SummerOfCodeIdeas

This page is related to Summer of Code 2012

See the list of Summer of Code 2012 Ideas

I want to be one of your Google Summer of Code students, what should I do...

Here is a quick list of things to do at this time:

• MOST IMPORTANT Submit your application to Google till April 6th.
• MOST IMPORTANT Join the irc channel (#wesnoth-dev on irc.freenode.net) and talk about your project and your appilication. We will not give formal interviews, but we will clearly favor people we have learned to know during the selection process (basically communication via IRC is mandatory for our project! it is the main way of "every day communication" for Wesnoth. For the same reason, it's also a good idea to regularly read the IRC logs.).

• VERY IMPORTANT Update the wiki page about your idea (Make a copy of the student proposal page template: SoC2012 Template of Student page):
  • Fill the questionnaire.
  • Detail your idea as much as possible, look at other students pages, and please give timeline, milestones and studies you've done
• If you haven't done so yet, create an account on gna.org (required for committing later on)
• If you haven't done so yet, create an account on the wesnoth forum, and tell an admin of the forum or leader of the group on the IRC channel to mark it as a GSoC Student account (admins/group leaders are: Boucman, Crab, fendrin/Fabi, Ivanovic, Mordante/SkeletonCrew, Noy, shadowm/shadowmaster, Sirp/Dave, Soliton)
• Though not mandatory, it is highly advisable to go to the EasyCoding and NotSoEasyCoding pages and implement one of these ideas (or any idea of similar scope) so we have an idea how you work. Be sure to use your gna account when submitting these patches so we know who it is coming from. You can also implement some features from our feature request database at gna. When you implement something, also list it on your own page with a reference to the patch. This should give you a good idea what the Wesnoth sourcecode is like and will provide a good start to getting used to our coding style, too. You can also start working on your project and submit patches/prototypes related to it

• For working on Wesnoth you have to be able to compile trunk. To do so you should have a look at the page about svn and afterwards compile Wesnoth svn.

Information about our Project

The information we provided google with about our project can be looked up at the site SoC Information for Google.

Also see the DeveloperResources link (from the Project page).

People to bug on IRC

We have prepared a list of people with their "area of competence". This is to give you an idea on which areas those people can be of help for you. Of course you should always just ask in the IRC chan, but those are the most likely ones to answer questions in the respective area. And here is the list:

SoC People to bug on IRC

List of Ideas for the Project (Suggestions from wesnoth developers)

NOTE: this list of ideas is automatically generated from the 'description' section of pages in Summer of Code 2012 Idea category. DO NOT TRY TO EDIT THIS LIST BY HAND - IT WON'T WORK. INSTEAD, CREATE A NEW PAGE WITH THE 'Soc Ideas2012 Template' template.

NOTE: to add a student page, create a new page based on copy the student proposal page template: SoC2012 Template of Student page):

Addon Server [1]

Page for the idea: SoC Ideas Addon Server 2012

The goal of this project is to write a new addon server for Wesnoth from scratch.

There are no submitted student proposals for this idea

AI: Implement a 'total defense' strategy [12]

Page for the idea: SoC Ideas AI Defense Strategies 2012

AI in wesnoth's is good at killing things but is bad at defending. Therefore we are forced to make it attack at 2:1 odds. This is the single biggest limiter of the AI skill at the moment. To solve that, we need to teach the AI to defend.

There are no student proposals for this idea

AI: Make lua AI development and usage easier [2]

Page for the idea: SoC Ideas AI Lua AI Usage 2012

We have the capability to write lua ai scripts in lua. However, we need to improve the infrastructure and make their use easier:

- add a way to debug lua code
- reduce the number of boilerplate code required to get lua ai running
- add missing AI-related functions and fix bugs.

There are no submitted student proposals for this idea

AI: Refactor recruitment algorithm [5]

Page for the idea: SoC_Ideas_AI_Recruitment_2012

We need to refactor existing wesnoth's recruitment algorithm to:

1. support recruiting with multiple leaders.
2. support per-leader recruit/recall lists.
3. support easy limiting of recruitable units.
4. analyze map terrain better
5. recruit units that are more useful
6. improve counter-recruiting strategies.
7. improve recruiting for AI-playable campaigns where AI has to not spend all the gold.

There are no student proposals for this idea

AI: teach the AI to play Wesnoth's mainline campaigns [3]

Page for the idea: SoC Ideas AI Scenario Objectives 2012

We want the AI to be able to play campaigns, both on its own and as a ally for a human player. There are some things that are frequently required in campaigns :

1. move a unit to location
2. keep a unit alive
3. keep an ally alive
4. keep as much money and high-level recalls as possible
5. do a proper recall
6. protect units close to level up better.
7. improve interaction of the player with AI allies.
8. if you almost lost, try to make it possible for an ally to save you (by retreating the leader and critical units, for example)

This should be coded in lua (so there might be need to expand low-level lua AI capabilities), because we want the resulting list of behaviors to be scriptable and modifiable by scenario editors.

A proper test would be to let the AI complete all the mainline campaigns.

There are no student proposals for this idea

Improve wesnoth's engine to allow better transitions between scenarios [1]

Page for the idea: SoC_Ideas Multiplayer Engine Refactoring 2012

We have a piece of code which links scenarios together. We need to improve the quality of that code (the code is rather messy at the moment) and we need to allow fun things to happen between scenarios, - like 'changing from singleplayer to multiplayer or back again, changes of difficulty level, changes to recall lists and player sides, etc). This code would interact with the new GUI2 dialogs which would allow the players to select 'what to do next' in a better way. An example of usage: after completing a campaign scenario, a 'big interactive map' might appear on a user screen and the player (or players) would select who plays next. This would replace the current 'assign players to sides' dialog, as well, allowing other parameters of 'next scenario' to be customizable.

There are no submitted student proposals for this idea

Implement a particle engine in the animation engine [4]

Page for the idea: SoC Ideas Particle Engine 2012

A particle engine allows to draw pixel per pixel where each pixel's position is given by a piece of code or a mathematical fomula. This is used to display interesting physical phenomena like water flow, explosions or fire

The aim of the project is to add such an engine within the animation engine and, if time permits, within the terrain engine.

A good understanding of the animation engine will be needed, but the particle engine will fit quite nicely in the existing structure

for performance reasons the formulas will probaly have to be given in Lua, but other approches could be interesting

there will probably be some needs to go into the wesnoth-SDL infrastructure for the display part

googling for "particle engine" and "particle engine SDL" should provide lots of groundwork for writing proposals

There are no student proposals for this idea

Whiteboard: Refactor the backend [1]

Page for the idea: SoC Ideas Whiteboard Backend Refactoring 2012

Improve the whiteboard's (the wesnoth action-planning system) backend code by refactoring the data structure which holds the planned actions. Also refactor the verification and mapbuilding processes by combining them, and use this single new process to cache as much data as possible to avoid redundant lookups. You can also propose other simplifications.

Produce complete unit tests to cover all operations on the new planned action storage and the new combined mapbuilding/verification.

Document this new backend, explaining your design approach and including all diagrams necessary for the reader's understanding.

Finally, do exhaustive playtesting and bugfixing involving devs and community members to make sure the whiteboard is fully reliable.

There are no student proposals for this idea

Whiteboard: Multiple Chance-to-kill calculations and interface polish [3]

Page for the idea: SoC Ideas Whiteboard Multiple CTK 2012

The whiteboard (the wesnoth action-planning system) allows you to plan several attacks on a single unit. Wesnoth already shows the player his chances to kill an attacked unit in a 1v1 fight in the battle dialog: reusing the existing code already used by the AI for this purpose, extend the dialog to present to the player total kill chances taking into account all successive planned attackers.

In addition, the whiteboard interface still has some outstanding bugs or incomplete features and usability issues. Identify as many of those problems as possible and propose ways to solve them (see details for some ideas).

Finally, do exhaustive playtesting and bugfixing involving devs and community members to make sure the whiteboard is fully reliable.

There are no student proposals for this idea

Make your own ideas [4]

Page for the idea: SoC_Ideas_Your_Own_Ideas2012

We would like to consider the ideas on the above list, and not self-proposed ideas. Exceptional proposals might be considered, however. If you have your own idea the best thing is to join IRC wesnoth-dev at irc.freenode.net and discuss the idea with the developers there. If the developers think your idea is interesting and like the feature you can start to turn it into a full proposal.

There are no student proposals for this idea

Student proposals not submitted to google

There are 5 student proposals which were not submitted to google
Artemius23, Artemius Artemius23
Avrilfanomar
Bwrsandman Whiteboard: Multiple Chance-to-kill calculations and interface polish
Ejls/GSoC 2012/Whiteboard Backend Refactoring
Akihara GSoC Akihara Proposal
GSoC Chopper Particle Engine
Kripsi
Naman22
SankaD
SOC - Geoffrey Hart
SoC 2012 HappyKsuh AI Recruitment
SoC2012 Ayne Multiplayer Engine Refactoring
SoC2012 Bloodycoin Particle Engine
Soc2012 Borgrumm Defensive AI
SoC2012 chatrooms
c_nevin92 Soc2012 cnevin92 Total Defense AI
SoC2012 Fristi Teach That AI
SoC2012 Hankerspace AI Campaigns
SoC2012 Ivan Addon Server
SoC2012 LineDefenceStrategy
SoC2012 Multiple CTK Calculations
SoC2012 Nephro
SoC2012 SocialNetworkIntegration
Soc2012 Talbot Pierre Refactor Recruitment Algorithm
Soc2012 Teugon Refactor Recruitment Algorithm
TorminaTor SoC2012 TorminaTor AI Campaigns
SoC2012 Tyrannodogg Make lua AI developement easier
SoC2012 Valectar
vaulttech Soc2012 vaulttech refactor the backend
SoC2012 Yokipi Total Defense AI