Unity Random Number With Decreasing Probability

Creating a C# number generator method that basically works like Random.Range() in Unity Engine with the possibility of assigning a weight to skew the ending result in either direction is an extremely useful tool in game development when creating different looting and/or scoring systems.

Feel free to copy the method below and make sure to see the different examples of usage with visual graphs.

Skewed Random Range:

float SkewedRandomRange(float min, float max, float weight)
{
    float rnd = Mathf.Pow(Random.value, weight);
    float index = (min + rnd * (max - min + 1));
    return Mathf.Clamp(index, min, max);
}

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Usage:

SkewedRandomRange(min, max, weight);

min - Smallest possible number.

max - Largest possible number.

weight - Skewing of the result.

- If weight is 1, the method will not skew the result.

- If weight is above 1, it will skew the result with an increasing probability towards the min value.

- If weight is anything between 0 and 1, it will skew the result with an increasing probability towards the max value.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Most of you probably will be best off using anything below 0.5f as a weight to achieve the most predictable type of slope as it doesn't weigh the starting value so heavily. See the examples below.

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Results:

These graphs will show you how using different weights will affect the ending result. All of the following tests were executed a million times within the range of (1, 10).

SkewedRandomRange(1, 10, 0.5f);

SkewedRandomRange(1, 10, 0.3f);

SkewedRandomRange(1, 10, 1.1f);

SkewedRandomRange(1, 10, 1.25f);

SkewedRandomRange(1, 10, 2f);