Regarding a more flexible alternative to “panoff,” that sounds like a great community firmware mod. I want to start things as simple as possible, thus a binary solution. The implementation works perfectly for throwing old arcade characters on the screen that walk/drive/fly across, and everything eBoy’s wanted to do. It also works for film strips.
To your other question, if 0.bmp has a MoveX/Y value > 0, and 1.bmp is present (or more graphics), it will offset X/Y pixels each frame AND iterate through the files each frame. This combines multi-file animation with translation. Does that make sense? eBoy has put this to great use in a couple impressive animations.
If you want to sequence from one animation to another, there are two options. You can use the last entry in CONFIG.INI, or you can nest numerical folders. For instance, if you wanted to create a sequence of animations from Pacman:
/pacman/0 (includes pacman animation)
/pacman/1 (includes ghost animation)
/pacman/2 (includes blue ghost animation)
/pacman/3 (includes pacman going the other direction)
This works just as well with filmstrips or multi-file animations. The only difference between the two methods (CONFIG.INI or nested folders) is how the next button works. With nested, it will skip subsequent folders. With CONFIG.INI, it will go to what’s specified.