

Free animation software ghibli free#
It’s a strange statement to make since going open source means the free version can be customised by anyone anyway. They claim that the premium version, which will be competitively priced, is for those who want to customise the software for their own project. It’s not clear how powerful their open source version of Toonz will be, especially since they’re also going to offer a premium version for large companies. The new owners want to move towards a more open source business model and the companies have agreed that the version of Toonz being made open source will have tools and features included that were co-developed with Studio Ghibli. The software is being made open source due to the recent acquisition of Digital Video, the company responsible for Toonz, by Japanese publisher DWANGO. Atsushi Okui, Executive Imaging Director at Studio Ghibli, said himself that “in order to continue producing theatre-quality animation without additional stress” they had to use a software that had “the ability to combine the hand-drawn animation with the digitally painted ones seamlessly” and Toonz was such software. The software was essentially used by Ghibli in order to bring together the traditional hand-drawn elements of their animation and the modern digital elements quickly and seamlessly. The software, called Toonz, has been used by Studio Ghibli in some of their most popular films including Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away as well as by other studios like Rough Draft who were behind Futurama. Excitingly, one piece of software the studio use to create their films is going open source from March 26th. The animation floodgates just opened.Studio Ghibli’s hand-drawn animation style never fails to impress, consistently bringing together traditional and modern elements of the genre to create films that appeal to our childhood memories of film and ignite the imagination. That’s especially why we view OpenToonz, a free professional-grade 2D animation software, as a complete and total gamechanger for the animation industry moving forward. However, many of the young artists in these regions do not have the resources to invest in proprietary software. The widespread availability of hardware is allowing animation production to expand in parts of the world that traditionally have not been major animation producers (South and Central America, Africa, the Middle East). The announcement of OpenToonz comes at a time when animation is experiencing the biggest boom period in its history. While there will no doubt be a learning curve for artists who are used to industry standards like Flash and Toonboom, Toonz is also more than capable of handling major productions, and the long-term benefits of switching to open source could prove attractive for many studios.

Toonz is not exactly a well known name, even among industry pros, but the list of major companies and projects that have used it before (as well as Ghibli’s ringing endorsement) should be enough to convince many artists to give it a try. “This deal will be also the starting point of a new exciting plan to endorse the open source business model, by supporting training and customizing Toonz for the old and new users.” to make of Toonz a world standard for 2D animation,” said Claudio Mattei, managing director of Digital Video. “The contract with Dwango, which offers the Toonz open source platform to the animation community, has enabled Digital Video to realize one of its strategies, i.e. A premium version will continue to be sold at a “very competitive price” for companies who wish to invest in the customization of Toonz for major projects. It was originally available only for high-end SGI workstations, and for a period of time was part of Microsoft’s Softimage arm, which later became Autodesk.ĭigital Video will continue to develop and market Toonz software, and will offer installation, configuration, training, support and customization services to studios.
Free animation software ghibli series#
The software boasts an extensive history, dating back to 1993, and has been used on the production of many Hollywood features and TV series including Fox’s Anastasia, Amblimation’s Balto, and MTV’s The Maxx, as well as popular computer games like Psygnosis’s Discworld 2. However, Toonz is not exclusive to Ghibli and is used by plenty of other studios, including Rough Draft, which produced Matt Groening’s Futurama with it, and Folimage, which used it for its recent feature, Phantom Boy. Atsushi Okui, executive imaging director at Studio Ghibli, explained that they initially chose Toonz back in 1995 “in order to continue producing theater-quality animation without additional stress,” and a desire for software that had “the ability to combine the hand-drawn animation with the digitally painted ones seamlessly.”
