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Programs Programs to change the Startup & Shutdown screens automatically.

Animate! Learn how to animate the Startup screen manually.

Programs to Change the Splash Screens Automatically

Winlogo With this utility, you can convert your favorite images to a startup screen with animation! It's definitely a lot easier to use this utility than to follow the manual instructions listed below!

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Animate the Startup Screen.

If you've downloaded the Ultima Theme and installed the startup screens, you'll notice that the palette is shifting, giving an animated effect that is very nice. Well, in the interest of free information, I am providing all the gory details in creating an animated startup screen.
Please note that none of the information contained herein is endorsed by Origin, Microsoft, or any company. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!! I claim no responsibility if something "goes wrong".

With those nasty details out of the way, let's get down to work!

You can animate the startup screen with the program WinLogo listed above. If you still want to do it manually. Lets list the software you'll need to animate the file.

A graphics package. (Preferrably several) Programs like LViewPro, Adobe PhotoShop, Corel PhotoPaint, Windows Paint, Deluxe Paint Animate, etc.

What we're looking for are palette manipulation tools and resizing tools.
It would help to have a program that can re-arrange palettes easily (such as Deluxe Paint Animate--an old 1990 animation package.)

A Hex Editor such as Norton Utilities.

Get and/or create and modify a bitmap

The bitmap you wish to use should be a 320x400x256 color uncompressed bitmap (BMP) file. If the image is a different size, or color depth, you must resize and resample to make the image conform.

For instance, you have an image that you'd like to use that is 261 x 826 and is 24 bit. You'll have to stretch/shrink the image to 320x400 and then resample the number of colors down to 256. (LViewPro 1.D/32 is very good at this.)

The bitmap should have areas inside the picture that naturally color-shift or could appear to colorshift. Such as stars in the sky, or (in my case) a swirling moongate!

Rearrange the Palette.

Modifying the palette is the difficult part. What you want to do is move the colors that you wish to shift to the end of the palette. AND you must make sure they are in the order you want them to animate in.

I must admit that I had it pretty easy when working on my startup screens because Deluxe Paint Animate handles palettes very nicely. If you don't have this program, I'm unsure which program would be the easiest to use to do this.

It is imperative that the colors to shift are at the end of the palette list, because those are the colors that Windows 95 will shift.

Important Notes about colors!!

The way Windows 95 handles the palette shifting is, well, difficult. You see, not every color that you wish to use may be able to be palette shifted. And just when I thought I had a list, Windows changed the rules on me. So, if the colors shift, GREAT! If not, then find the color, and change it by a value of 1.

Hex Edit the file

You will now need to hex edit the picture and twiddle a couple of bits. (For Norton, you'll need to boot to a DOS session to disk-edit the file. OR you could copy the file to floppy and edit it there...)

Goto offset 0x2F. The line will look like 01 00 00 00 01 Change the line to read 00 00 00 XX 00 where XX is a specific value. XX is actually the number of colors to protect, starting at the beginning of the palette.

So if you want to protect the first 240 colors and animate the last 16 colors, XX would be the value F0 hex. If you want to protect the first 56 colors and animate the last 200 colors, the XX value would be 37 hex.

I know, 16 decimal is actually 10 hex and 56 is actually 38 hex, but that's the way Microsoft made it.

Final Notes

Copy or move the modified BMP file to LOGO.SYS and reboot. Your masterpiece should be palette shifting!

You many have only one set of colors shifting, so keep this in mind when creating a shifting image.

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This page last updated on June 5, 1999

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Programs	Programs to change the Startup & Shutdown screens automatically.
Animate!	Learn how to animate the Startup screen manually.

Winlogo	With this utility, you can convert your favorite images to a startup screen with animation! It's definitely a lot easier to use this utility than to follow the manual instructions listed below!
Return to the top.

You can animate the startup screen with the program WinLogo listed above. If you still want to do it manually. Lets list the software you'll need to animate the file. A graphics package. (Preferrably several) Programs like LViewPro, Adobe PhotoShop, Corel PhotoPaint, Windows Paint, Deluxe Paint Animate, etc.
	What we're looking for are palette manipulation tools and resizing tools. It would help to have a program that can re-arrange palettes easily (such as Deluxe Paint Animate--an old 1990 animation package.)
A Hex Editor such as Norton Utilities.

Get and/or create and modify a bitmap
	The bitmap you wish to use should be a 320x400x256 color uncompressed bitmap (BMP) file. If the image is a different size, or color depth, you must resize and resample to make the image conform.
		For instance, you have an image that you'd like to use that is 261 x 826 and is 24 bit. You'll have to stretch/shrink the image to 320x400 and then resample the number of colors down to 256. (LViewPro 1.D/32 is very good at this.)
	The bitmap should have areas inside the picture that naturally color-shift or could appear to colorshift. Such as stars in the sky, or (in my case) a swirling moongate!

Rearrange the Palette.
	Modifying the palette is the difficult part. What you want to do is move the colors that you wish to shift to the end of the palette. AND you must make sure they are in the order you want them to animate in.
		I must admit that I had it pretty easy when working on my startup screens because Deluxe Paint Animate handles palettes very nicely. If you don't have this program, I'm unsure which program would be the easiest to use to do this.
	It is imperative that the colors to shift are at the end of the palette list, because those are the colors that Windows 95 will shift.

Important Notes about colors!!
	The way Windows 95 handles the palette shifting is, well, difficult. You see, not every color that you wish to use may be able to be palette shifted. And just when I thought I had a list, Windows changed the rules on me. So, if the colors shift, GREAT! If not, then find the color, and change it by a value of 1.

Hex Edit the file
	You will now need to hex edit the picture and twiddle a couple of bits. (For Norton, you'll need to boot to a DOS session to disk-edit the file. OR you could copy the file to floppy and edit it there...) Goto offset 0x2F. The line will look like 01 00 00 00 01 Change the line to read 00 00 00 XX 00 where XX is a specific value. XX is actually the number of colors to protect, starting at the beginning of the palette.
		So if you want to protect the first 240 colors and animate the last 16 colors, XX would be the value F0 hex. If you want to protect the first 56 colors and animate the last 200 colors, the XX value would be 37 hex. I know, 16 decimal is actually 10 hex and 56 is actually 38 hex, but that's the way Microsoft made it.

Final Notes
	Copy or move the modified BMP file to LOGO.SYS and reboot. Your masterpiece should be palette shifting! You many have only one set of colors shifting, so keep this in mind when creating a shifting image.
Return to the top.