How to randomize any value every frame between specific interval?

Question

I'd like to randomize any value. Here's an example: I'd like to randomize emission strength of a material every frame change between 0-15.

Answer 1

Since comments are temporary, I decided to steal James_t idea as my answer:

You can click on the emission strength in Principled BSDF node, and type/paste there:

#noise.random()*4 if((frame > 0) and (frame <= 15)) else 0

The # tells Blender to not evaluate it once, but rather to create a driver and evaluate the expression on every frame. Once the field becomes purple, it means it's driven, and subsequent edits of the formula should omit the hash character, or the formula will become invalid.

The 4 is arbitrary and changes the output range from $[0;1)$ [source] to $[0;4)$.

I decided to leave the original formula by James, as some might find it more readable, but there are more concise ways of writing it in Python:

#noise.random()*4 if 0 < frame <= 15 else 0

and even

#noise.random()*4 *(0 < frame <= 15)

In order to get the same amount of control as with Map Range node, replace noise.random()*x with minimum + noise.random()*(maximum-minimum), for example, if you would put 3 as To Min and 10 as To Max, the formula would be 3+noise.random()*(10-3), which can be shortened to 3+noise.random()*7

Once you type/paste the formula and press Enter, you will get a warning message:

Clicking on Allow Execution will not make it work. Opening the console through menu Window > Toggle System Console will reveal an error:

        BPY_driver_eval() - restricted access disallows name 'random', enable auto-execution to support

Error in Driver: The following Python expression failed:
        'noise.random()*4 *(0 < frame <= 15)'

You need to go to menu Edit > Preferences... Save & Load, and enable Auto Run Python Scripts.

⚠ WARNING! Enabling this option introduces a severe security vulnerability. Every time you download some .blend file from the Internet, there's a risk it contains a virus in Python form. From now on this virus will be able to run. This is why it's strongly recommended to exclude the folders, from which you run .blend files from unverified sources, from automatic execution!

Finally, you can click on the purple field, just to press Enter again and now it will work.

This solution is not deterministic; Rendering the animation twice will end up with two different animations, because by default the random value is based on current system time (which changes between renders). In order to deal with this, you have to change the formula to something like this:

[noise.seed_set(floor(frame)), noise.random()*4 *(0 < frame <= 15)][1]

This ensures the value changes between frames, but the same frame rendered multiple times will output the same value each time. However, using this formula for multiple objects will end up with the same value for each object! If you want to combat that, you need:

[noise.seed_set(floor(frame+519752137)), noise.random()*4 *(0 < frame <= 15)][1]

where 519752137 is just some random number you change for each formula.

The length of this answer proves Nathan's point:

Certainly, drivers are a way to do this, but I tend to think of drivers as less accessible than solutions that rely more on nodes

Answer 2

To randomize a material value, you can use a noise node (white noise or noise depending on your needs; scale of the noise node, again, depending on your needs. Your choices affect the distribution of the random value.)

To get the current frame count, you can use a value node with a value driven from the current frame. Blender provides a simple interface for this: you just type "#frame" in the value field.

To remap the value that a noise texture outputs (which exists between 0 and 1 by default) you can use a map range node. Below, I'm remapping from 0,1 to 0,15.

Randomizing non-material values is sometimes possible, sometimes not, and uses different methods; if curious about randomizing some specific non-material value, it'd be best to ask about that specifically. Since you gave the example of emission here, I demonstrated randomization of material values only.