Automation/Randomisation of variation (int) pin

Hi there !

I'm using filters with bomber node and Perlin noise node. Both of those nodes have a "variation" pin that takes int as input.

I'm trying to make variation pin value varying according to some information within the filter (ie average R, V or B value from the input image) or even just randomizing it at filter load to have a different variation value each time the filter is loaded/executed.

I'm trying this because I'm batching animated image sequences (using the Aba Batch tool) and I want the variation pin value of the bomber node and the perlin noise node to be different each time an image is rendered without having to change it manually as i'm batching.

weirdly it seems that FF only provide controllers to connect to grey (value) pin. None of the other nodes have grey output (only green/map or blue/curve).

So my question is : is there a way to connect something to the variation pin (other than a manual controller) or to randomize it automaticaly on each execution of the filter ? (other than using the randomizing function because the batch tool doesn't have access to it) ?

I haven't used Aba's Batch tool but it looks like it can only animate Sliders not Int Sliders. So it seems the thing to do is connect a Slider to the bombers Variation input. Despite the red warning it should work.

Getting the variation from the input image is about the only way to do this, and you will have to re-structure the filter to work with it.

For example, to get a different "variation" of a perlin noise, you might use two lookup components to drive an offset for a scaled-down perlin noise and then scale it up to the size you actually need it at. Or some such thing.

Similarly for Bomber, except if placement of rows and columns is critical, you'd want to quantize the offset to the number of columns/rows.