Riøt  /  ProtoFace  /  Tools

ProtoFace
Tools

Flash firmware to your Protogen visor and build custom .anim display files — everything you need to run ProtoFace hardware in one place.

Online Flasher AnimFile Maker
// Firmware

Online Flasher

Flash ProtoFace firmware directly to your Raspberry Pi Pico 2W from the browser — no software install needed. Select your board variant, pick a version, and hit Flash. Requires Chrome or Edge.

Select Board
Mk2
Original hardware. Layout 11: 11 panels (6 + 5, nose on one side), 704 LEDs.
Mk3
Revised hardware. Layout 14: 14 panels (7 + 7, a nose on each side), 896 LEDs. Firmware from V4 on.
Select your board and version above, then put your Pico into BOOTSEL mode.
How to flash:
  1. 01Select your board variant (Mk2 or Mk3) and firmware version.
  2. 02Hold the BOOTSEL button on your Pico 2W, then plug it into USB. It will appear as a drive named RP2350.
  3. 03Click Flash Firmware, then when the folder picker opens, select the RP2350 drive.
  4. 04The Pico will reboot automatically once flashing is complete.
After flashing:
  1. 01Copy your .anim files to the root of a FAT32 SD card. A file named start.anim plays at boot; without one, the visor shows its fallback frame.
  2. 02Connect to ProtoFace from any Bluetooth LE serial app (Serial Bluetooth Terminal on Android, LightBlue on iOS).
  3. 03Type help for the commands: list, load <n>, play, pause, next, prev, bright <0–255>, status, reload, fallback.
// Source
ProtoFace firmware source code, issues, and all release history.
ProtoFace on GitHub
// Animation

AnimFile Maker

Desktop tool for creating, testing, and converting .anim files — the animation format ProtoFace reads from SD card to drive the LED display. No Python install required; runs natively on all platforms.

What's in it:
  1. 01Painter: click or drag to paint LEDs on both sides of the face. Each LED gets a colour and a sound mode (static, snap at a threshold, or brightness scaled by volume). Mirror to other side paints both sides at once, optionally flipped left↔right.
  2. 02Simulator: plays a .anim file or your Painter frames with the firmware's own timing and sound rules, driven by a volume slider or your microphone.
  3. 03Export .h: turns one frame into fallback_anim.h, the frame the visor shows when there's no SD card. Copy it into ProtoFace/src/ and rebuild.

Set the tool's layout to match your board: 11 for Mk2, 14 for Mk3. The firmware won't play a file made for the other layout, and the tool offers to switch layouts when you open one.

Windows
Self-contained executable — no install needed
Download .exe
macOS
Universal binary
Download
Linux
x86_64 binary
Download
// Changelog
V3 · Latest
Protogen Animation Tool V3
Both sides of the face are shown and editable, with mirroring (optionally flipped) between them. Exported headers can no longer change the firmware's layout. Works with ProtoFace V6.1.
V2
Protogen Animation Tool V2
Windows, macOS, and Linux. Full support for the .anim format used by ProtoFace Mk2 and Mk3.
Release · V1
Initial Release
First public release across all three platforms.
// Source
AnimFile Maker source code — MPL-2.0 licensed.
AnimFile Maker on GitHub