   Procedurally generating objects... Ideas?
  I'm currently in the process of coming up with a way to quickly create objects based on a seed. The idea is simple: I have various 'items', each of which have different properties, and of which the properties may or may not exist based on the type of item.I need to store these items in an XML file of the user who owns the items in a very quickly and most importantly simple fashion. Initially I thought about just marking certain fields in the item templates are serializable, but there is a simpler solution: Generate items based on a seed.What I want to do in the item template is define stats as 'ranges' like this:<stat name="Damage" min="10" max="15" /><stat name="Defense" value="0" />During item spawning, I could take a seed and template then calculate the range values and set their values, so that my scripts can easy find them by calling item.GetData("stats.damage", -1).However, I have no idea on how to implement such a procedural system. I'm specifically looking for a system that's easy to work out, as spawning items should be relatively fast.toolmaker   
  You just need a pseudo-random number generator. When you want to generate your object, you initialize it with the seed and when you need a new number in some range, you get it from the pseudo-random number generator.Here's a simple pseudo-random number generator that's probably good enough for what you want:class PseudoRandomGenerator {  unsigned seed;public:  PseudoRandomGenerator(unsigned seed) : seed(seed) {  }  int generate_in_range(int begin, int end) {seed ^= (seed<<19) + (seed>>1) + 1033594897;return begin + seed%(end-begin);  }};