Animate Like Studio Ghibli

Archive notice: This article was originally published on March 25, 2016. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.

Toonz Open Source

Toonz was used for production by the Japanese animation studio Ghibli for a long time, specifically since 1995 (for the production of “Princess Mononoke”) – naturally in a version adapted to the needs of the anmation studio, the Toonz Ghibli Edition. According to Dwango, the forthcoming open-source version of Toonz is to contain the same feature set as the Toonz Ghibli Edition and be called OpenToonz. (There is a website for the tool here.)

In addition, the open-source tool is to receive effects features based on AI technology developed by Dwango, as well as an interface that makes it possible to integrate in-house developments into the tool.

Toonz Premium

Digital Video will nevertheless continue to develop and sell a Toonz Premium version for companies willing to invest in adapting Toonz to the respective project. Through the cooperation with Dwango and Toonz’s open-source route, Digital Video hopes to establish the tool as a worldwide standard for 2D animation.

OpenToonz will be presented for the first time at AnimeJapan, which runs from March 25 to 27. If you happen to be in Tokyo at the time: on March 26, the seminar “Open Source Project of Animation Production Tool” takes place on the Creation Stage. Nobuo Kawakami, Chairman of Dwango, and Shun Iwasawa, Assistant Professor at Tokyo University, will welcome Atsushi Okui from Studio Ghibli as a special guest.

DP issue 04 : 16 in June will focus on 2D animation projects and non-photorealistic rendering.