[EVO 4G Android Development] Skullmonkey:
DISCLAIMER:

I am not responsible if you break your phone. You should always do a nandroid backup befor flashing any files. Remember to wipe your dalvik before making a nandroid to save a lot of time and space ;)

Intro

So. Boot animations. Hard to make? At first yes. But I will explain in great detail each step in making a boot animation.

Requirements

-A photo Editing program (GIMP and Photoshop are the best.)

-A text editor besides notepad or wordpad. (Notepad++)

-An archive manager (7-Zip or WinRAR)

My setup:

Photoshop CS5

WinRAR

Notpad++

The Tutorial

Step 1: Folders

So in this step, we need to make folders. The number of folders depends on what type of animation you want. You can name the folders anything you want as long as they are reflected in your desc.txt (we will get more into that later).

If you have a video that you want to repeat, you will need only 1 folder. (Name it anything you want)

If you want an intro (only shown once) and then a repeated set, You will need 2 folders. Most common names: (part0, part1) (intro, repeat)

If you have more then 2 sections of images, then I have no clue what you are doing but good for you for being awesome!

Step 2: Images

So this section will be a generilization of the images. I say this because every video is going to be different.

Each image in the video is called a frame. They usually vary slightly from image to image which sped through makes the illusion of a video.

-Each frame must be 480*800 px (thats 480 pixels wide by 800 pixels tall).

-Each frame must be saved in a .png format. (If you are using Photoshop, File > Save for Web & Devices to reduce the file size drastically.)

-Each frame needs to have some numarical value.

+Recommended would be something like frame0001.png, frame0002.png, frame0003.png, etc.

+Try to keep it under 300 images total

After all of the images are created, we now need to place them in folders.

Step 3: Placing images in folders

This step will vary from user to user. based on what type of animation you are making.

Intro to loop (2 folders):

With this one, you are going to place all of the images that is to be the intro to folder 1.

All looping images will go into folder 2.

Looping video:

All images will go into a single folder.

Step 4: desc.txt

This is the 'script' that tells android what to do.

Open up your text editing program. You have to use something other then notepad/wordpad included with Windows. They add some funky stuff for every new line you make which will ultimately break the script. It is best to use Notepad++.

This is an example of a desc.txt that has 2 folders in it:

Here is what it is telling android to do line by line:

480 800 20 <-- Width of the animation in pixels. This will stay 480 for Evo users Height of the animation. Keep this 800 for Evo Users Frames per second. This is basically your 'speed' of the animation. This will stay in between 10-30 (10 being slower, longer, and choppy; 30 being fast, short, and smooth.)

p 1 0 intro <-- p is telling it to play this folder. It will always be there. Folder is to be played 1 time before moving on to the next folder. Pause the movie for 0 frames after the animation is completed before moving on to the next folder. (This will normally stay 0). Name of the folder to be played. In this case, the folder named "intro" gets played once and then it moves on to the next line.

p 0 0 repeat <-- Play the animation... Folder is to be indefinately played. The 0 is telling it to play this folderover and over. Just keep it 0. Folder "repeat" gets played

And now for an example of a single folder (same thing looping over and over):

So same as before... 480px wide by 800px tall at 20 FPS

Play the folder "part0" an indefinate amount with no pause in between.

Why not go funky!:

Same... 480px wide by 800px tall at 20 FPS

Play "intro" 1 time with no pause

Play "cookies" 5 times with no pause

Play "cake" 2 times with no pause

Play "mynion" indefinately

Ok. So now we save this file with the file name "desc.txt". It must be named that. Case sensitive.

Get it? Good. Let's move on.

Step 5: Packaging

Now we are going to package this sweetness of a custom boot animation!

(this is assuming you are using Windows with WinRAR. Steps may vary from OS and program)

1. Highlight all of your folders and desc.txt and right click > "Add to archive..."

2. On the left side, change the radio buttons from rar to zip

3. Change compression method to "store"

4. Name the file. For now, you can name it anything. Eventually, it will need to be named "bootanimation.zip"

And we are done! Now we just need to set it up on your phone!

Here are 2 methods of doing this: