[REF] Complete customization of cube incl. ANIMATION, icons and programs!

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EDIT:
Sorry Guys - ran out of space in this post...

read on in post #7 below - lots of links there


Hi Guys,

I found a way how to modify the cube animation.
This means you can now completely customize your cube (see also links at the end of this post)

It's a little bit time consuming as you have to make all the graphics yourself.

Attached my first animation - the 4D-Cube
(please be patient while preview animation loads)



Simply copy the attached .brn files to your \windows folder on the phone which will overwrite the original ROM files
(maybe you need to use Total Commander for that on the Touch).
If you want to drag and drop directly from your PC to the Touch make sure you have "Hide system files" disabled (Explorer - Folder Options - View)

To revert back simply delete the .brn files you have overwritten from your phone and the original ROM files will come back again.
Don't worry - you won't be able to delete the ROM files

HOWTO:

go here for german version (hier gibt's die deutsche Version)

As I said it is a little bit tricky and time-consuming

The .brn files are indeed .bmp pictures with crippled file header and you have to modify this header.

And to make it difficult, it is a very unusual picture format with 16bit and 5R6G5B bitmasks. The only program I found which can handle this format is Adobe Photoshop. Windows Paint can open it, but will save it as 24 bit.

But thanx to Devil_Inside all this doesn't matter if you use his cool program bmp2brn.

Here are the steps to create your own designed .brn files

• Make a 24 bit Bitmap graphic with your preferred software. Width 240 pixels, it seems hight can be variable up to 320 pixels (see naming below)
• Drag and drop the .bmp files simply on Devil_inside's (new 24bit version) Bmp2brn.exe which will convert them to .brn
• copy these brn files to your \windows folder

Ready!

This is not necessary anymore thanks to Devil_Inside - I left it for info only:

• (mirror the picture horizontally, so that bottom is top. Not necessary if you use Bmp2Brn - see below)

• save it as 16bit bmp with Adobe Photoshop (save as -> [filename] save ->16bit -> advanced -> 5R6G5B)

• use Devil_Inside's cool little program Bmp2Brn (first one that only supports 16 bit bmps) to change the header
  OR
  • edit the header with A.X.E. Hexeditor (*):
  • delete Bytes 0x1E to 0x46 and Bytes 0x00 to 0x12
  • now the remaining header looks like this: f0 00 00 00 40 01 00 00 01 00 10 00 followed by the picture data
  • save this as your .brn file
    (*) you can also use a different hex editor but with AXE you can easily check for correct orientation if you klick the green G at the bottom, press Alt-X two times for zoom out and make the first row 480 pix wide
  Ready

headerinfo:
f0 00 00 00 width (here 240)
40 01 00 00 height (here 320)
01 00 always 1
10 00 Bitdepth (16 bit)


Name convention of brn files:
A0 Contacts, B0 MediaHub, C0 Application Launcher
A1-A3-A5 moving of contacts to MediaHub
B1-B3-B5 moving of MediaHub to Application Launcher
C1-C3-C5 moving of App. Laucher to contact
and vice versa of course

x01 and x02 are for the up/down motion (x=A, B or C)

MH_xx...brn:
The MediaHub is divided in three pieces. Therefore you have some more files and even more for highlighted and running of music player. They will be shown after animation has completed.

QD_xx...brn:
These are the Quickdialer backgrounds for empty list and when you want to delete a contact.
There are also a lot of QD...png files which are the default icons for the "heads" and so on.
They will be shown after animation has completed.

AL_xx...png:
These are the icons of the Application Launcher. They will be shown after animation has completed.

Convertion of .brn to .bmp files is possible with the attached command line tool brn2bmp.exe which I found here (thanks to peter petrelli!)
Just drag & drop your .brn files on it.

I attached the original Touch .brns converted to bmp files, so you'll see how it works

have fun - I hope we will get some cool animations

Edit: made this Barrel for iiiox because he liked my first try - wouldn't have finished it without his request. But now I'm happy that he did it. Thx also to seed123 for further motivation



Sorry Guys - ran out of space in this post...

read on in post #7" below - lots of links there

...

Originally Posted by r0p3

Hi Guys,

I found a way how to modify the cube animation.
It's a little bit tricky and you have to make all the graphics yourself.

Just for testing I modified the graphics for horizontal sliding from Media to Contacts and the vertical sliding for Application Launcher.

Simply copy the attached .brn files to your \windows folder on the phone (maybe you need to use TotalCommander for that on the Touch)

To revert back simply delete the five files from your phone and the original ROM files will come back again.

Also attached the pictures I used.

WOW sounds great. How do you do it? How do you convert pics(which format) in .brn? You work with bmps?

Sweet.. can you provide instructions so we can create some animations of our own if possible?

it worked!!! Superb! and you don't need total commander to remove the files, just select show all files in file explorer and you can delete it...

now waiting for ppl to create some awesome animation


thanks a million to the founder

wow cool now we can have colored cube, own icons, other transitions

what did you use to convert back to .brn ??

Awesome! Any instructions on how to proceed when making custom animations?

continued from first post:
(ran out of space there)

useful links:
(click on the blue words to follow the link)

original HTC blue icons and original blue cube animation .brn files

If you want to change your programs and icons
of MediaHub and Application Launcher of the cube (or your new "whatever") and have many, many more locations for weather take this:
'Touch Settings' Program - Change your cube programs AND weather location by carlosp_uk

If you search for some cool icons
take a look at this thread (thanx to cyrilp), also dig a little deeper there and you'll find icons from gfandrea, Biffert, s3a, davehutch and maybe more

NEW: Howto's for making transitions:

• Howto make a Barrel with GIMP
• Howto make Devil_Inside's Blurrs with Photoshop

These animations we have so far:
(please tell me, if you find more - want to keep this list up to date)

• APLauncher without rotation icons by Biffert
• 3D Sheet slide by Anubis9
• Flip3D by Biffert
• "louis vuitton style" wallpaper and cube with slide out/fade in animation by frufo2000 (the first complete modification of all graphics)
  easy to install cabs by petervbeck , louis vuitton style phonepad and Comm Manager by frufo2000 Louis Vuitton 8(!) Button CommManager easy to install cab by HaiLe512
• Updated: louis vuitton cube version 2 with cool new icons by frufo2000 and Louis Vuitton 2 as Barrel
  and two new 8-Button-LV-CommManager cabs: one, two
  LV-cube with orig. HTC icons
• Brick morphing by frufo2000
• 3 different amazing smooth blurs (english) and russian by Devil_Inside, easy to install cabs of the English ones and my 4D-Cube by petervbeck
• 7 different smooth optical illusions by Vlodeck, easy to install cabs by petervbeck
• sheet turn animation by frufo2000
• lcds transparent cube experiment by asefsef
• Barrel without icons on the Application Launcher side for better looking integration of customized icons and applications
• meykou's cube with great icons and colored qickdialer and a modified version with different background
• Boards by meykou - a very good new idea of transition
  and the icons he used (thanx for sharing)
• SPC-Touch cube by noonski
• Green Flow by c0d4 beautiful green
• a collection of three animations by thuffir (Fire, Lumos, Circle - with animated previews, click on the images in the post)
• warriorvibhu's cube (fully colored)
• Oldtech (fully colored) by frufo2000
• Red Snake (fully colored) by thuffir

external links (usually you have to register in a forum to download):

• something like a camera aperture transition
  thanx to cyberpat for creating and nicolecoco03 for posting this at XDA-Devs here.
  

specials

• Top/Down HTC Cube (for non-Touch devices)
  I don't Know whether the top/down animation works. I heard that it doesn't work good on a Nova. The ani doesn't really start at the top - maybe there are some reg settings needed - I don't know
  
  Please post your experience if it works/doesn't work on your non-Touch-device.
  I hope we can find a solution for those where it is not working.

Thanks to all of you for your contribution!

updated: 11.10.07 (last post #348)

I have the bitmaps I need, but I'm stuck here :S I use Photoshop CS3, but the steps you describe (Save as >> 16-bit >> etc...) are nowhere to be found?

Changing the mode to 16-bit wont save the image as bitmap (doesnt show up in save as dialog) and the bitmask is missing aswell :S

what happens if you click simply on "save" (after save as)?

I use Photoshop.CS (Year 2003) and there comes a popup with the options I described.

If it doesn't work I can do it for you.
Post it or write an email through the forum.

Originally Posted by r0p3

what happens if you click simply on "save" (after save as)?

I use Photoshop.CS (Year 2003) and there comes a popup with the options I described.

If it doesn't work I can do it for you.
Post it or write an email through the forum.

Doh... should have looked a little further... All the options are right there afterh clicking Save! Thnx for the quick reply

Edit:

Just noticed something. When using AXE to hack the BMPs to BRNs, I delete the first range (0x1E -> 0x46). When deleting the second range you described (0x00 -> 0x11) There was a left-over 00 in front of the header. Deleted that to to make the headers match yours in the instructions and the worked But instead of deleting 0x00 -> 0x11, I deleted 0x00 -> 0x12 to get rid of the leading 00 on the header.