Google Summer of Code 2019
< Pencil2D GSoC Homepage
Requirements
Here are a couple requirements for all people submitting proposals, please review them carefully to make sure you fulfill all of the criteria:
- You must join our Discord server and introduce
yourself on the
#gsoc-2019channel. We use Discord as one of the primary forms of communication among developers (as well as Github), so it is the best place to talk about your proposal and get to know the developers. Some of the other channels are dedicated to the community where you can find and interact with many of the Pencil2D users. - You must have a fairly good grasp of C++. All of our code is written in C++ and there is simply not enough time to learn the language from scratch and program your project. If you do not know how to program in C++, or are not very good at it, but think you can learn the language quickly, then please make note of this in your proposal. Then learn what you must on your own, and let us know that you have improved your C++ skills before the application review period has ended and your proposal will be reconsidered in light of this new information.
Additionally, there are some skills that we do not require for our submissions, but are very beneficial to have. If you have any of these skills, please say so in your proposal:
- Git. Git is the version control system which we, and the majority of open source software use to manage our code. You will need to know the basics of using Git to contribute to our project, however if you are not yet familiar with it then be prepared to learn it during the Community Bonding period.
- Qt. Pencil2D is built on top of the Qt5 framework, so experience with this is a big bonus, and may even be necessary if your proposal requires significant changes to the GUI.
- Animating. Experience with making animations, either in Pencil2D or in professional software is very useful. Understanding the possible workflows of our users helps with designing features that provide a positive user experience. This is more important for issues where understanding how the feature is used in other environments is key to creating an implementation that is intuitive and useful for animators of all experience levels.
- FFmpeg/libavcodec or other video processing libraries. If your proposal is at all related to import/export, having experience with the relevant libraries is obviously useful. We currently use FFmpeg for video export, but we are open to supporting additional backends.
The Idea
The primary purpose of any proposal is to submit the idea that you would like to work on. Choosing the right idea is something only you can do, as it should reflect your unique skillset and interests. We have compiled a list of ideas for projects of varying difficulty which we believe are our highest priorities. It is important to note however that you do not have to choose from those ideas, and you can propose any changes you wish to make (there are some links at the bottom of the ideas page where you can find many more outstanding issues to draw inspiration from).
You should, especially if you are choosing an idea that is not in the idea list, share your idea with our developers so you can get feedback on it. Among other things they will be able to tell you if your idea is needed, how well it aligns with our vision, and if it is realistic for the timeframe you have to complete it. Integrating their feedback will improve your proposal and the chances of it being selected.
Above all, the idea you propose should be something you are interested in working on and that you believe you are capable of completing within the 3 month timeline of the Google Summer of Code program.
Proposal Template
Here is a proposal template that we have developed. All applications should have at least all of these sections filled out. Feel free to copy this this template to use as a starting point for your application.
The Template:
About Me
Introduce yourself here. Include all the basics and your background. Specifically include:
- Any relevant experience you have (especially with C++). See the Requirements section for some ideas here.
- Any commitments you have this summer that we should be aware of. This includes planned breaks/vacations and any jobs you have or are planning on having this summer aside from GSoC.
- How many hours are you planning on spending each week on your project if it is selected?
- Your development environment. What operating system do you use to program? What editor? Why? Tabs or spaces? (okay that last one was just a joke!)
- Your timezone and hours of availability. We need this information for matching you with a mentor that is able to have meet with you during at least some of these times.
- What attracted you to this project, and what do you hope to gain from it? This helps us understand your motivations and will help us target interested students better in the future.
- Any relevant online profiles you have. For example, provide a link to your Github account if you’ve done open source work before, or to your LinkedIn profile if you have one. If you have animated before, feel free to share some links to your art as well.
- The best ways to contact you. Provide an email address at least, and any other communication information you want to use with our developers and GSoC organization administrators.
Feel free to add any other information here that you think we might be interested in, such as your hobbies or what you are going to school for.
The Idea
This section is for everything relevant to what you are actually proposing. Here are the key points you should have:
- What do you want to achieve? Provide a 1-2 sentence summary, and then get into more detail. If you are taking an idea from somewhere (the Ideas Page or an issue for example), then you are expected to elaborate on the idea as much as possible to show an understanding of the problem.
- How are you going to do it? Again try to be as detailed as possible. Break the work up into small subtasks.
- Provide an estimate of the difficulty of each of the aforementioned subtasks. Use this to create a timeline showing a general plan for the 3 months and how long you will be spending on each of the subtasks. This is not a final schedule, you will have chances to update it during the Community Bonding period and it can be modified again during the Coding period if necessary.
- Has work on something like this been done before? Work in Pencil2D, similar work in other programs (especially open source ones), or relevant academic papers?
- Have you worked on a similar project before? What did you learn from it?
Works Cited
If you used any sources, they must be cited. Use APA format if you can, but the important part is providing enough information to convey where you got all of your information from. If you are reading this text, then you probably need to cite the page you got this template from.
Improving Your Chances
In addition to following all of the guidelines above, here are a few things you can do to better the chances of your proposal being selected:
- Interact with the community. We have a lively community of animators and
artists who use our software, and more people are joining everyday. Interacting
with the community on any of
our platforms is a great way to get to
start getting involved with our project. Whoever is selected will have to do
some of this anyway during the Community Bonding period, but it certainly helps
to get a head start!
- Contribute. Unlike some other GSoC organizations, we do not have a patch
requirement. However, if you do make a pull request on our Github repository
with a fix to one of
our many issues or some new
feature, that shows that you already have a development environment set up and
have explored at least some of our source code. This reflects very well on you
and helps show us that you have the skills to see your proposal through.
- Using Pencil2D. Many of our developers are not animators, but it’s still
important that we understand how our application is used. It is highly
recommended that you experiment with the program until you understand how it all
works. Making a small little animation is a great way to do this, and posting
the animation in our showcase channel on Discord is a good way to show off the
work you’ve done. Don’t worry if you don’t think it is any good, it is a
judgement-free zone. It is your familiarity with Pencil2D, not your art skills
that we are interested in here.
- Be creative. Any of the above points show initiative, but feel free to come up with your own ways of showing what this project means to you. Yes we are hoping to have something useful done by the end of summer, but ultimately we are looking for lifelong contributors. Anything that shows your passion for our project or your ability to work well with the existing developers will be tremendously valuable when it comes time for us to select a proposal.
Works Cited
Yes even we have to cite our work!