Anyone who is interested, a colleague has made me some little utils that I was missing.

We have:
Sleep x where x is the delay in secs
empdisplay < filename

empdisplay will show a picture full screen on the empeg display. Use Tony's editor to create them and just remove the first 4 bytes from his BIN files.

I have found that a bash script with several empdisplay lines in will do quite a nice animation on the display.

Enjoy

MK2 Red S/n 949

Isn't sleep in the ARM debian distribution already?

-Tony
MkII #554

We have expanded on the display utility to allow animation.

I have attached the binary for empanim along with a sample animation.

You can try it by typing:

empanim 0 40 < anim.ema

The parameters for empanim are the delay between frames in 1/10 sec and the total number of frames.

MK2 Red S/n 949

Wow! That's great! How did you create the anim.ema? Is it just like Tfabris' .bin files, concatenated to each other, or is there some other conversion utility? It'd be great to animate my bootlogo.
Thanks,
Jason

_~= Dearing =~_
"WAY too happy about having #99."

The anim file is nearly the same as Tony's format but you will have to strip off the 4 bytes from the start and then concatenate each frame.

I used Crystal 3D to output BMPs at 128 x 32 x 4 and then wrote a small VB app to convert to empeg format and add them all together.

MK2 Red S/n 949

Cool. Any chance of putting that VB app in an exe & sharing it?

_~= Dearing =~_
"WAY too happy about having #99."

Cool. Any chance of putting that VB app in an exe & sharing it?

And/or the code.?.

/Michael

Hmmm, appologies.. It was one of those things that was a means to an end so is not tidy/finished/well programmed.

BUT IT WORKS !

Here is the EXE and the source. You may need to tweak the colour case statements for your source images.

Just select a load of BMP/JPGs etc and then convert. The output is always anim.ema in the same folder as the source images.

Have FUN

MK2 Red S/n 949

It was one of those things that was a means to an end so is not tidy/finished/well programmed.

BUT IT WORKS !

And that is what counts - getting the job done, and not too slowly.

Now, if I were going to build a major application, I'd spend some
time thinking and designing, but for small (but oh so nice) stuff like
this, good enough is just that...

Hmmmm... The attachment is AFAICS just the .exe file, where did the source go?

/Michael

Thanks a lot for the Programs. Just to play around with it, I created a silly little Matrix animation. It's a constant-rate scroll, and the source image I used had a lot of different shades in it, so the characters are a little sloppy, so it doesn't look anywhere as good as it could look. But anyway, if anyone's interested, It's attached.
Let's make some cool animations!

_~= Dearing =~_
"WAY too happy about having #99."

Try this one.

If you have no boot logo it looks quite cool as it spins out the empeg logo and then spins in the first screen of the player.

It has 122 frames.

MK2 Red S/n 949

Hmmm.... with attachment.

MK2 Red S/n 949

This is very cool.

Sean

So that sounds really cool what you are discussing here.
But I still don't know how I can see the anims.
What exactly should I do??
Which programs do I have to copy to the empeg?

You need:
-The developer image on your Mk1/Mk2.
-empanim, by Dava, attached a few posts up, copied to the empeg from a terminal emulator. I put it in /empeg/var.
-an animation file (.ema) to pass to empanim

If you type just "./empanim" from the directory where you uploaded it to, it will show you the parameters. For example, to run the matrix animation, type:
"./empanim 0 240 (lt)matrix.ema" (Sorry, "(lt)" should be replaced by the LessThan sign. The BBS won't show it right.)

What's giving you problems?

_~= Dearing =~_
"WAY too happy about having #99."

Oh!
Much easier than I thought!
You have to know that I'm completly unexperienced with linux so I just typed empanim instead of ./empanim.
So I'm still learning :-))
(That's why it'll last still a loooong time till I get an FTP server running :-)) )

Thanks a lot :-)

WOW, I have a little problem.
when I type "./empanim" I got the message "Permission denied".
And when I type "rw" it says "EXT2-fs warning: mounting unchecked fs, running e2fsck is recommended"
What should I do and where can I find e2fsck!
Plz help me

Edited by Sevenger on 15/05/01 03:25 PM.

you have to set permissions on the file. chmod 755 empanim

Sean

First, you can put "." (local directory) in the path if you modify /etc/profile (I think that's the right file?), or use a shell script to set path, just like in DOS. Just add ".:" at the beginning of the list.
Second, it says Permission Denied because the file doesn't have the execute attribute set. Try: "chmod +x empanim". You can see the attributes for any file with a "ls -l". You'll also need to "chmod +w" the file you're sending empanim.
Third, when you get that message re-mounting the drive(s), it just means the mount limit (1 month/20 mounts, ISTR) has been reached. Everything's still fine, just sync with emplode to get rid of the message.
HTH,
Jason

_~= Dearing =~_
"WAY too happy about having #99."

Thanks you for your help :-)
I don't know what I would do without this BBS!
I've got still one question:
The anim plays and it looks really cool but how can I see it automatic at startup of the player?

You would have to add it to the startup script (thats the wrong name for it). Im not sure how to do this but I would like to know too. I think it involved using ultraedit on your pc to edit it then put it back on the player.

Sean

I hoped it would be as easy as changing the icon but doesn't seem so
:-(

Empanim is a seperate program, so it would have to be loaded and run after displayserver and before the player software runs, i think.

Sean

Yes, If you already have a custom init script (Which I believe is what loads displayserver), you could put the call to empanim in that same file. To see if you have a custom init, cat /bin/init. If it's legible text, then you can add empanim to it. Keep in mind that the last thing init does is start the player, so anything in the script will run before the player does.

_~= Dearing =~_
"WAY too happy about having #99."

I found that init and it seems to be quite easy to add empanim.
But sorry, I'm a real newbie at Linux.
How can I add it.
Should I send it to my PC edit there and send back (I even don't know how to send files from my empeg to my pc).
Sorry but there's a lot about Linux I don't know already and this BBS is the only place I can post my questions.
You don't know where I can find a Helpfile which contains every command for the Empeg (Linux) Shell??

I got a lot of help from Tony's Voladj for Dummies. It's got instructions on how to modify the init on the PC side and send it to empeg. He recommends UltraEdit, and after trying (and buying) it, I wholehartedly agree.
As for Linux resources, I'd say go to Barnes&Noble/Amazon/whatever, buy a "Starting Linux" book that comes with a distribution CD (Red Hat Linux is a good distro to start with). Install it on a small Partition on your PC, and play around with it. Within weeks, you'll be an expert in navigating around and using cmd-line commands.
There are also plenty of websites about learning Linux. Just don't be afraid to get your feet wet.
Jason

_~= Dearing =~_
"WAY too happy about having #99."

I think I've got a big problem!
I've edited the init file and add the path to empanim.
I've deleted the original init file an copied the new one.
I've rebooted the player and then it stopped when it shows the logo!
So I think I've done something wrong :-))
So I'm just copying the original kernel back to the empeg!

D'oh!
The upgrade failed!
I got this message:
Error "Bad pump response to device select" occured during stage 0x20

HELP

Edited by Sevenger on 18/05/01 07:56 PM.

I had the same problem once on win2000 and it required a strict sequence of actions to be taken.
It seemed that after loading a faulty init, the serial port of the empeg is sending out crap constantly, which locks up the serial port of the PC. Here's how :

- unplug your empeg from mains and serial
- reboot your PC
- start the upgrade program
- plug in the serial cable
- plug in the power for the empeg.

Frank van Gestel

Thanks but that did not help!
Same problem!
:-((((
What can I do???
Ah, finaly I could repair it.
I could get in shell mode and chenged the init file again.
Now it works (i hope)

Edited by Sevenger on 18/05/01 08:45 PM.

YES :-)))))))))))))) IT WORKS!!!
My first modification of the init!!
A little bit sweat (ok, ok some moments I was close to panic)
but now :-))
You were right!
You have to add the command line after the displayserver!!
AND IT LOOKS COOL!!!

Can someone name me some progs (Shareware or Freeware will be best) I can use to create a simple animation and save tham in bitmap files to use them for an animation?