Complete Comprehensive Tutorial on Custom Boot Animations

[A.C.Sanchez]

Is there a limit to the number of .png files that you can use to make the animation? And how long does each frame show during the animation sequence?

[brendanstl]

Where can I download adb from?

[richz]

how do i get to command prompt

[GeneRs]

What is this ADB tools thing? Is this a program I need to download that gives me access to the core of my Droid? If so...Where can I get it? Thanx for your time

[GolfProRM]

In case anyone wants it, I've simplified the original boot animation to remove the red eye and just loop the DROID repeatedly.

[Big Lou]

Okay, the original instructions are great... provided you aren't a noob. I had to find a lot of stuff out on my own... so please amend the original instructions with these noob friendly additions.

First, you need the Android SDK. You can find that here: Android SDK | Android Developers

Extract the folder and run Setup. It will ask you to download files, do so.

Next, create your animation--I won't go into much detail about this... all I'll say is the only real specification is that they are .png and they are named in a way that they can be numerically ordered with the first frame being the lowest possible number. Here is the original zip file for the default animation: Droid Forum - Verizon Droid & the Motorola Droid Forum
If you want just a single looping animation, simply put your frames into a single folder, preferably called "part0". If you have half your animation run once and the other half loop, put those two halves into separate folders--"part0" and "part1".

Modify the desc.txt to coordinate with your frames and folders. Here is a guide on the desc.txt: The desc.txt for boot animations works like this

Using 7zip found here: 7-Zip, create a zip archive of the folders and desc.txt with the compression setting as "store". Name this zip file: bootanimation.zip

Place this bootanimation.zip into the tools folder of the SDK. You can find the tools folder inside of the android_sdk_windows folder you extracted when you downloaded the SDK.

Connect your phone to your computer with USB. Mount your phone by clicking on the USB message in the notification bar. You will then need to run Debugging mode by going on your phone to: Settings > Applications > Development > USB Debugging. Make sure this is checked; you should get an exclamation mark icon in your notification bar.

Once you are connected, mounted, and in debugging mode, go to on your computer: Start > Run. Type in "cmd" and hit Ok. This will open command prompt.

You need to navigate to the android_sdk_folder from command prompt. If the folder is in your C drive and the letter next to your cursor is different, simply type: "c:" and it will switch to the correct drive. If you are on an XP machine and the folder is on your desktop, you will need to navigate to the tools folder by typing:

cd c:\Documents and Settings\user\Desktop\android-sdk-windows\tools

...where "user" is your login name. THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE ADDRESS, you can see the full path at the top of the open tools folder. The "cd" before the directory path is necessary--it tells the command prompt to "change directory".

If you have correctly typed in the exact directory your tools folder is in, you should see the entire directory path displayed to the left of your cursor on the new line. Now, you need to push the bootanimation.zip folder to your phone by entering in this line of text:
adb push bootanimation.zip /data/local

Once you hit enter, a second should go by and you should see that a certain amount of data was added to the phone. When you see this, turn off your phone and reboot. You should now see the new animation! You may need to unplug your USB cable before you turn the power back on. In debugging mode, it may display weird menu text when you boot up if you are still connected to the PC.

I hope this helps, I know I was in the same boat as a lot of you, I had to scrounge around to find all this info, don't know why it's not all in one place.

[csmith197]

Okay, the original instructions are great... provided you aren't a noob. I had to find a lot of stuff out on my own... so please amend the original instructions with these noob friendly additions.

First, you need the Android SDK. You can find that here: Android SDK | Android Developers

I left out the sdk because it is assumed knowledge and this tutorial deals specifically with boot animations. If someone is having trouble with the sdk then you can use the same commands in the terminal on your phone. Simply place the bootanimation.zip in your sdcard and replace the /data/local file path with /sdcard

[Big Lou]

But it's not all assumed knowledge to a lot of people. And it's really not layed out anywhere in this forum.

[SwordOfWar]

Sounds like someone should make a topic dedicated to explaining ADB then, because a great majority of things done here will use ADB. You could use the terminal emulator but it takes forever to do anything that way. Its much easier to plug it up to a computer with a full keyboard and easy pasting right from the forum to the command window to make everything faster.

Its always good anyway since google's android website always wants a bugreport dump when you report issues. It surprises me they don't have a streamlined version of ADB that works without downloading the whole SDK for all the newbies.

[DROIDsys]

Question, if you have multiple boot animations, is there a simple way to switch between them? Or would you have to go through adb, remove one and replace it with another? If you do have to remove it, can someone show the command. I'm still learning my way around adb and commands in general.