Listen to the remix here:

Or you can watch the youtube video here (don’t forget to watch in 720P HD for best audio quality!):

MP3 download here.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Thanks and enjoy!

You can also check it out here and leave comments:

http://soundcloud.com/djbricksta/dj-bricksta-dcdj-cowboy-breaks

Thanks and let me know what you think.

“Wrong Time, Right Crime”

Have a listen here:

Let me know what you think in the comments section.

Be sure to watch in 720P HD!

You can listen to the remix here:

And the original here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FUds2j3wPQ

Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Enjoy and let me know what you think in the comments section.

Enjoy!

Let me know what you think in the comments.

(If the song cuts out half way through, update your browser!)

Recently, Media Molecule (or Mm as they are usually referred to by, the creators of LittleBigPlanet) released a new mode for the game called “Online Create.” This mode actually allows you to create levels with people from all over the world. A friend and I run a podcast called Sackcast, which consists of about 10 members at the moment. I am the co-leader and Shermzor is the leader. Sackpad is part of Sackcast, and us guys over at Sackcast realised that there would be a few issues when trying to create with people on the other side of the world. A few of them were:

• Communication issues (lag, microphone etc..)
• Planning problems
• Coming up with ideas mid-way through creating

So we decided to create a system which would allow you to plan your level out on your PC, then send it over to your friend so that they can make some changes on the level, and then they could send it back to you to review the changes. Then both people could print out the plan of the level and then take it to their PS3′s so they both knew what they were working on. Each person could work on a different section, as 4 people are allowed into online create mode at once on LBP. This is the main idea of Sackpad. It seemed like a good idea and would help the community a lot when it came to creating online, so we went through with it. Sackpad is currently in beta testing. Here is how it all began:

To read more, click below or CLICK HERE TO READ MORE!

We started work on the project in October back in 2009, where we were able to make basic shapes move around within a given area in a simple flash file. Shermzor and I were the two main coders and the rest of the Sackcast team (including my sister) helped design pictures and images for the system. We decided to write the whole project in Flash using AS3 and some help from outside sources. We were originally planning to write it in AS2, but there was so much more potential in AS3 so we decided to go with that. The first build was named “Multiple Objects Example” where there were a few objects on stage, such as a square, rectangle and triangle, and you were able to drag them about on stage to make different shapes. This was VERY basic stuff at the time though, as our knowledge of Flash and AS3 increased as we went along. Shermzor, the podcast leader, was the first person to get his hands on the very first pieces of the Sackpad code, which he wrote himself. By the end of October we had a basic flash file with a few objects that could be scaled, rotated, locked, unlocked, layered and deleted. Shermzor uploaded the source code to the server and I did a bit of editing to tidy a few things up and make some minor edits and bug fixes. This was the version that we went with. There were actually many MANY different versions of the project in its early stages, but we had to stick with one, so that was the one that we chose.

As November came, we started to work on a proper alpha build of the application. This consisted of all of the basic functions that Sackpad currently has, such as scaling objects, rotating them, layering them, deleting them etc..  However, it literally was just a white background with a few objects pasted on it with some nice keyboard shortcuts to make it do cool looking things. So this is where the rest of the Sackcast team helped to design the basic layout of Sackpad. Shermzor drew out a basic plan and then made some nice background images and buttons for the interface. As we progressed, we also learnt more about Flash and AS3 and were able to program more complex things. However, we ran into a problem. Network. How were we going to load and save? None of us knew anything to do with network programming. At this point we started to get a little stressed, as we couldn’t find anyone experienced enough to help us, and neither of us (me or Shermzor) knew any AS3 network code. At the time, Shermzor had important exams to attend to which left me to do most of the work. This meant that I had to go away and learn a bunch of AS3 networking techniques. Sackpad was untouched for about a week at this point. Things started to go downhill, people started to get very busy and I had to get things going again.

Somewhere in the middle of November I returned to the project, while Shermzor was finishing off his exams. I wiped the dust off of the Sackpad folder and opened it up. The project was how we had left it, nothing had changed. The project was on a shared network which the whole of the Sackcast team had access to, so anyone could go in at any point and make changes. Check out Dropbox, its a great app for sharing files. Anyway, by this time I had learnt a lot of network code for flash, (for you geeks out there – AMFPHP, NetConnection and NetStream to be specific) and I began coding in some network additions. I realised that if we are going to be dealing with a network-intensive engine, we’d need a server that would be able to handle it. This meant paying a little bit extra to get Sackpad a dedicated server – which I did straight away. I then returned to coding the rest of the project. The basic funtions were done, it was just the networking stuff that needed sorting out.

The main problem I had was trying to get every object that was on stage to send its coordinates, scale, rotation angle etc.. to a database and store it there, then later have it retrieved when necessary. The part I got correct was getting flash to send out the information to a PHP script which then processes it, checks it for errors, converts it to a special hash and stores it in a database. It was loading that was the problem. Every time I’d load up a level, everything wouldn’t be in the correct place, the rotation and scale would be completely off and it was just a total mess. A second rather annoying problem was that the networking stuff wasn’t very efficient, at all. Each object was sending out its own information. That meant that if you had 300 objects, you’d have to send out 300 massive connections all at once! Now lets imagine Sackpad became very popular (I hope it does!), with thousands of people saving stuff at the same time. Thats 300 objects per person, 100 people lets say, so thats over 30000 connections happening at once, which really isn’t healthy for the server. However, I found some expert help. Luckily my Dad is also very experienced with programming, and he helped me track down the first problem. The problem with the position stuff was that the scale wasn’t actually set to 1 when the objects were loaded, so everything would be bigger when it was loaded up. Same for the rotation and coordinates, everything was offset by a bit as the default values weren’t correct. Shermzor and I spent WEEKS trying to figure it out. We started getting desperate and writing all of these complex maths algorithms which involved Pythagoras, pie, and all that crazy talk. Then one night my Dad walks into my room, looks at the screen, types a bunch of stuff into the coding window and *BOOM* its suddenly all working. Thanks Dad! He also helped to completely recompile the code for Sackpad and put it into a nice OOP format. We fixed the second problem by shoving everything on stage (all the objects) into one compressed piece of data and then sending it all out in just 1 connection. PHP then handles the decompression and stores it in the database in a nice hash form.

We now had a working, fully-networked proper pre-alpha build of the Sackpad application. Next was the website side of things – this is where I came in – again. So we had a dedicated server with nothing on it but information being sent and received from the Sackpad app, we needed a site. I got to work on coding and designing sackpad.com which allowed users to sign up, use the app, edit their profile, etc.. I also spent a very long time working on the admin panel, which allowed the Sackcast team to moderate levels, edit them, delete them, manage user registrations and general Sackpad status. I had to code all of this myself, as I wasn’t able to get any help since I am the only one in the team who knows about coding and designing with websites. Meanwhile, Sackpad was getting dusty again. I blew off the dust, opened up the folder and launched Flash. I noticed that Shermzor had made some nice interface edits. It was looking really awesome at this point. Here is a picture of a near-to-alpha build:

As you can see, the interface was a bit messy, text everywhere, not many objects, lots of debug code and buttons. But hey – at least the load and save buttons were there and working! Burgerman is our sound and podcast editor – he was helping me test Sackpad versions at the time. This version is pretty old though, we actually scrapped that interface and built and entirely new, more slick-looking version.

Ok, so now we had a working site, a working registration and user system, a working admin panel, a working-ish very BUGGY and ugly looking version of the app and some excited community users. They were excited because all you saw when you went to sackpad.com was this image:

Now obviously this was a teaser, even Media Molecule were excited. Their response was: “OMGZ AWESUM!” The project was still kept under the wraps, as we didn’t want to get involved in any legal issues. Speaking of all things legal, we weren’t allowed to use anything owned by Sony or Media Molecule. That means pictures too. So we had to draw everything ourselves, well, my sister did most of it.

As the build versions increased, we started to see more features develop. One feature got lost though, and that was a “lock” feature. This would allow you to permanently lock an object so it couldn’t be moved accidentally, however, it kept crashing the system for some reason and locking all of the objects on stage or something along those lines, so we scrapped it. We also added a free-scale mode, where you can hold down CTRL and move the mouse up and down to scale, and left and right to rotate. This is still very buggy and we tell our users to use it at their own risk, as it ends up freezing objects most of the time.

The next few months before Christmas just consisted of lots of hard work on Sackpad and lots of bug fixes, as well as adding new features, new images, new objects and tools etc.. Since we weren’t allowed to take the tool images or materials directly from the game (copyright issues) we had to re-draw them. My sister drew all of the objects from LBP in paint and sent them over to us so that we could vectorize them and stick them in the app. She did a very good job (as you’ll see in the pics below..)

After a lot of hard work and effort from the Sackcast team and I, we had our final alpha build. This had a completely re-designed interface, as well as FULLY working load and save buttons, a community levels list (people are able to check a box saying “publish to community levels” which will make it publicly available on Sackpad) and a “locked” check box, which makes it publicly available but you need a password to get into the level. This is used for sending it to your friends without revealing it to anyone else. A simple “locked” screen will appear asking you for the levels password. Pretty neat stuff. We also have a sharing ID system which I’ll explain later in the video. Once we had our final alpha build, it was just minor bug fixes from there on. We enabled beta sign ups a couple weeks before Christmas and got about 300 sign ups. We then closed the signups and released our first beta on the 25th December, Christmas day. This was a fully functioning verison of the app with a HUGE amount of code and a working engine. It uses GPU acceleration to enhance viewing and editing pleasure, as well as speed and consistency. Here are a few pics of the current build on sackpad.com.

This is the intro screen. You have 3 options. You can start creating, which will take you to the main editor, you have “report a bug” which takes you to the area for reporting any bugs you may find (this was and still IS a beta, so it is bound to have bugs) and the “Creators Lounge”  is a place for anyone currently using Sackpad to chat to each other, just a chat room I quickly programmed to fit nicely with Sackpad in the whole “social” side of things.

The picture here is the main interface (picture taken off of the site so the links above are in the navbar on the site.) As you can see, it is VERY different from some of the earlier builds and looks a lot neater. We have level scroller buttons so you can actually scroll up, down, left and right through the level. There is also a thermometer to stop you adding too many objects and overloading the system. The code at the bottom of the app is just debug code that users can give us if they encounter a bug. There is also a “clear stage” button to reset everything on the stage. We also have a “PopoPlayer” for listening to music while you create, and a controls menu with a tutorial video and a news section for Sackpad updates.

Here is a level that Oli (from Sackcast) made shortly after the beta had been released. Shermzor made all of the basic shapes (squares, triangles etc…) and my sister drew all of the LBP objects in the menu (spawn point, paint guns, etc..) This is just the basic stuff you can do with Sackpad, it has a lot of potential.

This one is the list of community levels. We have about 100 levels in total at the moment, and 200 active members, with about 50 levels published. Obviously as admins, the Sackcast team have access to all of these levels and are able to do whatever we want to them – muhahaha.

And this one is just a bunch of objects I stuck on stage, as well as a text tool so you can put text in your levels. We also added a colour tool to the v1 beta build which allows you to colour objects.

And of course, this blog post wouldn’t be complete without a sneaky-peek of a “behind the scenes” picture of work-in-progress in the Sackpad app.

Mmmm, wireframes. And that’s about it for now! Funny thing is, even though this application is as CPU-intense and as complex as it is, it still has the names “mybuild1.exe” and “basicdrag.fla” along with about 60 other AS files with funny names.

We are working on some really awesome features which I can’t talk about at the moment, still for legal reasons, but keep checking sackpad.com as we are going into Phase 2 of the beta testing very soon, and we will be opening signups again for a limited time only – so maybe you could sneak a registration in then. We were also recently invited to meet the creators of LBP, Media Molecule themselves! We went to their office a couple weeks ago and showed them Sackpad – they loved it. They seemed really enthusiastic about it and want to support it when it gets released in the future.

I am very pleased with how Sackpad turned out and I can’t wait to reveal the new features we are working on – it will really revolutionise Sackpad. I hope the community enjoys using Sackpad as much as we enjoyed creating it and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone on there creating some awesome levels!

To conclude, here is a quick video of me demoing an early version of Sackpad. Be sure to watch it in HD!