GSoC idea list

Note to students

This is a curated list of ideas suggested by regular developers. They vary in difficulty but are all doable during the summer. Of course feel free to add your own ideas to the list, respecting the current format (leave Mentor empty). You can also drop by the IRC channel to discuss your ideas, also note that you can get involved in gameplay too!

Engine

Sound shaders

• Brief explanation: Our engine supports only sounds, with no information attached and the little sound effects we have need to be handled in a case by case by the gamelogic. Sound shaders would be sets of parameters associated to a sound file that would allow things like: randomizing samples, changing the attenuation model, looping, sound category, ...
• Expected results: Sound shaders are implemented and used in a few maps to enrich the audio environment.
• Prerequisite knowledge: C++.
• Mentor: Corentin "kangz" Wallez

Use bullet for physics

• Brief explanation: The Quake3 physics code we use is very limited in both that it only handles collision with the world and supports mostly axis-aligned boxes. Using bullet would overcome this limitations and open the way for more advaned features such as inverse kinematics, ragdolls and more accurate physics simulation.
• Expected results: All the physics call go through bullet instead of the former physics system, while keeping mostly the same physics.
• Prerequisite knowledge: C++, vector math, game physics library a big plus.
• Mentor: Corentin "kangz" Wallez

Breakpad integration

• Brief explanation: We want to make it easy for users to submit useful crash reports. Google Breakpad is a good solution. In the future, we can even discuss an option to automatically send these to us (with the user's permission) and create an issue on github.
• Expected results: At least on Windows, a crash of the engine produces a dump that contains useful debug info. Better, the crash handler asks the user if they want to upload it to our servers.
• Prerequisite knowledge: C++, will require access to a windows machine for testing.
• Mentor: Corentin "kangz" Wallez (Amanieu d'Antras)

Renderer support for GL ES 3

• Brief explanation: Our renderer relies on GL 2.1 + extension or GL 3, the goal is to add support for GL ES 3, potentially removing GL 2.1 support. This would allow us to port the on platforms without Desktop OpenGL support such as the Web and mobile platforms.
• Expected results: The game engine can run without linking to libGL, or better is shown running on the web / mobile.
• Prerequisite knowledge: C++, OpenGL.
• Mentor: Corentin "kangz" Wallez

Add debug draw capabilities

• Brief explanation: Printf debugging is nice but sometimes it is easier to visualize things than to read them, especially for 3D. We want to add draw debugging to help debugging the gamelogic or subsystems that work with 3D objects, the goal is to have a super simple interface to draw basic geometry, in all parts of the engine and gamelogic.
• Expected results: Basic shapes (spheres, boxes, arrows) and text can be drawn in the 3d world with control for color, depth test and wireframe mode.
• Prerequisite knowledge: C++, vector math, OpenGL a plus.
• Mentor: Corentin "kangz" Wallez

Input thread / Splashscreen

• Brief explanation: It'd be nice to have a splash screen while the game starts (6 sec on my SSD with hot OS cache). Also we will want inputs to be processed in parallel of the game to reduce latency and enable neat tricks. The two are linked since with SDL all the windowing function must be done in the main thread, including getting new events.
• Expected results: The splashscreen and input thread are implemented.
• Prerequisite knowledge: C++, some multithreading.
• Mentor: Corentin "kangz" Wallez

Updater

Add news support

• Brief Explanation: Every player will see the updater and this gives us an oppurtunity to engage players that wouldn't otherwise be part of the "community". The goal is to fetch news from the site and display it in a pleasing manner
• Expected Results: Implement both the frontend of this in the updater and a simple backend where news are published.
• Prerequisite knowledge: QT, C++
• Mentor: Harsh "`Ishq" Modi

In game integration

• Brief Explanation:We need to be able to launch the updater frmo the game when an update is found, in a cross platform way otherwise we would be keeping the update manual as it is currently which defeats the purpose of the updater.
• Expected Results: Message should show up ingame telling player to update. Clicking on message should launch updater to update the game.
• Prerequisite knowledge: C++
• Mentor: Harsh "`Ishq" Modi