Opus in 2D animation: pencil drawing - Post News - Toon Boom software - Brief Article

Post,  April, 2003  by Matthew Armstrong

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MONTREAL--With Version 6 of its USAnimation 2D software, which includes major enhancements in workflow and vector technology, Toon Boom (www.toonboom.com) has renamed this version of the product Opus in order to hammer home its new advancements.

USAnimation Opus merges Xsheet, Camera, Paint and Scene Planning functions into one universal Stage Module, allowing animators to operate all functions of the software from a single interface, significantly improving workflow.

"The change of the interface is a big improvement," says Clint Eland, president of animation house Mercury Filmworks (www.mercuryfilmworks.com), which has been beta testing Opus. Mercury is the creator of numerous 2D animated children's TV shows including the new Woody Woodpecker and Looney Toons Bock in Action, the animated show Under-grads for MTV and last year it completed the feature film The PowerPuff Girls. "The integration into the one 'Stage' interface' means that you don't have to go out to different modules to perform a certain task."

Perhaps most intriguing for 2D animators, is the leap forward in vector technology that supports textured line art allowing for distinct, realistic pencil line drawing, even when scaled up for film resolutions.

"This vector technology has always been the best, but if you need that line to look like a pencil line you'd have to do it traditionally," says Eland. "From a vector point-of-view, that pencil look that people want in 2D animation was very difficult. To get that pencil look you had to use bit maps and then scan that line in. But when you scanned the line in that line it became fuzzy and lost its texture when you scaled it up. With Version 6 you can have that pencil texture and scale it up as large as is needed,"

Opus operates on Windows and Linux platforms.

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