Hey, everyone.

I have an idea for a program that might help people create characters. My problem is often that they become really stock or cliched. Perhaps as a way to combat that, I came up with this.

Let's presume that characters can be broken into three facets:

a) Physicality - their height, age, race, size, shape, etc
b) Personality Traits - this can be most anything personality-related. They hate bugs. They are OCD. They jump to conclusions easily. Etc.
c) Desire/Motivation - everyone has a desire or motivation at any given time. Always. This can be anything as well - To get their parents out of the hospital. Apples. World peace. To travel. To start a business. To get out of their cell.

I'd want to write up hundreds upon hundreds of variables for each of these facets. Each one would be specific. That's the key. Not vague like "round" "sad" or "happiness."

Then, and here's where I need help from someone in the internet community, we create a slot machine-type of program that will give you a random one of each of the three facets. Then, magically, you have a "big-nosed" woman who "can't stop washing her hands" and wants "to get to the other side of town immediately."

Instant character! Not perfect, of course. But it's a launching point that avoids relying on cliches and basic characters without detail, which is where I tend to go when I sit down and dream up people. This would facilitate that process. And if you want more than "big nose," you could click "Physicality" again, and it would give another trait.

Obviously, it's not a magic character-making machine, but I see it as a brainstorming machine. Somewhere to start.

I'm illiterate when it comes to coding, but I have the sneaking suspicion that this would be exceedingly easy for someone who knows that sort of thing.

Anyone willing to help me out with this? Or any suggestions, comments? Don't bother telling me it's a stupid idea or that it's a fake way to create people, etc. I'm already going to make it, so help me with that instead.

No I'm going to tell you how stupid it is. Wouldn't this actually do the...exact opposite of what you want?

Plus, I think they already used one of these on Little Miss Sunshine, so I guess someone beat you to it.

A gay Proust scholar who is suicidal. GENIUS!

Either way, maybe you should consider having a bunch of rubber balls with a trait on each in a tank of water and let manatees choose the balls at random.

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Originally posted by Nervous Larry:
Either way, maybe you should consider having a bunch of rubber balls with a trait on each in a tank of water and let manatees choose the balls at random.

Ha. South Park.

Agreed.

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University of New Orleans (1)
George Lucas has gone way to far (11)

I think its a fantastic idea. There's a program out there that does this available from the same store that sells final draft.. however, it would be way cooler to create our own.

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Plus, I think they already used one of these on Little Miss Sunshine, so I guess someone beat you to it.

A gay Proust scholar who is suicidal. GENIUS!

Of course, expected sarcasm from the peanut gallery. It's not about being "beat" to it, I'm sure this isn't an original idea. I just want of my own, and was wondering if someone would help out.

Have YOU ever seen a movie about a suicidal gay Proust scholar? No. Case in point. The idea is to foster creativity, which comes from limitation, not let the machine tell you what to do.

You're right, I've never seen a movie about a Gay Proust Scholar, and that character, like every single character in the movie, is hollow as hell. Traits shouldn't define a character, they should come from that character. They should be subtle, they shouldn't jump out and slap you in the face. Can you describe yourself in a series of one word traits? I doubt it. Most humans aren't like that. Your idea might be fun for an excercise in short subjects, or a challenge to make a deeper character around the traits, but it's a terrible idea if you're trying to come up with meaningful characters for a movie that actually matters to you.

Is there such a thing as a straight Proust Scholar?

Good luck M&M it's an honorable (although questionable) attempt at stirring the creative pot!

If you're not a fan of characters that "jump out," Larry, then I guess you didn't like Amelie, Brick, Thank You For Smoking, Pulp Fiction, Fight Club, American Beauty, Requiem for a Dream, Kill Bill, Sin City, any comic book movie, Crash, Fargo, Big Lebowski, really anything Coen brothers, Sleepy Hollow, Edward Scissorhands, really anything Tim Burton, too, Magnolia, Boogie Nights, Harold and Maude, Sideways, Collateral, Napoleon Dynamite, Closer, Love Actually, Election, Clerks, Dogma, anything Wes Anderson, Run Lola Run, anything Terry Gilliam ...

And if you really didn't like those films, I couldn't care less. They're films that I like, they have characters I like.

Look, man. I'm not asking for your opinion on this program. I believe I made that perfectly clear. Despite your very bold "I'm not going to tell you it's stupid," that's exactly what you're doing. If I wanted your opinion, I could tell you what it was.

Does anyone here like the idea and have any proficiency in coding? I'm really psyched about this, and I know someone here has that power. I'd really appreciate it.

And I'm sure all those characters were created using a random character generator.


Whatever, good luck with your thing man. Maybe in the future you can invent a random movie generator too.

I'm not sure if I'm offering to help cause I think it's kinda neat, or cause Larry hates it so much, but yeah, I know how to code that. Tell me more about the way you envision it working.

Cool! Thanks.

So I figured it would have three slots, kind of like a slot machine. There'd be a button above each slot, labeled with the type of slot it is (one of the three - physicality, personality trait, and desire) and then one button to the right of the slots saying "Create!" or something similar. Here, I threw this together:



Obviously that's just the basic layout. The idea would be that if you clicked "Create!", all three boxes would fill with a random variable. But if you clicked any of the ones on top, it would add another variable in addition to the one you had from "create," so that if you weren't satisfied with "Big Nose" it could give you another one on top of that.

The text boxes might have to be bigger to allow larger variables like "doesn't get along with mother" or something.

Also, it would be nice if there was some way I could keep adding variables whenever I felt like it, so that the list could keep growing.

I don't know much about coding, so let me know if I'm asking too much.

if you code this, PLEASE hook me up with a copy.

The program could call the variables from separate .txt files, allowing you to add certain descriptors to the list, and even share the list with others. You're right, this is a pretty easy code, I wonder if I could throw something like this together from my C++ class days.

I could put this online using PHP and MySQL, allow users to add entries, and all that jazz. I think I might take a stab at it. Email me and remind me sometime after the weekend. I'm busy coding like crazy on another project until then. Start thinking up those lists!

All right, I'll do that. It'd be great if we could get some kind of public list going, that way anyone could add something whenever they felt like it. Perfect! Thanks TD, I'll remind you after the weekend.

mmrempen . . . eventually, you'll learn to ignore everything Nervous Larry says, because when you have an idea he shoots it down and offers nothing constructive. He's just rude.

Let me know when you have the character generator up, I'd like to look at it. Could be fun to play with.

Or, you could always just come up with the characters using your imagination and creativity. But, nah, forget it. That'll never work. Stick to computer programs and instant character creators.

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I'm not asking for your opinion on this program. I believe I made that perfectly clear.

That's a reminder, Fascist, to keep your thoughts to yourself. They are welcome on almost every other thread except this one.

There really are some @$$holes out there. I don't really care either way about this program, but some of you are just plain idgits.

Tyler

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Originally posted by mmrempen:

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I'm not asking for your opinion on this program. I believe I made that perfectly clear.

That's a reminder, Fascist, to keep your thoughts to yourself. They are welcome on almost every other thread except this one.

Last time I checked you were not an administrator. And even if you were I would let my feelings be known. You can't just say you don't want others' opinions on a thread, that's part of what you deal with. That's like releasing a film and saying that no one can review unless they liked it.