TOONZ animation software going free + open source

PolyHertz

On March 26, the software used for animation by Studio Ghibli and Rough Draft (Futurama) is becoming free and going open source: http://www.toonzpremium.com/

Not sure how many people here care about traditional animation, but figured at least a few here would be interested

Update: Software has been released, and rebranded as OpenTOONZ. You can get it here: https://opentoonz.github.io/e/index.html

Panupat

Wow. I saw the news about this software which didn't mention Ghibli or Futurama so I searched Youtube for some showcase of it. And was disappointed. The video had such low quality animation.

Now with this new information I am seriously reconsidering this software.

Joopson

That's the thing about any software; you can make awful things with it, or great things with it. It's a tool like any other.

Still, Ghibli using it makes me think it's at least an efficient and pleasant software to use.

I've excited to play with it. I don't animate, but who knows what the future may hold?

Mstankow

I had to use toonboom in college. If it is better than that, then this is great news.

Gmanx

I've not used Toonz either - but I have used Toonboom. I'm keen to give it a go once it's available. Given that some pretty serious studios are (or have been) using it then it will contain all the bells and whistles needed for professional production (line preservation, clean-up and region fill, proper timing sheets etc). Great news for us indie/low budget animators.

Krita will have animation capability soon too. It's a good time to be a trad animator.

thomasp

i remember toonz (back then under the softimage brand) from the late 90's. wouldn't be surprised if any mention of ghibli's use of it dates back to those times, it is featured in the spirited away artbook if memory serves.

so perhaps not the biggest deal in the year 2016.

Joopson

Apparently Ghibli used it for "Arrietty" in 2010, and the cartoon "Steven Universe" is being made using it, as well.

RN

With this agreement in place, Digital Video will move to the open source business model, offering to the industry commissioning, installation & configuration, training, support and customization services while allowing the animators’ community to use a state of the art technology at no cost.

Sounds awesome, thank you for sharing.

and the cartoon "Steven Universe" is being made using it

Do you remember where you read that? I had this feeling Rough Draft always used T.B. Harmony.

Joopson

I may be guilty of taking Wikipedia at face value; but they worked on Futurama as well, and it's claimed they used Toonz.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toonz

RN

Thank you. When you look at the reference for that S.U. mention, it's a post by a staffer from that show:

Our crew draws storyboards into Toon Boom Storyboard Pro(and occasionally on paper). The designs and color are created using Adobe Photoshop. We manage all of our files with FileMaker Pro. The animators animate and ink the show by hand traditionally on paper. The animation is scanned, colored and compiled in Toonz Harlequin. Editing and post production is done in Avid Media Composer and Adobe After Effects.

Emphasis as in the original. So they seem to draw (and flip) things by hand, then assemble it in a version of TOONZ.
Maybe using a light table and traditional media still has its appeals for animation.

pior

Indeed ! Using a given software in an art pipeline doesn't mean that things are necessarily drawn in it.

A japanese animation studio like the one shown in the video below doesn't exactly have the luxury of wasting time. They probably carefully audited/optimized all their productions steps ... and end up drawing all frames by hand, which actually makes a lot of sense given than both tablets and cintiqs are still very subpar when it comes to drawing lineart fast and accurately. Very interesting footage, even showing a glimpse of the algorithm they use to filter the final lineart :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvYxaNVsTWQ

All that being said, I am very curious about Toonz.

RN

That's very cool, reminds me of potrace and mkbitmap:
http://potrace.sourceforge.net/

Gmanx

thomasp said:

i remember toonz (back then under the softimage brand) from the late 90's.

Holy hell - it's THAT Toonz? I do remember that back in the old SoftImage days. I spoke to an old studio colleague about this and he said that he remembered Toonz having a sub-par regioning algorithm back then (compared to Animo) meaning lots more clean-up afterward.

Looking forward to giving it a go.

Yuri

Very interesting. Studio Ghibli is one of my favorite studios and to know that they're using this software really does indicate that it might be worth trying out.

Gmanx

To quote Heath Ledger's Joker: "..and here we go.."

https://opentoonz.github.io/e/index.html

MagicSugar

Quick test. Didn't see a gif output so had to use a separate compiler.

My impression?  Too traditionally oriented for my needs.  But if you're still animating on paper and don't mind scanning, etc. it might be a suitable free tool than expensive Toonboom Harmony and TV Paint.

RN

The documentation being in Japanese doesn't help, but a few months from now there should be plenty of tutorials if not a full translation.
This program uses Qt 5 for the GUI, so there's at least a standard of quality regarding the interface.

It uses a "Level" abstraction, it's like a level is a sequence of frames. You layer levels on the XSheet mode.
You can control the output resolution in the XSheet mode, in the Render->Output Settings... menu (you can also reach that menu from the Cleanup mode).
To make GIFs you can render it as BMP and use VirtualDub to load the images (it loads numbered images automatically), then you can resize etc. and export from VirtualDub by using File->Export->GIF.



You can use other programs to make a GIF from the rendered BMPs of course, from FFMpeg to After Effects.
OpenToonz can export to AVI, but to me the image formats (PNG, TIFF, TGA, all with alpha channel transparency) seem more useful for game content like animated sprites.

EDIT: From the official Google Group, there's english documentation for other versions of TOONZ. The interface and modules may be different but the functionality is very similar:
http://www.toonz.com/htm/support/sup.htm

EDIT: This one in particular explains a lot of things (it's about the Harlequin version, but pretty close):
http://www.toonz.com/htm/support/tutorials/Toonz_TW_Tutorial_Workbook.pdf

Joopson

Majorly bummed out.
Anybody else getting this on Windows 10?

RN

Windows 8.1 64 here, running fine.
Does it make a difference if you right-click the shortcut, go to Properties and then set some options in the Compatibility tab (like Compatibility Mode for example)?

Joopson

I tried setting it to Windows 7, and of course running it as an administrator. I also tried a bunch of other combinations, in addition to reinstalling it, but no luck.

weee

tried a bit in Windows 10, crashed after messing around for a short while, from this very little experience, it feels like an outdated program wrapped in Qt5, that probably makes it very unstable? but nevertheless, it's good to see them open source it, give it a couple of months, we might get a feasible TVpaint alternative? 

ps. speaking of an alternative, has anyone here seriously tried Blender grease pencil? 

Gmanx

weee said:

ps. speaking of an alternative, has anyone here seriously tried Blender grease pencil? 

Want to but haven't had time yet. This guy has though..