Optional Boot Animation

[banjeed]

Hey all,
Just a quick thought I was pondering which I was hoping you could possibly shed some light on. In terms of boot animations, I was hoping this would be something I could customize. I'm not really sure whether it would be a video/image sequence loading instead of or after the "Please wait/loading" dealy, but it's something I would think is possible for the end user to accomplish. Perhaps each one of those notches on the please wait/loading screen could be a new frame in the sequence? Anyone know what we're up against? ED? Craigix? MWeston? Linus Torvalds? And I have to make note here that any comments around the mark of "boot animations should be avoided/take extra time to boot/waste my time/I hate/I find my cousin uncomfortably attractive" sound like "Bleeeblahah-blahblah-bah-blee-blah-blooo-blahhblahh" to me..which in my made up language, or as I like to call it, "Mulage", actually translate to "I'm a stupid-head and my head is also stupid". I'm sure you realize how this will make you seem like a fool on various levels. Does anyone have an idea of what I might need to do to customize my intro?

Thanks in advance,
Banjeed

 

[Prometheus]

First off, let me stress that I'm basing this on old information that I don't have a link to hand for, and that I only remember this because I made a note of it in a text file at the time when I saw it. It may very well have changed since then, and chances are it probably has.

Anyway, I seem to remember it being mentioned that this would be possible, using static or animated GIF files as long as they were under 16KB. Again note that this may have changed, as this was some months ago that I saw this. Then again, it might not have - I guess someone who knows more than I do will have to confirm or deny it. :lol:

 

[PSyMastR]

Yeah, because the angstrom boot image in the vids is ugly.

 

[quote]

There was a boot animation thread a while back, which had some good ones in it. I don't think anyone would have gone throught the trouble if they knew they wouldn't be useable.

 

[banjeed]

There was a boot animation thread a while back, which had some good ones in it. I don't think anyone would have gone throught the trouble if they knew they wouldn't be useable.

I hate to say it, but that's not exactly the case. I was one of those anyone's. We were just creating fan-made boot videos without much direction as to form or timing. Perhaps you recall these videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vz9h8ycg3ng

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjUNHgwQvAo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcygx9_xPQw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY8wnY34-6M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgAfc9J2dL4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9P8Bzmd-7Mg

I'd link to the original thread, but the search results keep breaking.

I think a lot of the digital artists who frequent this forum are interested in this type of functionality. I'm not in any shape or form asking those at the top to "add" anything on top of what is already in place, I'm simply asking if the functionality currently exists, and if so, how can I tap into it?

 

[fischju2000]

You can use google to search the forums better than the actual search engine, type 'site:www.gp32x.de/board thingyouwanttosearchfor'

I would also like this type of functionality, but a full nice video like that will undoubtably add a couple of seconds to the boot time. But some of those intros are so awesome, I'd let them.

 

[Username]

I liked the one with the flying consoles. It would be a nice feature, but I can't see myself using it much.

 

[darkblu]

i am all for a graphics tour-de-force startup animation. a stylish, suggestive (of power, dude) boot animation creates powerful subconscious associations with the device in the publics mind. dreamcast, ps2 and cube boot animations all touch a fiber inside me to this very day, when i read my email on computers tens of times more powerful.

therefore, i set forth a motion for rapid initialization of the gl subsystem during pandoras boot-up ; )

 

[Bronek]

i am all for a graphics tour-de-force startup animation. a stylish, suggestive (of power, dude) boot animation creates powerful subconscious associations with the device in the publics mind. dreamcast, ps2 and cube boot animations all touch a fiber inside me to this very day, when i read my email on computers tens of times more powerful.

therefore, i set forth a motion for rapid initialization of the gl subsystem during pandoras boot-up ; )

+1

 

[cb88]

@darkblu you'll have to get up with maciek on that one

 

[Chip]

As was pointed out the last time this came up, flashy boot animations are not really an option. There is a tiny amount of space in the bootloader where you could load a static image or maybe an animated gif, but nothing like what has been suggested. Anything graphically complex would slow the boot process and would need to wait until the system was nearly booted, and by that point, why bother?

I should also point out that the Pandora will hardly ever need to go through a boot process as you will never need to shut it down. Since the battery can last for months in STR mode and since resuming from STR is pretty much instantaneous, You will only actually need to shut down and boot up after major system updates. Seems a waste to spend much time trying to cram in a boot animation that you might see once a month.

 

[Butterman]

As was pointed out the last time this came up, flashy boot animations are not really an option. There is a tiny amount of space in the bootloader where you could load a static image or maybe an animated gif, but nothing like what has been suggested. Anything graphically complex would slow the boot process and would need to wait until the system was nearly booted, and by that point, why bother?

I should also point out that the Pandora will hardly ever need to go through a boot process as you will never need to shut it down. Since the battery can last for months in STR mode and since resuming from STR is pretty much instantaneous, You will only actually need to shut down and boot up after major system updates. Seems a waste to spend much time trying to cram in a boot animation that you might see once a month.

I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm so used to instant boots via "Sleep", I can't handle anything less.

 

[banjeed]

As was pointed out the last time this came up, flashy boot animations are not really an option. There is a tiny amount of space in the bootloader where you could load a static image or maybe an animated gif, but nothing like what has been suggested. Anything graphically complex would slow the boot process and would need to wait until the system was nearly booted, and by that point, why bother?

I should also point out that the Pandora will hardly ever need to go through a boot process as you will never need to shut it down. Since the battery can last for months in STR mode and since resuming from STR is pretty much instantaneous, You will only actually need to shut down and boot up after major system updates. Seems a waste to spend much time trying to cram in a boot animation that you might see once a month.

I was certain this would turn into something larger than it had to. Sorry for bringing back old friends. I'll break it down. I've seen in the videos a "loading screen" type of thingy...sometimes saying Angstrom, and sometimes saying something along the lines of "please wait" in which a box is filled from the left as the system loads....

Can I change that somewhat easily by either a skin in which I can at least swap the image? Or could I in any possibility replaces each knotch in the fill with an image from a sequence? Thanks in advance...

 

[sindbad]

I was certain this would turn into something larger than it had to. Sorry for bringing back old friends. I'll break it down. I've seen in the videos a "loading screen" type of thingy...sometimes saying Angstrom, and sometimes saying something along the lines of "please wait" in which a box is filled from the left as the system loads....

Can I change that somewhat easily by either a skin in which I can at least swap the image? Or could I in any possibility replaces each knotch in the fill with an image from a sequence? Thanks in advance...
The part with Ångström shouldn't be too hard to change, it's after the bootloader.

 

[.Gogeta§§J4BR.]

As was pointed out the last time this came up, flashy boot animations are not really an option. There is a tiny amount of space in the bootloader where you could load a static image or maybe an animated gif, but nothing like what has been suggested. Anything graphically complex would slow the boot process and would need to wait until the system was nearly booted, and by that point, why bother?

I should also point out that the Pandora will hardly ever need to go through a boot process as you will never need to shut it down. Since the battery can last for months in STR mode and since resuming from STR is pretty much instantaneous, You will only actually need to shut down and boot up after major system updates. Seems a waste to spend much time trying to cram in a boot animation that you might see once a month.

If they wanna see it, why not? the psp can skip the intro animation, yet people use custom ones just to make it pretty
no reason not to give the user an option to load a really small video, even if it's after the system has actually booted

 

[hedwards]

The part with Ångström shouldn't be too hard to change, it's after the bootloader.

Actually you'd be surprised it's not as easy as one might think. It's going to depend upon specifics of the hardware, but even in the most basic scenario you're probably going to have to enlarge the loader, add code for dealing with the animation, and a new image. I know a few projects that have been working on that for quite a while to add what would seem to be a trivial change. I think both of those projects were working on it for many months.

Depending upon the hardware, there might not really be space for it, and you'd almost certainly have to redo the layout of the data on disk as well.

 

[darkblu]

As was pointed out the last time this came up, flashy boot animations are not really an option. There is a tiny amount of space in the bootloader where you could load a static image or maybe an animated gif, but nothing like what has been suggested. Anything graphically complex would slow the boot process and would need to wait until the system was nearly booted, and by that point, why bother?

bootloader space is not such a concern, as long as the code fits in - procedurally-generated assets can go a long way. as about the animation slowing down booting - that is why it would be optional.

 

[cb88]

@Chip cold you please lighten up a bit your posts are getting rediculously negative... have you ever seen what could be done on a c64 at 1 Mhz? ... surely the use of 10% of the CPU isn't gonna slow te boot that much which tends to be Disk strapped anyway

 

[Pleng]

@Chip cold you please lighten up a bit your posts are getting rediculously negative... have you ever seen what could be done on a c64 at 1 Mhz? ... surely the use of 10% of the CPU isn't gonna slow te boot that much which tends to be Disk strapped anyway

And it's the C64/Speccy trippy-coloured-lines-dancing-up-and-down-the-screen (not sure if that's the technical term for it !) loading screen that I vote the Pandora should emulate!

 

[Username]

Could you have it start up when it leaves sleep mode? That might solve most of your problems.