Google Summer of Code 2010

Firstly, thanks once again to the generous folks out at Google for running this program again this year. (My equipment wishlist and bank account thank you for it... hehehe)

This year I'll be be working on implementing a "simple and natural" (to take a page from Jacob Nielsen's Usability Heuristics) integration of the Bullet Physics Engine into Blender; a "Bullet Construction Toolkit". Some may know that Blender already has partial integration of Bullet, but this is restricted to being another one of the half-baked and clunky Game Engine features.

The main goals here will be to:

• make it quick and easy to set up simple setups
• make complicated setups not require too many additional hoops
• tighter integration into Blender allowing use in combination with Animation System
• visible (and editable) results in Blender, on par with other Physics systems
• visual manipulation of Bullet simulation parameters (potentially including a new API for defining manipulators)
  
• ... and hopefully kick the collective proverbial asses of Cinema4D-MoDynamics/Maya-Dynamica/Houdini in the process

Currently, when I'm not busy finishing off assignments (so much for doing a "Summer" of Code in "Winter") I've been working on getting a nice design for this sorted. More news on that later.

Hasta luego!