Pia, Pia, Piano!
I am the music man, I come from, er, Edinburgh…
ANYWAYS! After I finished working on the game a couple of weeks ago (or, rather, after I was told to stop working on the game by a particularly-lethal-looking-kipper-brandishing Siobhan), I spent a couple of days making some audio contraptions. The piano level above is one if the fruits of my labours.
I must confess that it is totally impractical as a music making device within LBP – it certainly looks and sounds the part, but coordinating multiple sack folk to jump at the same time would take a lot of practice.
Version 1 there uses proximity switches to trigger the keys which in turn makes the piston attached to each key shrink down and tells the sound object to play at the same time. With Version 2 I plan to make the keys trigger by some other means (maybe magnetic key switches?) and have some giant hands which come down and play chords! That way I could have three buttons on top of the piano and, before you know it, you can play the entire back catalogue of Status Quo! AMAZING! But not built yet…
Apologies for the slightly obscure musicologists joke in that video – the tritone is traditionally “the devil’s interval” (cue distant rumble of thunder). If you play the particular tritone marked out by the cute little devil-sackboy stickers you win the piano, which you can then put in your own levels! YAY!
Bye!
Amazing!
very sound orientated as i am, this is a truely brilliant video.
I was wondering how sounds would be implemented.. but if this is anything to go by.. just wow
thanks for the vid.. music man! *)
Ahh man! I just started to make the same kind of piano where sackboys jump on the keys to make music. But yours sounds and looks better than mine. Awesome job! I better scrap my level then.
Lol awesome, wish i could get in the beta xD
Haha! That’s really cool!
And hurray for getting the Piano!!
How man hours did that take to make?
you really have to put some brain in a contraption like that:) i think little big planet is the most elaborate game ever made it continuossly amazes me:O
This is awsome (FIRST)
i realley like it REALLY AWSOMEE. THIS IS THE BEST GAME
The .SWF it’s not loading ):
Just the post it’s way too intriguing!
I wondered how you guys managed to make the the tetris theme,
that’s the reply I was waiting for!
Thanks again for the BETA, i got in and it’s really great…
but only one thing concerns me, her in italy there isn’t
any website promoting your game and/or offering any keys
while the attention for the title is top notch.
Consider paying a little attention to us too, it totally worths the effort!
Funny to see this, I was actually just drawing out this whole level earlieer based around musical instrument, for the simple reason that I completely neglected all the sound object in the first level I created. And it involved a piano in almost the same fashion. Very cool to see in and working. *thumbs up* Hopefully I can pull something alike off
.
I actually already designed a guitar shape in-game, but since the strings now seem impossible to make (for now..) the idea so far was that the neck would be like this bridge to the next part of the level. It had these little made up puzzles where one would hear a specific note and then had to push one out of two blocks (that reproduced the same note) into a hole to be able to move on.
So yeah I’m so continue building on that.
EPIC!!!
can we actually build these in create mode???
You’re missing something important, Kenny – the vid! Nothing’s loading for me.
I love the idea of music devices. How’s about building an old step-tracker? I’m not on the Beta so can’t give it a go, but building blocks for sounds spaced at beat intervals should make a pretty straightforward ProTracker type music machine. I guess a proximity/magnetic switch on a moving arm passing over the blocks would be needed. Would you need a different block for each pitch? That’d be quite a few! Maybe instead a sort of piano-roll view with shelves for pitch would work better?
Hey, quick edit! Now I can see it, that’s very nice! Looks the part, too.
That was great! So you can basically play any melodies you want! Or at least… many… Hope you’ll get the Version 2 done, too. But, umm… Will this be implemented into the retail copy of LBP?
Man, great job on this!
This took me about 8 hours from start to finish, but that included a lot of R&D. I actually started out with a keyboard half the size but then copied and pasted it to give it twice the range! Now that I’ve worked out how to do it I reckon I could build it again in 2 or 3 hours.
Essential tools in its construction were “grid mode” (found in the start menu), “group select” (hold down X and drag the left stick) and using pistons which were tweaked to be “stiff” prior to attaching them (which forces them to be perpendicular to the surface they are attached to, guaranteeing a smooth action on the keys!).
The main construction challenge was working out how to do the black keys. If you have a go at making a keyboard you’ll find out why this is difficult! The solution is that the white keys are actually made from two pieces, which is why you can see a little line on all the white keys at the same depth as the black keys! Gluing the white keys’ component parts together without gluing them to their neighbouring keys was also a challenge – this is where grid mode comes in to its own because it allows you to move parts away, glue them together, then move them back to precisely where they were previously.
One last “top tip” from me – the ‘KENWAY’ badge might look like its made from stickers, but it’s actually a piece of marquetry made from metal “pixel art”. What I did was write it HUGE, using grid mode again, then shrink it down to the desired size with grid mode off, copy it (by pressing in the left stick), and embedded it in the piano’s wood. Can’t wait to see people do stuff like this in the game:
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/images/rubiksde.jpg
Shifty – I’ve build a tracker too! Something to bear in mind is that the sounds in the game get loaded on request which means there is a slight latency not particularly suitable for musical applications. The way to get around that is to “pre-load” all your chosen samples on level load…
So freaking awesome! would be a great 4 player thing to mess around with.congrats on making it!
Is it on the beta? I want to find it and play it.
Dude they denied my comment for no reason!!!
i just wanted to know if you can build pianos in the real game???
im guessing thats a no if they dont want me asking it
What ever you see, you can build. They’ve said this multiple times. They use the same tools to build levels that are given to the users.
haha. release that.
There’s no sound in this video… =(
wow! that is AMAZING! i can’t believe you’re able to do that. man there is so many limitless possibilities with LBP!
Nice one, Kenny.
I, myself, have been using the sound making abilities in LBP.
I’m in the beta, and have published a level named “Musical Level”
It’s just a test of some of the sounds to make a song of some sort.
I hope you check it out, I’d be honoured if you could!
Also, I live in Coatbridge, just outside of Glasgow. So hi!
i want to try your stage, i wish i have the beta now
Dude this is just too cool for words, well I mean except for these words that I am typing, but uh, yeah…
Ryan,
Yes, everything you saw was built with the LBP beta.
No, your comment was not rejected. It was just delayed. Have some patience.
Very cool level. Wish I had a beta code to check it out. I’ve been playing the piano for years, so it’s particularly meaningful in my case. I wonder whether you can set up a puzzle in the level, where you have to play a tune (i.e hit notes in sequence) to unlock a prize.
Instead of gluing two white pieces together, couldn’t you just cut it out of one white piece using block subtraction? Then again, maybe you’ll want to wait for the full release, since I hear the beta levels cannot be transferred.
I’m REALLY curious on how the camera works in editing with friends online. I controlled the camera zooming in and out LOCALLY anyways and my friend kept complaining saying I needed to zoom in here and there.
Hi Kenny,
How’d you get the tracker to work? Are you going to be sharing it with the world?
wow just wow
That piano looks awesome, now if only there were an easier way play songs on it…
it’d be really creepy if it just randomly started playing some crazy creepy tune.
can’t wait till LBP comes out XD!
That’s a great level. Keep up the great work. Once/if I ever get an beta code, I’ll try to do something similar. Otherwise I’ll be picking up my copy of the game on October 21st. Thanks friends for making this incredible game.
Just curious, but where did you get the piano notes? Are those samples available in the beta?
“Just curious, but where did you get the piano notes? Are those samples available in the beta?”
You can make ANYTHING in this game, it’s just wood painted white.
“With Version 2 I plan to make the keys trigger by some other means (maybe magnetic key switches?) and have some giant hands which come down and play chords!”
You could have the hands, with fingers have magnetic key switches, the fingers get close to the keys, the key moves/note plays. Together with a lot of fingers and awesome timing, it could just work.
i cannot find it in online community, where is it ???? I wanna try it
any spare beta codes? i know loads must be asking you, but i heard one of the devs gave my freind one for no reason so i thought id chance my arm
ps. im learning to become a game designer (arent we all) so ive got some cool ideas for beta, my computer crashed on the lpb news site when they came out, so i was real annoyed, i dont wana wait any more
:(
HAHAHAHA!!!!! LOLZ awsome!!!!!! love the laughing monster ^_^ good work
Hello. I couldn’t get my hands on a beta key
…
Can you import samples ? Or can you only use the sounds from game database ? plz help.
Wow! Looks like I wasn’t the only person to come up with an idea of a piano keyboard level.. but that’s fantastic!
Seriously Mm – thankyou so much for this game, truly interesting, truly inspiring, and if what I’ve heard is true about all things seen in these videos is achievable all with objects contained in the LBP package as standard – truly incredible!
I can’t wait out the 23 days (apparently) until LBP is released (..providing that date’s not just a US release date and it includes Australia, too..)
How do I get the prize with 2x people? Plzzzz