OpenToonz

What is OpenToonz?

OpenToonz is the open-source descendant of Toonz, a 2D animation system with a storied history. Italian company Digital Video developed the original Toonz in the early 1990s, and Studio Ghibli adopted it for its film productions, starting with Princess Mononoke.

In 2016, Japanese company Dwango, with help from Ghibli, released a version of the software to the public as OpenToonz, including specialized GTS tools that Ghibli itself uses. Since then a community of developers and animators has kept it alive, adding features and fixing bugs.

OpenToonz is a true production tool rather than a toy. You can scan paper drawings, clean them up, color them with palette management, animate with both vector and raster levels, and finish with an effects node editor and compositing, all in one application.

Key Features

• Vector and raster drawing levels in the same project
• GTS scanning, cleanup and color tools developed with Studio Ghibli
• Stylus support with pressure-sensitive brushes
• Palette and color management for consistent character colors
• FX schematic node editor for effects and compositing
• Particle systems, warping tools and onion skinning
• Lip-sync tools for dialogue animation
• Supports traditional frame-by-frame and tweened workflows

How to get started

Download the installer for your operating system from the official OpenToonz site. Windows, macOS and Linux builds are all available, and the software is completely free with no accounts or licenses.

OpenToonz has a steep learning curve because it is a pro tool. Start with the official manual and community tutorials, and spend time with the drawing tools and level system before diving into the FX nodes.

• Download and install from opentoonz.github.io
• Create a project and a new level
• Draw with the brush and pencil tools on a bitmap level
• Use onion skinning to see previous frames
• Color your drawings with the palette system
• Export as image sequences or video

Use cases

• Hand-drawn animation for indie films and student projects
• Anime-style productions with vector or paper workflows
• Learning traditional animation techniques with free software
• Experimental and art-house animation with the FX node editor
• Educational animation courses and workshops
• Studio pipelines that need a no-cost professional tool

Pricing and licensing

OpenToonz is free in every sense: the source code is available under the BSD 3-Clause license, and you can use it for personal work, education and commercial productions without paying anything.

The project is community-driven, so development moves at the pace of volunteers. If you want the newest builds and extra polish, some developers distribute improved versions, but the official release remains the safe choice for production.

Pros and cons

OpenToonz offers professional power at a price of zero, with a real studio pedigree behind it. The GTS tools are genuinely unique, and the FX pipeline gives you compositing muscle that most free animation apps lack.

The catch is usability. The interface is dense, the workflow takes time to learn, and some parts feel like they belong in an earlier era. Documentation is improving but still patchy in places, and the community is smaller than that of more modern open-source tools.

Alternatives

• Krita: modern, friendly and great for frame-by-frame digital animation
• Pencil2D: the simplest possible free hand-drawn tool
• Synfig: free vector animation built around tweening
• Moho: commercial bone-rigging powerhouse
• TVPaint: professional frame-by-frame software, not free