Filter Forge Batch Wrapper

USAGE given in .pdf file in distribution archive at filterforgebatchwrapper. You'll need 7-zip to open it. Public Domain sources at GitHub.

There are two ways to start batch renders:

1.Drag-and-drop an image folder onto the ffBatch.exe file, or

2.Copy all the images you wish to render into the srcImg directory in the
same folder as the executable, and run ffBatch.exe

FEATURES:

Render, via Filter Forge's command-line renderer, many images, using many different filters, with presets you choose, and using random variations per preset.

Suitable for creation of animations where every frame uses a different variation (0-30,000) in the preset. The default settings will produce a render using a new randomly drawn variation number between 1-30,000 (where applicable) for every image.

With the default settings, you can drag-and-drop a folder onto the executable multiple times to produce new random variation renders from every image in the folder.

Network rendering; you may run the program on many workstations cooperating on source images from a server directory; theoretically by drag-and-drop from a network drive folder—which is not tested, but I have tested it to work with manual .ini paths setup using the same network drive folder.

Specify the preset number to use.

Show or hide the render console during the batch run.

Save the render settings of each image (the image can easily be exactly recreated with the source image and saved xml).

Render images in random order and by random filter order (good for exploring possibilities from a lot of source images/filters).

Use one randomly sel ected filter (fr om the filter list) only once for each image, to see many randomly selected filter effects only one per image.

Sort source image into a _rendered subfolder (of the images source folder) after render, to prevent duplicate renders of it (e.g. in future runs or if you change settings and run the render again).

*if, for example, the folder you drag-and-drop onto this executable is a sequence of images in an animation, and you list the Sketchy Paint filter in ffFilterList.txt, then every filter-rendered frame of the animation (in the mentioned new sub-folder) will use a new random "seed" or variation for that filter--the appearance of brush strokes (or whatever other randomness is changed with the variation of any filter) for every frame. You can then join these filter renders back together into a new, Filter-Forge stylized (potentially mind-blowing) animation. For now, that may have to involve some file-renaming-fu e.g. via http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA0148.../FlexRena/ to get the rendered images into a file name sequence acceptable to frame-importing animation software.

Hi earthbound !

found out your batch wrapper/tool and managed to make it work ! Thanks for sharing it, it works really good !

I was very pleased to find it because I was trying to batch images sequences while changing/randomizing variation values for each image, and It seems that your tool is able to do it !

So i prepared my filters by selecting the parameters to connect to the variation slider/parameter in FF. However I didn't managed to get it to output different/random variations for each images, it seems that each image are outputted with the same filter settings.

//first i'm using FF5
So here is my walkthrough with your tool (maybe I did something wrong) :

- editing the ini file according to my filter forge folders, image folders, filter name etc...

the first thing I noticed is that the image source folder drag and drop method didn't worked for me ;
the solution I used is to generate a text list of my source images (more than 1000, so writing it by hand isn't a good idea ) using a program called Directory List + Print.
then I paste the list into the SourceImageList.txt file of your Batch Wrapper.

Then If I start it, It still didn't output batches images. It seems that it also need the Filter Forge Batch Template XML file, so I putted it into the batch tool folder too, and then it works !
But It seems that the Template XML override the ini file settings (ie the preset value is always the one present in xml and not the one in the ini file, filter value has the same problem)

is it normal ?

also I followed the help file you provide with it and put :

Code
Variation Randomization Range=1-1000

in the ini file, but it seems that the batch tool only output images with the same variation value. (it's my main question because It's what I was trying to get)

anyway, your tool works really well, If you can help me with those small problems, I would be really happy


for informations here is my ini file settings :

Code
Global Filter Preset Number Override=3 Variation Randomization Range=1-100 Rendering Console Visibility=Show Keep Generated XML And FFXML Batch And Filter Settings Files=True Randomly Shuffle Source Images List=False Randomly Shuffle Filter List File Names=True Render Only One Random Filter Per Image=False Sort Source After Render=False

and the top of the template xml :

Code
<Task>       <Image value="img.jpg" />       <Selection value="" />       <Result path="ff_output\img_out.tif" format="TIF" />       <Filter value="C:\Users\crasse\AppData\Roaming\Filter Forge 5\My Filters\Sketchy Painting_A_Seed_a.ffxml" />       <Preset value="3" />    </Task>

Crasse,

I'm sorry I missed your reply post. I will try to make time to address the bugs or ease of use issues you detail--and thanks for detailing all that--! but I unfortunately can't guarantee I'll get to it.

I can tell you I've gotten the variation randomization to work myself, so it's certainly possible, but obviously something is making it not work in your case.

I'm updating the OP to also disclaim that it's only been tested in Filter Forge 4 :/

Oh, excellent!

I apparently can't modify the OP any more. It remains to be seen whether it works with Filter Forge 6, and I don't care to test it with versions earlier than 4

Quote
crasse wrote: i'm not planning on getting it soon, the 5 is doing the job for what i'm doing right now, but as soon as I get the 6 i'll test it quickly

You do not need to buy FF 6 to be able to test it, there is the free 30 days FF 6.0 trial, and you can install it together with version 5, as they are independent

By freaky coincidence, this evening I'm using it again for the first time in too long and have been mystified at its' non-workingness, and suspected that the sed utility was missing, so I googled the utility's name to find where I'd distributed it in working form--and found your post here describing the exact same problem, posted after quite some while also today.

(It's lying about the date of my post. I'm in a time zone where it's still the 13th.)

What are the odds??! Something cosmic here. Yoink!

YEP. Extract that sed utility out of the .7z distro and put in the tools' path, and it works again.

Anyway thanks for the note and I'll get that ~sed exe into the github repository pronto!

great earthbound !! I'll check it out soon, thanks for improving your tool and sharing it, it's still the best for me, and I'm still using it

Hello friends! this is exactly what i´m looking for. I created a filter with a variation slider and i would like to be able to run each image in one of the variations. I downloaded the repo from github but it won´t create the computer...:. ini. I would really like to make this work. Any hints about that? i´m using windows 10 and filterforge 7. Thank you