Re: Google Summer of Code: For potential students

Hi Soumitra,

one first note is that there was previously a GSOC idea about planet 
simulation, it was described here: 
http://www.crystalspace3d.org/trac/CS/wiki/SoC%20Ideas?version=177#Planetsimulation.

This project was worked on during the last GSOC, but the student didn't 
got to the end of it and no code was commited. The blog defining the 
working process is here: http://crystalspacegeodesicsphere.tumblr.com/

The idea was removed because one plan for that was to leverage on the 
existing terrain mesh that is in CS, but it appeared during the last 
GSOC that this was not easy to mix the two approaches and that the job 
was a bit complex although not a priority for CS.

Another thing to know is that the terrain mesh in trunk doesn't support 
currently the use of decals. I however already implemented this 
functionality but never commited it. My work was almost done although 
there was still some problems for decals that are covering several 
cells. I'll try to commit that quite soon.

So now more about your project idea. A first remark is that we are at 
first more interested by the manipulation of an existing CS terrain 
rather than by the generation of it. So it would probably be preferable 
if the generation part of your work would be put at the end of the 
project rather than at the beginning, so that the main targeted 
functionalities are the most worked on.

The order of importance we found for terrain edition is mostly the same 
as what is listed on the GSOC idea page, that is (the first one being 
the most important):
- Definition of the basic terrain properties (count of cells, size, etc).
- Use decals to display the mouse cursor and the current modification 
primitive.
- Heightmap modifiers using different primitives and weight (see the 
application csterrainedtest).
- Painting of the splatting textures.
- Painting of the decals.
- Painting of the mesh generator materials and properties.

Ideas such as presets are great but they are higher level 
functionalities and should therefore be added in the end, if time allows 
and the main functionalities are OK.

Also, the 'Add Object Tool' is more generic since this should work even 
if there are no terrains, so I would remove this idea from your project 
or keep it as very optional.

One of your main constraint would be to use the cseditor framework to 
integrate all your work, and since the cseditor is still young, you may 
have some issues like incomplete or non-working functionalities. You 
would also probably need to work a bit using wxWidgets tools.

Does it look OK to you?


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