Batch GUI Tool for Windows

Thank you thank you, it is great this little software!
On the other hand I am afraid I can not do what I wanted.

I would like that if I choose 10 images between two presets and 12 sources of images, it creates me only 12 images output, not 12x12!

Is there a way to do this?

Hi Aba, superb software !!!

I just try with 10 images as input and 10 then 8 output and it comes out well a hundred images and not 10.

Ok, now I see what you mean. No I'm sorry, there is no way that the program could know which image you want to be rendered by which preset-step. You could select one image and render only one step between presets, you would have to do this 10 times.... Or maybe you can delete the output you don't need. Changing the tool to behave like you suggest would take me too much time now, I'm sorry for that.

Quote

Aba posted: Ok, now I see what you mean. No I'm sorry, there is no way that the program could know which image you want to be rendered by which preset-step. You could select one image and render only one step between presets, you would have to do this 10 times.... Or maybe you can delete the output you don't need. Changing the tool to behave like you suggest would take me too much time now, I'm sorry for that.

An option like that would be perfect to complete this tool i guess

For example when you have 10 pictures and you want to animate these between 2 presets in filterforge. It would end up like this;

- picture 1 is 100% preset 1
- picture 5 is 50% preset 1 50% preset 2
- picture 10 is 100% preset 2

In this way you can render video's to images, batch render & animate them in filterforge, and render them back to a video.

What do you need for this to make Aba?
Would be fantastic anyhow..

Quote
I would need some more free time... But I'll consider it when/if I upgrade the tool to FF7.

Would be really awesome!

I did find a bit of a workaround for it for now at least. If you copy the FF7 library folder in the AppData folder and label it as FF6 then redirect the batch tool to use the FF7 CMD Renderer it seems to work just fine.

Kinda whacky to manage it if you keep making new filters and such often though

Hopefully, that helps anyone else with FF7 who wishes to use this super handy tool too.

I'm assuming that a working version of this would allow someone to use filter forge as a sort of rudimentary frame processor for footage?

Just thought it might be kind of cool to try a fast toycam filter on footage/cg to make it resemble 60's/70's tv, or kaiju movies...

Crowdfunding for batch-tool

Hi, I would like to try to make a new version of my windows batch tool (windows only interface to FilterForge). Maybe without the possibility to stack filters but with more possibilities to render short "video's" as suggested by MrZun / Mascarponi or with a randomizer.

No garanties, but if somebody has a FF 7 license for me I will give it a try.

That would be great!

Awesome, thanks for the update.

Wow.

I sent aba an email and he responded immediately.

I have just had my first attempt at using FFBatch Tool, and I am VERY impressed. There are very creative people out there who contribute so much. I am a beginner with FF and at the ripe old age of 71, some of the brain cells are conking out, but the BatchTool may be just what I need.

Indeed if it does what I want it to, I will purchase the lifetime upgrade plus the library etc.

Best wishes to all the creative folk out there and seeya.

Paul.

New Batchtool FFBAT (FilterForge Batch (Animation) Tool)

Hi, I am working on a new version of my (Windows only) batch tool for FilterForge.
This version is more suitable if you want to use only one filter. It has a lot less possibilities than my other (previous) batch tool, but this one is suitable for animation. And it is hopefully easier to use.

It does not interfere with my other tool, so you can use both if you want.

There are two different ways to use this new tool:

1 -> N: One input image (or texture size) with one filter and
- choose one or more presets that are defined in filterforge
- optional set the number of presets that has to be calculated between those pre-defined presets
- in case of a 3D filter; choose the outputmaps

N -> N: A directory with images with one filter and
- choose one preset and render all output images or
- choose two presets and let the tool calculate all the values in between (every image an other preset). You can choose to start with the first preset and end with the second (linear) or let the tool generate random presets between the two predefined preset for each image.

You can render video's to images (not with this tool). Render each image with a FilterForge filter in a way as described under N -> N. For small video's you can make an animated gif with this tool (not a very good compression though), for longer or "greater" video's you should use an other tool to render a video from the images.

I think a tool like this should be supplied by FilterForge, but it is on the whish-list for so many years now that I don't think they ever will give it the priority it needs. Until then you may use my tool.

Feel free to do feature requests.
A not-tested FF6 version is possible if really needed.

Let me know if you find it usefull or if you encounter bugs

You can download the zip-file from my dropbox: FF7BAT1 (2018-06-15)

Have Fun!

Hello,
It works, it's extra!

Big question: Is there a way to make several renderings in a row?
I tried to launch 2 instances of the software but the rendering did not work properly.
For example if I have 20 presets N-> N, I have to wait until the end of the first to configure and launch the next?
Is there a trick?

Thank you

Thank you Emme but my question is about the new Batchtool "FFBAT" with the option N->N (video source)

Small bug: "value control" is not animated
(It's the only controller that allows negative numbers and illimited maxi/mini !)

Hi all,

First of all, thanks 2 Aba for all his great work on the FFbatchtool, and the new FFBAT!! Looks very promising. However, when trying to run both new files it seems my system doesn't allow them to run.

Before i found out that there was a new Batchtool by Aba i had installed FilterForge on my software partition (another harddisk). When trying to run the batch tool i got an error: Batchtool could not find C:\Program Files\Filter Forge 7\Bin\FFXCmdRenderer-x64.exe.
So i re-installed Filterforge in the C:\Program Files\ directory. But then, when i try to run both the Batchtool or FFBAT, nothing happens..

I'm working on Win10 with the latest FF version (7.007).

Anybody an idea?

I installed FF7 on my win7 computer, and there it works
As far as i can see all the files are in the same folders as on my Win10 computer.
Might have something to do with administrator rights/permissions on Win10 or something.

Btw; When i run FFBAT or the Batch tool on Win10, it launches, because i see the process is starting up in task manager, it then stays there for 20 seconds, gathers more memory (about 30mb) and then quits..

So, I'll run it on my older Win7 system

Wonderfull tool, thanks Aba!

Hi Mascarponi, just wondering; are you sure that all your FF6 favorite filters are accessible in FF7?

Strange... I compared my favorites.xml in FF6 and FF7, they are the same so copying should work. But my favorites.xml is not in the Filter Forge 7\System subdirectory, it is one level up.

An FF user recently sent us a version of FFBAT that is supposed to work with Filter Forge 8:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/i5731x4pzsyktss/FFBAT8.zip

I have no idea if it works as intended but I guess it's better than nothing. I only had it scanned by a virus checker to confirm it is clean. We (Filter Forge, Inc) don't support or endorse it, all credits go to the original author (aba) and the author of the fix (Tiny Toon).

I hope we'll come up with a batch tool of our own some day.

For those of you wishing to launch multiple instances/ batches see my post here (https://filterforge.com/forum/read.php?TID=12909) it's an effective method of doing so. I use it frequently and have had as many as 31 instances running at once. I'm not sure if this works for the new tool but it should or a similar workaround should be possible if it doesn't.

Hey aba,

I've got another feature request I've been meaning to mention for a while now. This one is for the original tool but could maybe apply to the new one as well.

The option to select presets by way of a comma-separated list pasted into the app somewhere on the Select Presets page. I like to batch render hundreds of presets at a time as small images, then go back through and render the best ones as much larger images. Being able to paste a list of those instead of scrolling through all the presets trying to find them would save me a lot of time and probably avoid mistakes on my part too. Maybe it could be something simple like a quick list of numbers (11, 18, 123, 215, etc). This would be really helpful I think.

Random side note: You can have at least 500 presets in FF, I've actually had more on one filter but beyond 500 and the FF UI starts to have responsiveness issues for me so I tend to cap it at 500 and just clone the filter if I need more

Also, just to clarify, when I mentioned having multiple instances above I wasn't suggesting multiple instances of this app were needed, rather you can use this app to launch multiple instances of the FF command line renderer. The thread I linked explains how to go about it.

Hey aba,

That really sucks that you've decided to pull the plug on this. I know that you've put a lot of hard work into these tools so it seems like such a waste to abandon them after all that. I get that you're angry about it being "hacked" but that could easily be resolved by making an official version that does what the hack was claiming to do and asking GMM to remove the link for the hacked version. Anyone continuing to use that one after you released a proper version would be doing so at their own risk and would have no right to blame you if anything negative occurred from doing so. I think abandoning this will just serve to help make your concerns more likely to occur as more and more people will probably try to decompile the original and modify it since there would no longer be any updates.

Also, it seems a bit harsh to discontinue these tools and essentially punish the whole community for one person's actions. I personally had nothing to do with his decision and I'm sure most or all of the other users of your tools are in the same boat.

At the very least wouldn't it make more sense to put the tools on GitHub? Then you would have control over the source code and the community could still benefit from your efforts as well as help you with the burden of maintaining the tools through version updates and feature enhancements. They may even add features that you would have never thought of and can benefit from too. This would also double over as a free location to host the official versions, and it could offer you more insight as to how much of the community is using your tools since GitHub has metrics and hit counts for all kinds of things.