I’ve had a few people tell me that some of their pictures aren’t showing up on Sackbook. After considerable hair-pulling I’ve worked out what’s going on and I think I’ve fixed it (slightly more technical detail after the jump!)
However there’s a slight problem; there’s now a few corrupt converted images out there which have either a black strip along the bottom, or a strip filled with funny colours. If you spot any of these on the site, please send me a message or leave a comment here with the address of the level or profile in question and I’ll get the site to reconvert them.
What went wrong? Well when working out LBP’s texture format (so I could convert the pictures to a format you can see in your web-browser) I only looked at photos taken in-game (which are 320×180px), turns out the pictures you take using a PlayStation Eye are slightly larger, at 320×240px. This pushes the filesize over a limit at which the structure of the file changes slightly. I hadn’t accounted for this and so the conversion process quit unexpectedly.
It’s not a picture problem but I’m getting a different quirk with Sackbook. When I leave the 6 character code on the comments page for the sackbook level the text I’ve entered displays as as 7 asterisks and it I try to continue at the sackbook site I get told that I haven’t entered the code.
Is this something odd like LBP thinking the code is some sort of rude word and replacing it with asteriks?
Hi Neff,
Heh, now that’s an odd one! Send me your PSN name using the ‘Contact me’ link at the top of the page and I’ll clear your registration code from the site so you can try again (and hopefully it won’t be mistaken for a rude word this time!)
I’ve noticed that my avatar and the header for one of my levels is shows up 128×128px. However, when I uploaded my avatar photo and it appeared at 320×180px. These images were taken in the beta, so there may be something strange about them.
Side note, I see you found 5-star ratings! Nice work.
Hi Lokno,
Thanks. Yeah, it seems all the images from the beta got chopped down to size a bit.
Hey, how did you get the data to feed directly from LittleBigPlanet? Is there some sort of API? Pretty cool….
I heard about Sackbook on http://www.GameSlurp.com and just had to pop over and say wow – well done! It’s fantastic!
Just out of interest, what did you use to build it? It’s done really well.
Sackbook is a great helping guide for my Level Video Reviews blog… Just wanted to show my appreciation to you for creating something this magnificent.
I am spreading the word of the website wherever I can. :]
Hey Ixalon, can you change the cookie stored time on the login? not sure how it happens but it keeps on kicking me out the site logged in status.
Sorry bout that, the session timeout was still set to the default for the server (something incredibly short). I’ve ramped it up to 24 hours, so shouldn’t be quite as annoying now.
Just popped in to say sackbook is awesome. Fantastic work, loving it.
Chris,
Great job on sackbook! It’s makes it so much easIer to find new levels. Thank you!
fivezero2
“8th December 2008:
As expected I’ve been asked by Sony’s Sacklawyers to take down Sackbook whilst they take a look at how the data is accessed to ensure everything is safe and lovely (it is, but they are right to make sure of such important things).”
More like… they couldn’t figure out how to do it themselves so they want to take the code now, or they lost the race so they are pissed off… hopefully you get your site back after Sony cries over the great work you did.
Hi Chris. I just wanted to let you know that sackbook is great. I’m hoping to raise some support for your site at the LBP workshop. I hope everything goes smoothly with the Sacklawyers. Good Luck!
Hi guys,
Thanks for all the support – it is much appreciated!
I’d just like to say that I support your site, and I hope Sony gives you the green light to continue.
I can’t believe sony asked you to get the site down.
Sackbook is a big commercial and sales coefficient for LittleBigPlanet.
I love sackbook! screw you sony. *cries*
When’s the sack lawyers supposed to be getting back to you on this hold going on right now?
Hi Reinheart, I’m not sure. I’ve heard they can be as quick as ninjas or move as slow as an ice-age, so I’m hoping for somewhere in between.
Chris, can you please give me an example of how your connecting to their server, I tried connecting and sending the correct user-agent but the server still throws an error. I just need the most basic of basic start. I’d love you forever <3.
Hi Matt, I’d probably have the stuffing extracted slowly from my Sackboy’s sides if I were to tell anyone.
Anyway, the method I used, if it even still works, probably wont work for long.
TBH, i don’t think anyone can really improve on what you’ve already done.
Also Chris, I just wanted to know so i could see if the same method works for other games’ servers.
I miss Sackbook. I hope it comes back soon.