Customizing X-Splash

I've been receiving a lot of feedback regarding my x-splash artwork and mockups. The most common question people ask, is "How can I get this?".

Since the first release of X-splash, we have seen many people customize the boot experience - some attempts more successful than others. You can find something really interesting on Gnome-look and the Ubuntu forums, but so far I haven't found any tutorials that explain how to create your own X-splash throbber. This post is an attempt to create such a "tutorial".

How does it all work
The X-splash files are stored in the /usr/share/images/xsplash folder. Modifying files in this folder requires root authority.
The background, logo and throbber images are all stored in four different sizes (It has been suggested to use only one scalable background image for Ubuntu 10.04, so this guide might be outdated by 10.04). X-splash will use the image sizes that fits your screen resolution best. I only use the largest files available for background, logo and the throbber, since these are the ones X-splash uses on my system. These three files are called:

• bg_2560x1600.jpg
• logo_xtra_large.png
• throbber_xtra_large.png

You will notice the background image is in .JPG and that the filename contains information about the image size (2560x1600 px). If you create your own background image and plan to pass on your work to others, you must resize the image to the four different sizes. You can do the same for the throbber and the logo images, but in most cases (depending on the size of your images of course) you can use the same image size for all/most resolutions.

The logo and throbber files are .PNG files. .PNG was originally created as a replacement for the ubiquitous GIF format, which used to require a patent license for producers of imaging software to use it legally (the GIF/LZW patent has since expired, so this is no longer a factor). Besides being a freely available format, PNG allows for virtually unlimited transparency effects by enabling an alpha channel for transparency. This is exactly what we want for the throbber and logo image.

The logo image gets placed so that its center is screen width/2, screen height/3.

The throbber gets chopped via the throbber image's width and height divided by the number of frames. Xsplash expects 50 frames default. You can use whatever size image you want for the throbber, just make sure the graphics matches the number of frames. So, if you put an 100x5000 image, it'll appear as a 100x100 throbber animation with 50 frames.
Perhaps you remember when the Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 5 came out (first time X-splash was included) and every website posted YouTube videos of this weird looking animation. The throbber image shiped in Alpha 5 had 51 frames insted of 50!

The animation
For the animation you can eighter create the frames manually in applications like GIMP. You may already have brilliany ideas, but start simple until you understand how this works. MacUntu, from the Ubuntuforums, illustrates this perfectly.

 

A throbber with 17 frames by MacUntu

I prefer to use a animation application like Blender, which can render frames and save them as .PNG images. If you know other good applications for this task, please let me know.

When you've created the .PNG throbber frame images, you'll need to "stitch" them together. To stitch the frames images together (you'll need Imagemagick), place all the frames images in an empty folder and type:

convert `ls *` -append new_throbber.png

I've created 50 frame images for you to try this with: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/175241/boot/throbber_frame_images.tar.gz
The images won't give you a smooth animation since these are only old test images for what eventually became the Xubuntu X-splash.

Need more help
I hope this will get you started customizing X-splash. Remember you can re-install the default X-splash, go to the terminal and write:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall ubuntu-xsplash-artwork

To show the X-splash arrguments:

sudo -u gdm xsplash --help

If you are look for more help, visit the Ubuntuforums.org where you'll find information about how to customize usplash, xsplash and grub and other goodies.
If you don't want to get your hands dirty, you can check out these other X-splash customizations:

• Get Xubuntu's Boot Splash Animation In Ubuntu Karmic!
• Automatically Change Your Xsplash Background To Your Desktop Wallpaper
• 6 Nice Xsplash Themes
• Sublime XSplash Theme - Clean X-splash
• 3 Karmic Mock-Up Xsplash's Brought To Life
• 14 Xsplash themes for Ubuntu Karmic Koala
• Ubuntu XSplash Animation - Human Swarm
• Working with Xsplash

Please DIGG this!

Receiving X-Splash Feedback

Lately I've become tired of reading the comments people write to my X-splash mockups. I receive about one to two new comments per day, on my five suggestions which are posted on YouTube, the Wiki and this blog. It is not because I don't want the criticism or feedback, but I primarily experience two kinds of comments.

1. The short positive comment: "This looks AMAZING!"

2. The rip off accusation: "This looks like Windows 7"

Of course the first one is okay. It's always nice with a pat on the back, but this type of "feedback" isn't really useful.
The second one is the one that annoys me. Although I see the similarity, and why Canonical would want to avoid such a comparison, this idea came long before Windows 7 received it's boot screen. During the Hardy cycle I came across a U-splash suggestion on the artwork wiki. The idea is little different from what I came up with, but this is what the concept looks like:


I really liked this concept and quickly created a mockup of my own version of the idea.



As you can see from the date (Feb 11 2008) on Ubuntu-art.org, where this is posted, this is again long before Windows 7 ever was released to the public. Perhaps the Microsoft designers have been seeking inspiration in the Ubuntu community ;-) Know what I mean? Nudge nudge, wink wink.

Today LanHikari90 posted this comment on my 4th animated boot splash idea:

Really nice. I wish, it would be the official boot screen.
But sadly it is just a rip-off of the Windows 7 bootscreen. And to all these guys who say it isn't: It obviously is!

I've considered disabling the comments or even removing the videos, but every now and then someone will write something worth reading.

More Graphical Boot Splash Ideas

I've recived a ton of feedback after posting my first suggestion for the new graphical boot splash. This first video was a little over the top, I admit that, and it didn't follow the design guidelines from the wiki page. So I set out to create a new suggestion - one that has been on my mind since Hardy Heron (although my conceptualisaion of the sketches are gone).



Or view the short (boot splash only) .mpg version here...

UPDATE: I've uploaded an updated version that replaces the fade effect with a glow/shine. Check it out here...

Instead of loading the desktop after the boot splash, like the first video does, I added the facebrowser preview by Mat Tomaszewski (although we won't see that in Karmic, everybody loves the bling). Perhaps the throbber should spin a little faster and I should have added a bit more motion blur? Anyway, this is merely a proof-of-concept.

Again, the feedback was awesome! There was even created a ten pages thread on the ubuntuforums.org titled "Pretty Cool Boot Splash Idea For 9.10".

Despite the second suggestion being my favorite (and what I set out to create) I created a third suggestion.



This one could use some fine tuning, but I'm sure the idea will shine through.

Designing a boot splash is hard and one must remember that this is something users will see many, many times - hence abstracting is better than being too literal.

The Karmic Boot Experience wiki contains some pretty slick ideas. Among my favorites are Mr. Doob's boot and troy sobotka. Let's hope the Canonical developers have enough time to make this happen in time for Karmic Koala.