Intro Hope it's not too late to introduce myself!

Wchu98

New Member
  • Name: Chu, Anthony_
  • Social: _Not many accounts I can think of haha_
  • From: _United States_
  • Skills / Tools: _Java, JavaScript (currently learning), OCaml, Maya, 3DS Max, Photoshop, Illustrator_
  • Found via: _GSOC :)_
  • Interests: _Programming, 3D Modeling, Southern Chinese Lion Dancing haha_
  • Extra: _Currently a university student in my school's computer graphics and science program (won't say name because that might give too much about where I am)_
Very interested in writing a GSOC proposal for Light&Shadow and/or Game/ Saved World/ module preview image content. Would love to hear more about these projects!
 

Skaldarnar

Development Lead
Contributor
Art
World
SpecOps
Hi @Wchu98 and welcome! It's never too late to introduce yourself and get your hands on open source development :)

If you plan to work on one of the items as summer project you should hurry up, though. There is not much time left for many iterations of you proposal, so start now and give us something solid to base a discussion on.
I can only advice to focus on a single item due to time constraints. There is a lot of content about Ligth&Shadow in the forum, and its implementation will touch a lot of other modules and systems. The benefit here is that you might be able to reuse things, but on the other hand there is much you have to learn to get a good overview.
The other topic, improving the Create World Screen, is more focused on a single item and does not involve a bunch of modules. This one is more centric to the game engine, so probably need to get a better understanding of our architecture and the code base in general.

In any case, get started by checking out the project, getting it run from source and try to work on a small bugfix or change. Given the beginning time pressure, looking into the preview image task might be the better option. Familiarize yourself with the related code, and I'm pretty sure you can find a bug to fix or some little feature to add ;)

Looking forward to a proposal!
 

Cervator

Org Co-Founder & Project Lead
Contributor
Design
Logistics
SpecOps
Yep welcome @Wchu98 !

Echoing @Skaldarnar's comments - it is never too late and regardless of whether you get picked even the proposal writing process itself can be a valuable learning experience, as can digging around in the project and source. You are also always welcome to contribute and learn with us GSOC or not.

I say that in part because I want to highlight that there are already some solid activity for the two ideas you've picked, meaning you'd be in a rush and up against competition with a head start. That can be a rough challenge unless you're truly among the best of the best.

Your 3D modelling mention does make me think as that's one area where we definitely could use some more activity. Although we specifically use Blender. Are you familiar with it or does the experience using similar tools translate over readily? Considering the frightful UI learning curve of Blender I am not sure what to expect ... :D

While we don't have an idea for it published there have been thoughts about another GSOC item to help streamline our artwork -> game assets pipeline further. Plenty of potential but the main problem is a lack of mentor capacity for the area. We need more help there that badly :/

Even if you don't end up with a formal GSOC slot that's the sort of thing I could see us running an unofficial slot of sorts for, although it would likely be a slower paced more self-guided thing with less of a stipend, but still something should it succeed. Plus learning in either case.
 

Wchu98

New Member
Thanks so much for the feedback! @Cervator I am very open to helping out in any way (in this more for experience haha). I hear from my 3D modeling professors that learning Maya first tends to make the transition to other software (Blender, Cinema4D, etc) easier than the other way around. This idea does seem really interesting (the computer science program I'm in focuses on 3D modeling and programming) so please let me know if you would like an extra set of hands!
 

manu3d

Active Member
Contributor
Architecture
Coming from the Maya world (and from the Softimage world before that) sadly I didn't find Blender easier to transition to, if anything I found it frustrating. But that was many years ago now and things could have changed.

One avenue that would be worth exploring though is to create some kind of Maya/Maya LT -> Terasology exporter, potentially adding a whole swath of 3D-content contributors who don't use Blender but do know Maya/Maya LT. A GSOC project taking care of that would be quite self-contained and could even look into streamlining the artwork pipeline as a secondary goal or at least as a stretch goal.
 

Wchu98

New Member
That seems like a really interesting project idea :)! Unfortunately, I'm not too experienced in that area so I don't feel that I'm the right person for this job (if the position exists next year, I would definitely make it my proposal!).
 

Cervator

Org Co-Founder & Project Lead
Contributor
Design
Logistics
SpecOps
"Maya/Maya LT" - definitely interesting, to broaden the supported tools. There has also been talk from time to time about supporting more formats (technically COLLADA is in the engine somewhere but not being used for anything)

I feel pretty confident suggesting that a year from now we'll still be able to put a substantial amount of effort into improving the 3d asset pipeline further ... :)

Drawback is the rarity of the skillset, let alone mentoring capacity for such a project. Eventually somebody may just have to dig in and learn all the things!

If you're curious to take a deeper look check out the work from last year's related GSOC project by @Kartikey Agrawal and maybe try out the tutorial which starts at https://github.com/Terasology/TutorialAssetSystem/wiki/Installing-Blender-Add-on
 
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