1-3: Creating Animated Splash Screens using Bootloader Animation

Download Fly In Example                                     Download Enovation Example

The following information applies only to displays with the M2 processor and later.

Boot Sequence:

• Standard Sequence: When animation is not used the boot sequence is the same as on the iMX35 platform. A single boot image is loaded initially by the bootloader followed by the image on the overlay layer after the screen.screenready event fires. See this Article.
• Animated Sequence: When animation is selected the sequence of images begins to display at power up and once complete the screen.screenready event fires and the overlay image is displayed. 

Powervision for M2 platform and newer displays provides the option of displaying a sequence of images  during after the booting process. This is accomplished by selecting the Advanced Boot Animation selection in the configuration tab.

The images are loaded in the Boot Animation Builder one at a time. You can select the Frame Rate and if it runs only once or continually. An example of a boot animation that would repeat the sequence of frames would be a spinning object. This type of animation uses fewer images making it simpler to implement and uses less memory.

Step1 - Create the images

• You can use a video editor or graphics software with its special effects to create a video clip of your animation as in the above examples then export the video as a series of images one frame at a time.
• Set the Video Frame Rate to 25 or 30 frames per second
• Set The resolution to the screen size of the Powerview display, 800 x 480 for the PV780 for example.
• Export each frame in the video clip as a PNG or JPG image
• Name your images in sequential order to make it easier to keep the correct order.
• Tip#1 - Keep the duration short , there are twenty five to thirty images per second of video.
• Expected file size - in the two examples the Fly In letters splash screen example has just two seconds of JPG images that are about 11KB each so the configuration is about 3MB whereas the Enovation logo example has four seconds of complex video frames in PNG format that are around 600KB and its config is 60MB.

Step 2 - Import the Images to the Library

• The images must first be imported into the Powervision library. From the Bootloader Animation Builder select the first frame tile which will open the library window.
• Select "Import" then using the shift select function select all of your images and import them all at the same time.

Step 3 - Load the Images in the Boot Animator

• In the image list begin selecting the images in sequential order from the library
• NOTE: Select "USE JPG format" if the files are not already jpg, PNG files are take too long to process and will appear after the boot process. 
• Select the Animate check box and set time between frames, 40mSec for 25fps frame rate and 33mSec for a frame rate of 30fps.
• Select "Run Once" so it plays the sequence one time unless you are using a repeating set of five or six images like a spinning wheel.

Step 4 - Set the Overlay Image

• The default overlay image should match the last frame in the boot animation.
• This image can then be animated to reveal the main page after screen.screen ready system event fires. See "Boot Animation" state machine in the attached examples.