Bouncy Radio Center will also see a new version coming out, and more importantly, a new module which will allow for people with dedicated servers to run and manage their own SHOUTcast server right from within the radio center itself.

Bouncy XBox LIVE will also have some cool updates, this time for the Forum Achievements which people have been awaiting for a while.

For BouncyServers, we shall be soon doing an updated on our licensing software in order to have everything managed from 1 client area instead of the 2 client areas we currently have (for hosting services and licensing) this should make everything much easier for everybody.

More updates will be coming soon, so check back!

Anthony

Its been a while since i have posted on my blog, I’ve been crazy busy with lots of updates and new Apps. First of all lets talk about updates to current Apps.

Bouncy Radio Center v9.1
This was a pretty big update on my part, mainly with new module the Radio On-Demand feature which is now a part of the radio center and comes free at no extra cost to new and existing license holders. radio On-Demand provides a secure way to provide music to your members without compromising the security or privacy of the MP3. in a nutshell, it prevents people downloading the files, and only allows for them to listen to the file “On-Demand”. This is a fantastic way to promote songs you have for sale, as such, i added some features to add buy now links and price fields to each On-Demand file.

As well as this cool new feature some bugs and improvements have been made to the system, for example the RAJAX module has been re-written using an output function in order to feed live data to other hooks and modules. As a result, this prevents those annoying errors people were having in Internet Explorer and other problems where the browser would cache the RAJAX data causing old entries to be shown. This is now a thing of the past.

Bouncy Radio Center 9.1 Change log
FIXED: Listeners chart error after a new installation
FIXED: Scheduling a show with an end time at midnight returns a
BRC302 error that the show cannot end before it has started
FIXED: Problem with the flash charts when a custom admin directory
name is used
FIXED: Problem with the LiveStream Player when a custom Admin
Directory is used
FIXED: Flash Charts do not work when .htaccess is used within
admin directory
FIXED: Livestream player fails to initialize when a .htaccess
file is used within the admin directory
ADDED: Support for Radio Request Hook
ADDED: Support for Bouncy License Control Center Application
FIXED: RAJAX Support for Internet Explorer. data Now updates correctly.
ADDED: New RAJAX Methods and data construction using
$this->buildOutput() functions.
ADDED: Radio On-Demand feature

Bouncy XBox LIVE v2.1
Updates to Bouncy XBox live were mainly just compatibility and fixes for IP.Boards new version of their forum software. A list of changes is below.

Bouncy XBox LIVE 2.1 Change log
FIXED: Public Module Ordering
FIXED: JS Errors in Internet Explorer
FIXED: Theme Errors
ADDED: Support for Bouncy License Control Center Application (REQUIRED)
ADDED: IPB 3.0.4 support
ADDED: Halo 3 theme

Bouncy License Control Center
This is a new app which is required to be installed for the above licensed apps to work correctly. This adds better management of your app licenses as well as finally being able to reset your own local keys, a feature i initially overlooked during the development of these apps. This app will also provide you with latest information directly from us, a list of available apps with links to product pages, purchase pages and latest version information. You will also find some options which load up OUR license control panel right inside your Admin CP!

Check out the image below for some screenshots of the latest apps.

View Full Album

If you don’t already know Bouncy Xbox Live is a new script from BouncyServers which allows your community to add there Xbox Live gamertag to your forum so that your community can easily find and play games with other members.

One of the cool features which was included with Bouncy Xbox Live was the Gamertar. This was basically a small dynamic avatar image which was generated on the fly using a background image and the members Xbox Live avatar. This meant that because it was generated on the fly, the Gamertar would always display the gamers latest avatar style such as hair, clothes and facial features.

To the left you can see my current gamertar, this will automatically change if and when i update my Xbox live avatar. This uses the default Bouncy Xbox Live Gamertar background with a grey border and a golden glow.

Onto the technical stuff.

The gamertar is generated using 2 PHP functions and the GD image library.

The first function is called create_gamertar()

function create_gamertar ()
{
//-------------------------
// Fetch And Clean Gamertag
//-------------------------
$gamertag	 = $this->ipsclass->input['tag'];
$gamertag = ereg_replace("[[:space:]]+", "%20", $gamertag);
//-----------------------
// Fetch Gamertar Images
//-----------------------
$img_a = imagecreatefrompng("{$this->ipsclass->vars['img_url']}/bxbl_images/gavbg.png");
$img_b = "http://avatar.xboxlive.com/avatar/{$gamertag}/avatar-body.png";
//---------------------
// Set Max Avatar Size
//---------------------
$width = 80;
$height = 160;
//--------------------
// Get New Dimensions
//--------------------
list($width_orig, $height_orig) = getimagesize($img_b);
$ratio_orig = $width_orig/$height_orig;
if ($width/$height > $ratio_orig)
{
	$width = $height*$ratio_orig;
}
else
{
	$height = $width/$ratio_orig;
}
//----------
// Resample
//----------
$image_p = imagecreatetruecolor($width, $height);
imagecolortransparent($image_p, imagecolorallocate($image_p, 0, 0, 0));
imagealphablending($image_p, false);
imagesavealpha($image_p, true);
$image = imagecreatefrompng($img_b);
imagecopyresampled($image_p, $image, 0, 0, 0, 0, $width, $height, $width_orig, $height_orig);
//---------------------------------------
// Copy, Merge, Resize With Transparency
//---------------------------------------
$this->imagecopymerge_alpha($img_a, $image_p, 0, 0, 10, 10, 64, 57,100);
//---------------
// Output Images
//---------------
header("Content-Type: image/png");
imagesavealpha($img_a, true);
imagepng($img_a, NULL);
imagedestroy($img_a);
imagedestroy($img_b);
}

pretty straight forward function so lets go over each step

First of all

//-------------------------
// Fetch And Clean Gamertag
//-------------------------
$gamertag	 = $this->ipsclass->input['tag'];
$gamertag = ereg_replace("[[:space:]]+", "%20", $gamertag);

as mentioned in the quote, this fetches and cleans the gamertag, this has to be done firstly because gamertag’s can contain spaces between characters, and secondly because sometimes i like to obey the standards. So this function first of all saves the members gamertag in the $gamertag variable and then converts any spaces to %20 so it would turn “Anthony Kinson” into “Anthony%20Kinson”.

The next piece of code…

//-----------------------
// Fetch Gamertar Images
//-----------------------
$img_a = imagecreatefrompng("{$this->ipsclass->vars['img_url']}/bxbl_images/gavbg.png");
$img_b = "http://avatar.xboxlive.com/avatar/{$gamertag}/avatar-body.png";
//---------------------
// Set Max Avatar Size
//---------------------
$width = 80;
$height = 160;
//--------------------
// Get New Dimensions
//--------------------
list($width_orig, $height_orig) = getimagesize($img_b);
$ratio_orig = $width_orig/$height_orig;
if ($width/$height > $ratio_orig)
{
	$width = $height*$ratio_orig;
}
else
{
	$height = $width/$ratio_orig;
}

OK, so nice brief explanation. img_a grabs the Gamertars background image i previously mentioned from the forums skin directory (this allows a different background for each installed skin) and img_b retrieves the members avatar using the previously formatted gamertag.

After this the avatars width and height are edited, this allows us to shrink the avatar so it fits in the Gamertar. The next block of code sets the new dimensions maintaining the aspect ratio.

//----------
// Resample
//----------
$image_p = imagecreatetruecolor($width, $height);
imagecolortransparent($image_p, imagecolorallocate($image_p, 0, 0, 0));
imagealphablending($image_p, false);
imagesavealpha($image_p, true);
$image = imagecreatefrompng($img_b);
imagecopyresampled($image_p, $image, 0, 0, 0, 0, $width, $height, $width_orig, $height_orig);

The above code then resample’s the image whilst maintaining aspect ratio and pixel transparency within the png. This lead to a problem and the creation of the second function imagecopymerge_alpha(). As it goes, when you merge 2 images using GD in PHP specifically PNG images, the transparency is lost, resulting in a solid black background being applied to the avatar image, the problem with this is that it just creates a cropped avatar with a black background and the gamertar background is not visible.

//---------------------------------------
// Copy, Merge, Resize With Transparency
//---------------------------------------
$this->imagecopymerge_alpha($img_a, $image_p, 0, 0, 10, 10, 64, 57,100);

This is where the above bit of code comes into play. This bit of code then sends our avatar to the imagecopymerge_alpha() function with all the data needed.

So, here is the imagecopymerge_alpha() function…

function imagecopymerge_alpha($dst_im, $src_im, $dst_x, $dst_y, $src_x, $src_y, $src_w, $src_h, $pct){
if(!isset($pct))
{
return false;
}
$pct /= 100;
//---------------------------
// Get Image Width And Height
//---------------------------
$w = imagesx( $src_im );
$h = imagesy( $src_im );
//-------------------------
// Turn Alpha Blending Off
//-------------------------
imagealphablending( $src_im, false );
//-----------------------------------------
// Find The Most Opaque Pixel In The Image
//-----------------------------------------
$minalpha = 127;
for( $x = 0; $x < $w; $x++ )
for( $y = 0; $y < $h; $y++ )
{
$alpha = ( imagecolorat( $src_im, $x, $y ) >> 24 ) & 0xFF;
if( $alpha < $minalpha )
{
$minalpha = $alpha;
}
}
//----------------------------------------------------
// Loop Through Image Pixels And Modify Alpha For Each
//----------------------------------------------------
for( $x = 0; $x < $w; $x++ )
{
for( $y = 0; $y < $h; $y++ )
{
//-----------------------------------------------------
// Get Current Alpha Value (Represents The Transparency)
//-----------------------------------------------------
$colorxy = imagecolorat( $src_im, $x, $y );
$alpha = ( $colorxy >> 24 ) & 0xFF;
//--------------------
// Calculate New Alpha
//--------------------
if( $minalpha !== 127 )
{
$alpha = 127 + 127 * $pct * ( $alpha - 127 ) / ( 127 - $minalpha );
}
else
{
$alpha += 127 * $pct;
}
//-----------------------------------
// Get The Colour Index With New Alpha
//-----------------------------------
$alphacolorxy = imagecolorallocatealpha( $src_im, ( $colorxy >> 16 ) & 0xFF, ( $colorxy >> 8 ) & 0xFF, $colorxy & 0xFF, $alpha );
//---------------------------------------
// Set Pixel With The New Colour + Opacity
//---------------------------------------
if( !imagesetpixel( $src_im, $x, $y, $alphacolorxy ) )
{
return false;
}
}
}
//---------------
// The Image Copy
//---------------
imagecopy($dst_im, $src_im, $dst_x, $dst_y, $src_x, $src_y, $src_w, $src_h);
}

There is no point in me going over each detail of this function, it pretty mush stays the same however you use it. As you can see from the code quotes it basically finds the most opaque pixel and then calculates the new alpha blending. After which it is returned back to the create_gamertar() function. and is output through the following final piece of code

//---------------
// Output Images
//---------------
header("Content-Type: image/png");
imagesavealpha($img_a, true);
imagepng($img_a, NULL);
imagedestroy($img_a);
imagedestroy($img_b);

Above again is pretty simple. It just sets the output content type, in this case, its a PMG image.

This code can be pretty much be used stand alone, of course though, you will need to create some sort of switch or post info so for example the URL http://yoursite.com/gamertar.php?gamertag=Anthony%20Kinson would set the gamertag to be used as Anthony Kinson something maybe like $gamertag = $_POST[‘gamertag’];

its completely up to you how you go about it, but these are the basic principles to how the gamertar is created.