Perturb

The Perturb Live Effect may be applied both through the main menu (Effect > Randomino > Perturb...) as well as through the Perturb panel, which will appear in the main menu under Windows > Astute Graphics > Perturb:

Randomino's Perturb Panel

The Perturb panel is used in conjunction with the Perturb live effect, which allows you to independently move anchor points in the selected art in a random manner.

Perturb Panel Callouts

1. Distance controls

The maximum distance that each anchor point will be shifted (in a random direction); it may be adjusted with the slider or by typing a value into the input box. In Relative mode, the value is a percentage of the size of the object (as measured by the diagonal of its bounding box). In Absolute mode, it is a value in the current document units that does not depend on the path’s size.

Perturb Panel Distance Settings

2. Crinkle Controls

In general, Perturb is best for subtly changing paths; the distance parameter should be set to a value lower than the closest anchor points in the original paths. Otherwise, path segments can cross and the results are generally not desirable. However, the Crinkle parameter attempts to allow for higher distance values. When the Crinkle value is low, the closer each object’s anchor points are to each other, the more similarly they will be moved. This allows distortion of an entire shape without losing fine details within the shape. Regardless of Crinkle value, points that are coincident will be moved identically.

Perturb Panel Crinkle Settings

3. Seed Button

Changes the random seed. Each seed value creates a specific set of random values which Perturb uses to offset the points. When applying the Perturb effect to multiple copies of one object, they will initially have the same seed and therefore look the same. Clicking the seed button will give each a new seed. To view the seed value or to set a specific seed value, Option/Alt-click the button.

Perturb Panel Seed Settings

4. Ignore Grouping checkbox

When this preference is enabled, grouped objects will be treated as if they were ungrouped. Coincident points of different paths in the group will no longer be locked together.

Perturb Ignore Grouping Option

5. Apply button

Click to apply the Perturb effect to the selected artwork. To apply multiple Perturb effects to a single piece of artwork, use the main Illustrator menu item Effect > Randomino > Perturb..., or Option/ Alt-drag the Perturb effect in the Appearance panel. For example, the stroke and the fill of a path could be independently Perturbed.

6. Copy popup menu

Chooses which Perturb effect to edit, when the selected artwork has multiple Perturb effects.

7. Flyout menu

Removes all top-level Perturb effects from the selected artwork. Note that if a Perturb effect is applied to an individual member of a group and the entire group is selected, the menu item will not be available.

8. Panel banner

The help button on the right opens the help documentation in the Astute Manager. If this does not automatically appear, please ensure your Astute Manager is running first.