Google Summer of Code - Crystal Space 3D in GSoC 2010

What is GSoC

Google Summer of Code is a program that offers student developers stipends to write code for various open source projects. Historically, the program has brought together over 2,400 students with over 230 open source projects, to create millions of lines of code. The program, which kicked off in 2005, is now in its sixth year.

If you want more info, read  GSoC FAQ

CS and GSoC

Crystal Space has participated in the last four years GSoC and we hope we will be allowed to be a mentoring organisation this year again (will be announced on TBA). If CS once again participates we hope we once again can provide a number of students with interesting projects related to 3D coding.

Mentors and administrators

To facilitate smooth operation as well as give you as student the best help Crystal Space has a number of mentors as well as organization administrators. If you have any questions related to your application or anything else related to SoC, contact them via the mailing list or on IRC.

Administrators:

  • Jorrit Tyberghein (jorrit)
  • Frank Richter (res2k / res|laptop)

Possible mentors:

  • Jorrit Tyberghein (jorrit)
  • Frank Richter (res2k / res|laptop)
  • Mike Gist (Xordan)
  • Scott Johnsson (jwir3)
  • Vincent Knecht
  • Guillaume Libersat (dukez) - For CrystalArchitect related projects

You can also bug the hang-around Marten Svanfeldt (thebolt), former admin&mentor.

GSoC Student in CS

Not only do we as an organization want to provide you with the most awesome experience as a student within GSoC and our project, we also have some expectations on you as a student. Before applying to Crystal Space 3D we strongly suggest you to read the entire page as well as the ideas page. We also strongly advice you to read the  Advice for students page on Google's wiki.

Further, we expect each and every student to (before applying):

  • Have some experience and knowledge of the language(s) the project will be done in, which in most cases is C++. Crystal Space 3D is written in C++ and takes full advantage of many aspects of the language such multiple inheritance and templates. In parts it also contains platform dependent or performance sensitive code. CS shaders are written in  Cg, many projects will require use of this.
  • Have (or setup) a development environment compatible with CS. The CS manual provides guidance on how to compile CS on Windows (MinGW or MSVC) and if you run into any problem just contact us.
  • Be prepared for a shorter "interview"/chat conducted online before applications are accepted.
  • As far as possible try to discuss your ideas with other members of the community, long time contributors, mentors and administrators before writing your final proposal so that the proposal is as good as possible.

If you are selected as a student, we further expect you to:

  • Communicate with your mentor as well as the CS community at large. Crystal Space traditionally use two forums for discussing development. The first is the #crystalspace IRC channel on freenode network, the other is the crystal-develop mailing list. Subscribe to the mailing list, ask questions and discuss your ideas as much as possible.
  • Do your very best to complete the project. If you run into problems, communicate; if you get stuck, communicate, ask for help and advice etc. The rest of the community is there to help you out.
  • Follow normal Crystal Space development guidelines, code guide and version control practices.

Applying

Applications to GSoC is handled by Google, head over to their page  http://socghop.appspot.com/.

During application we would like to ask you to use the following template: 

Google Summer of Code - Student Application Template for Crystal Space:

Thanks for considering joining Crystal Space for your summer of code
project! We are sure that Crystal Space can be a good project to help
you get up to speed in the Open Source world. To help us in
identifying you as a good candidate, we want to ask a few questions:

About Yourself

    * Describe any plans you have over the summer in addition to GSoC,
such as classes, a summer job, vacation plans, master's thesis, etc.
    * What programming projects have you done so far?
    * Have you worked on other open source projects before? If so,
please list and describe what you did.
    * Please list other projects you are applying to for GSoC.
    * Do you have any experience with C++ or Python? Of so, clarify
this experience.
    * Do you have any experience with computer graphics, OpenGL,
DirectX, other 3D engines?


Crystal Space Questions

    * When did you first hear about Crystal Space?
    * Have you worked with Crystal Space before? For what sorts of things?
    * If you have participated in Crystal Space previously, please
describe what you've done (e.g. bug reports, questions on mailing list
or IRC, etc.)
    * If you have contributed to Crystal Space before, please describe
when and what you did (bug fixes, new features, testing, etc.)


Tasks

    * Checkout the Crystal Space sourcecode through Subversion and review it.
    * Introduce yourself on the Crystal Space developers mailing list,
and post your project ideas for feedback, before submitting your
application

Your Project

    * Deliverables: What will the final output of your project be?
Please note that documentation is important.
    * Schedule: Include an estimated timeline of the project with
mini-milestone.

Project Ideas

To help you out in your application we have collected a special page of ideas for possible projects SoC Ideas. We would like to stress though, it is always possible to submit your own ideas. You are in no way restricted to the ones we put up on our list and if you have a really cool idea, submit it. Also if you have a good idea but don't want to participate yourself in SoC (or cannot), or have many ideas, put them on the ideas page.