Aspiring animators take note, Digital Video and Dwango has announced that they have signed an agreement for the acquisition by Dwango of Toonz. The result of this acquisition? An open source platform based on Toonz (OpenToonz) will be developed and published soon.
For those who have never heard of the software before, Toonz is an animation software that was developed by Italian studio Digital Video. This software has since been used by some of the biggest names in the animation industry. One of them is Studio Ghibli and movies such as ‘Princess Mononoke’ and ‘The Tale of Princess Kaguya’ were developed with this software.
This Saturday, Dwango will be releasing Toonz Studio Ghibli Version for free. This version of OpenToonz will include features developed by Studio Ghibli. Apart from that, Digital Video will be moving to an open source business model, offering to the industry commissioning, installation & configuration, training, support and customization services while allowing the animators’ community to use this technology at all cost. That said, Digital Video will still be developing Toonz Premium and that paid version will feature a very competitive price.
Source: Toonz Premium, Engadget
