Toonz Software Goes Open Source March 26th – Alert Next Gen Ghibli’s
Toonz Software Goes Open Source – OpenToonz
Hayao Miyazaki, Director, Producer, Studio Ghibli – 7HappyCreations.com
This is really great news for young animators and new companies in the fields of anime, animation, cartoons and comics. The Toonz Software is an amazing though fairly expensive software used for creating the Studio Ghibli films shown below plus many more anime and cartoon favorites from around the world. On March 26th the software goes open source. One of my favorite’s “Futurama” used the software, originally created by Digital Video, an Italian tech company. Digital Video went on to help Miyazaki fine tune the software with many add-ons and plug-ins to become Toonz, the machine creating the visuals behind some of the legendary Japanese Director’s greatest anime.
From RT: Starting March 26, Toonz software used in such Japanese anime classics as Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, as well as the American sci-fi sitcom Futurama, will become available to animators for free.
OpenToonz, as the open source software is called, has been dubbed “Toonz Ghibli Edition” because of all the custom features that have been developed over the years to suit the legendary Japanese Studio Ghibli animation studio.
Toonz, which was developed by Italian tech company Digital Video, has been acquired by Japanese publisher Dwango, with the two announcing that the software used in the creation of Hayao Miyazaki masterpieces “will be made available to the animation community as a free download” from Saturday, March 26.
The software in question has “the ability to combine the hand-drawn animation with the digitally painted ones seamlessly,” executive imaging director at Studio Ghibli, Arsushi Okui, said in a press release.
This step could be a potential game-changer in 2D animation, opening up possibilities for a global community of artists who weren’t ready to spend thousands of US dollars on Toonz products. In some cases, the price exceeded $10,000.
As the software is set to go open source by the end of the week, RT and & Happy Creations are asking which of the following Ghibli films is your favorite?
Princess Mononoke?
Spirited Away?
Howl’s Moving Castle?
Ponyo On the Cliff?
Additional notes and comments by Akiba Writer, English script editor for 7 Happy Creations, an English and Japanese translation and writing team based in Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan.
