welcome to leave this section blank if you wish.
• Blank Canvas: choose this option if you intend to draw a freehand image as the basis for your maze.  Otherwise, leave it unchecked.
• Media Files: If you are not doing freehand drawing, browse to the image file you want to use on your computer.  The file size is limited to 100K, so scale down images if necessary.
• Click "Submit."

Step Three: Edit Your Base Image

Even if you have uploaded an image, instead of doing a freehand image, you may need to do some freehand work to improve your image before creating the maze.  The site has attempted to turn your image into a black-and-white silhouette (remember that the black region is the interior of the maze!).  Depending on the image, you may need to tweak what the site has done.

• Was your image too dark (too much of the image was converted to black)?  Click "Reset image/brightness" and put a positive number in the "brightness" textbox, then submit.
• Was your image too light (not enough of the image was converted to black)?  Click "Reset image/brightness" and put a negative number in the "brightness" textbox, then submit.
• Do you want to reverse the black and white regions?  Click "Reset image/brightness" and select "Inverted image," then submit.
• Does your image have more than one black region, which are not connected?  Before you can create your maze, all black regions must be connected.  Use the brush-style toolbar on the left to modify pixels in your image.  You can also repair jagged lines and bumps using these tools.
• When you are done editing your base image, click "Finish."  If you have orphaned pixels (pixels that don't touch the rest of the black region) you'll be prompted to repair this problem.  Otherwise, the screen will refresh, and you will be able to work on making small, medium, and large mazes based on your image.

Step Four: Creating Small, Medium, and Large Mazes

Notice that at the top of the screen there is a drop-down list with maze sizes.  Choose the size image you want to work on.  The image you see is a scaled version of your base image, and you may need to repair pixels that were lost in the scaling process. Use the brush-style toolbar to tweak the image.

Once you've made tweaks to the image and saved it, you'll be prompted to select a starting point for the maze.  this must be a pixel on the edge of the black region.  If the pixel you select is adjacent to two or more white pixels, you'll then be prompted to select one of those white pixels as the direction from which the maze is entered.

You will repeat this process for the end point, and when you are done, the maze will be created.  You can watch the site design your maze; the site breaks the region down into smaller maze paths (turning them red in the process) and then connects those paths (turning them green).  This changing of the colors is sort of like a progress bar, showing you the progress in designing the maze.

After the maze creation is complete, the page will refresh, and you'll see the next maze size.

Do you have to make multiple sizes?  No!  But it's easy to do, and if you want to have your maze published on the site, it's best to do that.

Also, you should note that you don't have to make the start and end point in the same location for each size maze.

Publishing Your Maze

Click here to read about how to publish your maze.

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