Premades and Precepts » names

More random generators

chann — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 01:43:27 +0000

I’ve posted in the past about my fondness for using random generators while simming. For the moments that your own creativity doesn’t cut it, it’s always fun to defer to a random number and a list of elements; it’s all the better when the power of computing and other people’s work does the work for you!

OK, I’ll get to the point now. I’ve added several more random generators to my links, mainly for my own reference, but there’s probably somebody out there who will find them useful too. Hover over the links for a short description of what you can do with them, but note that not all of the links have descriptions. I’m lazy.

More randomly-generated goodness – novels!

chann — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 23:01:39 +0000

Random Title Generator (Internet Archive) – I got some great dramatic/fiction titles out of this. Examples – The Unwilling Tales, Ravaged Edge, The Ragged Dreamer, Wanton Winter.

Fantasy Novel Title Generator – Actually I can’t remember at the moment whether Fantasy is an available genre, but whatever. Finally, you can put names to the vaunted God and Illusion Cycle: The Dream of the Children, The Lollian Rogue, The Discord of Adian, and Master and Empire (coming in Summer 2010).

Random Speculative Fiction Title Generator – you gotta hit this one a few times to get some interesting titles. Like Killing of the Worm, Dark Station, Ghost Vendetta, and my personal favourite: Sword Spam!

By the way, I was planning an update to the lot rotation experiment I had going on. I got up to the middle of the seventh round, but I was let down by two things: boredom with the Sims themselves, and a lack of good housing in Riverview. Unfortunately I’m not that great a builder, and the complex decoration in the building options puts me off a little. Also I don’t like massive lots – another reason to wait for the World Builder to come out, I suppose.

So, I’ve wiped Riverview and I’m currently playing one of the random families that decided to sneak in while Story Progression was left on.

A good name for a painting or a star

chann — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:55:45 +0000

I added a couple of useful links to the sidebar under ‘Need Names?’ I’m typically uncreative when it comes to naming stuff, and when prompted to give something a name I will run off and try to find a random name generator.

I’ve recently come across two:

For artwork names

http://noemata.net/pa/titlegen/ – For naming Sim paintings. Who can resist ‘Pathological Echo’, ‘Sketch of Drunk Figure’, or ‘Nude Deciphering the Orange Field’?

For star names

http://direpress.bin.sh/tools/sf_name.html – choose ‘Space’ in the Type dropdown box and ‘Star Name’ in the one below it to get random star names. Examples – ‘2426 Jing Xiu’, ‘Scatha’, ‘1372 Galli’.

RandomStuff and CAS

chann — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 12:53:00 +0000

I just wanted to put in a shout-out for Hook’s RandomStuff. I’ve been using randomstuff for ages for choosing names and even randomizing appearances in TS2. Basically I configured the text file to give a number for each preset – face 4, brow 6, eyes 10, nose 12, etc. Unlike townie generation, which just chooses from a pool of 27 faces (I think) you can create unique-looking Sims in CAS very quickly by randomizing the presets.

It will be interesting to see how face generation works in TS3. Hopefully the engine is a little more chaotic and each facial feature will be randomized, rather than getting the same couple of dozen faces. I’m not big on obsessing with genetics (that’s a topic for another whole post) but I like seeing variations.

As for TS3, from what we’ve seen of the screenshots, Sim faces are overall smoother. Although they’re all premades… I wonder if we’ll be seeing the return of the ‘uglyface townie’ phenomenon. Personally I prefer plasticky soulless-eyed wax dolls over the angular faces, ridiculous noses, and red mohawks/mismatched outfits of TS2′s townie generating. Well, the last may still return.