Custom Boot Animations

With a RGH/JTAG console, you are able to apply a custom boot animation in place of the standard boot animation, whether it be your own or a pre-made one. It is recommended to keep a backup of your original boot animation in case something were to go wrong, or just want to go back to the original. Note that in order to revert back in an extreme case, you would need to flash your NAND through Xell.

Installing a FakeAnim boot animation

A video demonstration of how to install FakeAnim can be found on MrMario2011's channel.

Any video can be used for a custom boot animation, so long as it is a .wmv file of 1080p resolution or lower.

1. Download FakeAnim v0.60b.zip. In the jukebox folder, you will see a few boot animations you can use. The one called "Bootanim Fall 2010.wmv" is the latest stock boot animation.
2. Choose a boot animation from the ones provided or add your own and delete the ones you don't want.
3. Move the entire fakeanim folder onto the root of your hard drive on your Xbox 360 using FTP or a flash drive.
4. Launch DashLaunch and navigate to Paths > fakeanim. Press A and browse to your fakeanim folder and continue through the folder until you get to fakeanim.xex and select it. Save your config by pressing RB to go to the "Save \ Load Launch.ini" screen, scroll down to the option with the green checkmark, then press X to save, and reboot. The original Xbox 360 boot animation will play, followed by a red screen, and finally your own animation. If your animation does not play, retry starting at step 2.
5. To optimize the fakeanim, open the fakeanim.ini file in the fakeanim folder. The "delay" value is how long the Xbox will wait before playing the animation. The red screen indicates waiting, so you should change the "delay" value to a lower value to have your Xbox boot up quicker but not so quick that your TV isn't ready for it. Phat consoles likely will be around a value of 5, and slim consoles around 10. Use FTP or a flash drive to move this to the fakeanim folder on your Xbox 360 hard drive, replacing the old one and reboot to see the result.
6. When you've found a good balance where there's very little red screen, change the "calibration" value in the fakeanim.ini file from 1 to 0 to turn off the red screen, and use FTP or a flash drive to move this to the fakeanim folder on your Xbox 360 hard drive, replacing the old one.
7. Using either FTP or a file manager, open your Flash (also known as SFC in some dashboards) and make a backup of bootanim.xex onto your PC or flash drive, and then delete the original. Now, only your boot animation will play.
   • On Freestyle Dash, you will need to enable File Manager Advanced Mode under Setup > General Settings in order to see the Flash.
   • In case you deleted the original bootanim.xex in the Flash and want to put it back, use Xbox 360 Neighborhood.

Installing a native remapped bootanim.xex

Fakeanim is quite safe, easy, and gets the job done, but it has some caveats:

1. Adding significant delay to the boot process, regardless of whether the original bootanim.xex is deleted or not.
2. Removing bootanim.xex in the flash makes AV handshake go haywire.

There is another way for installing a custom boot animation without Fakeanim: rebuild the NAND with special patch to remap a custom bootanim.xex to HDD1 (internal HDD).

You can read about it here, along with a video tutorial from the creator here.

Simplified tutorial

1. Download the latest release from this link.
2. Move the remap_bootanim_17559.bin file into the "J-Runner-with-Extras_folder\xeBuild\17559\bin".
3. Build the NAND image using XeBuild commands.
   • Example XeBuild commands:
     • -t glitch2 -c trinity -f 17559 -a nohdmiwait -a UsbdSec -a HddSsAuth -a XL_both -a remap_bootanim_17559
     • -t glitch2 -c corona -f 17559 -a nohdmiwait -a UsbdSec -a corona_key_fix -a remap_bootanim_17559
     • -t glitch2 -c corona4g -f 17559 -a nointmu -a nohdmiwait -a UsbdSec -a corona_key_fix -a remap_bootanim_17559
     • -t glitch2 -c corona4g -f 17559 -r WB -a nointmu -a nohdmiwait -a UsbdSec -a corona_key_fix -a remap_bootanim_17559
   • If you need RGH3, first create Glitch2 image (RGH2, RGH1.2) using above XeBuild commands then use "Advanced \ Convert to RGH3" option in J-Runner
4. Flash the edited NAND image to the console.
5. Use BootAnimationCreator.exe to create bootanim.xex from video clip.
6. Put bootanim.xex in root of HDD1 (Internal XBOX 360 HDD)