XImplosionX

Well, I finally have my own Domain name and dedicated space on a real server. I’m still quite grateful to Kevin for providing me a temporary server until I could figure out hosting. But it is quite nice having a regular domain name.

That said, I have some housecleaning issues I need to address:

1. Lack of FTP Access: This one is really no one’s fault. My boss (who is hosting this on his BlueHost Server) is currently having issues with FTP accounts. Some business about a customer uploading illegal software to his share of the server without anyone knowing. No big problem, should be solved in a few days.
2. WordPress: I’m not a huge fan of Wordpress. Rather, I prefer having my own software running on a server. Wordpress is great, don’t get me wrong. But it dominates my website and uses up one of my bosses limited SQL Databases. I’m looking to develop an alternative Blogging/CMS system. Should be a good chance for me to hone my PHP Coding skills.
3. Boring WordPress Theme: This relates directly to number one. I already have a theme chosen, but no ability to upload it to my server. This will be solved when I get my FTP account later this week.

That said, I am looking forward to being able to share my thoughts on certain subjects, mostly related to technology, and have a venue for displaying my work. I’m always learning about new technologies and working on advancing myself as a programmer.

First up: xOS. A while back I was reading up on Operating System development, and I came across the site OSDev.org, a website dedicated to discussing Operating System development and Theory. This website led me to BrokenThorn Entertainment, which has an excellent series of tutorials on Operating System development within the Visual Studio 2005/2008 IDE. Following this tutorial has allowed me to develop a basic kernal:

The interesting thing about this tutorial is the usage of MS Visual C++ as a platform. It covers the needed runtime programming to use this runtime, which allows the developer to set up a very clean Object Oriented kernal. The ability to create classes that function at such a low level in about 14 tutorials is amazing. They also help you create a nice DebugPrintf(); function that allows you to output text to the screen without a major source code change. Nothing too incredible impressive, but convenient. A simple change from:

DebugPrintf(“Hello world. This is xOS Build 1.”);

To:

DebugPrintf(“Hello world. This is xOS Build 1.\n\nIsn’t that cool?”);

Produces:

Operating System is one interesting subject.

Another skill I am beginning to learn is 3D Modelling. So far I’ve only ripped models from known video games for the purpose of applying a Bone/Skin system to the mesh. I started with Kingdom Heart’s Sora:

A rather cool model if you ask me. I used the tool 3DRipperDX to rip the model and it’s textures from a Kingdom Hearts Model Viewer. I had to use Windows XP due to Windows Vista/Windows 7’s DirectX 9 Emulation. Note to people using 3DRipperDX: Until the application has proper Vista/7 support, stick with XP. The models I’ve ripped have been nothing but garbage. Anyways, I then used 3D Studio Max 9 to import the .3DR file for editing. I followed a tutorial for model rigging based on Garry’s Mod Ragdoll Creation. I spent about a half an hour rigging a basic skeleton with no finger posing to this model. The output didn’t turn out GREAT, but it was okay for my first attempt at Skeleton Rigging:

This render doesn’t show the major issues with my rig. But the next one should do the job:

That’s better. There is one obvious problem with this render. The vertices aren’t weighed properly. We see the hair being influenced by Sora’s Arms, and that simply won’t do. I couldn’t get an accurate render of the feet, which is unfortunate because that is where the weirdest/most annoying issue resides. The vertices are assigned to a bone on the opposite leg, causing weird issues with moving the feet. Should be a rather easy fix, providing I can get Max 9 installed on Windows 7 (Cannot find my DVD with the installer)

Well, that is about all I have to say tonight. Stay posted to this site for further updates. Comments are appreciated and encouraged.  Thanks for reading.

Yours,
Patrick Godwin