[TUTORIAL] How to start animating with OpenToonz

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BY PowerOfSin | WATCH
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Published: July 2, 2017

Welcome to my first OpenToonz tutorial!

There is an updated version of the tutorial >here<, and I would recommend check-

ing it out instead.

This tutorial is about setting OpenToonz up and how the basic tools work so you can
start making simple animations in it. More specific tutorials may come in the future.
The images are smaller for easier scrolling so click them to look at the big versions.
I will assume some basic computer literacy but if anyone finds anything hard to follow,
let me know in the comments and I will try to help.

At the very bottom you will see a few sample animations which which can be made us-
ing only tools explained in this tutorial (animation skills not included).

What is OpenToonz?
OpenToonz is a free open source 2D animation program for Windows, Mac and Linux.
It is based on an earlier version of the software used by Studio Ghibli but has now been
released to the public and for everyone to use.
With that in mind, it has existed for a bit over a year in it’s current state so there are
MANY bugs and issues with it and the documentation on how it’s used and what it can
do is hard/impossible to come by (this has since changed a bit so there is a repository
of the documentation here). It’s also very complex and is hard to get into since some of
it’s systems are very foreign to those that are used to ToonBoom or Flash/Adobe Ani-
mate.
However, it’s completely free and has frequent updates and it already has all the fea-
tures required to make a full animated movie. It is also built with solid traditional anima-
tion principles and made for working in a team, so I believe it is worth the effort to learn
to use it even with it’s flaws since it will only get better with time.
WARNING: OpenToonz still has a lot of glitches and tends to crash without warning
from time to time. Saving often is imperative if you want to keep your work and your
sanity (there is an autosave feature available in file > preferences). If you have what it
takes, you may proceed.

Where do I get it?

The Windows and Mac versions can be acquired from here.
The linux appimage can be acquired from here, or if you are pro you can try and com-
pile it from the source.
Anything else I should get? Since OpenToonz doesn’t posses native support for ex-

porting .gif animations (and a few others, like .webm) in order to get it working, you

should download FFmpeg and unpack it somewhere practical . Then, in OpenToonz

once it’s open go to the menu on the top left:

file → preferences (ctrl+u) → import/export category and in the FFmpeg path on

the right enter the path to the folder you extracted FFmpeg to (you can click ‘…’

on the right to navigate too).

After that, you will be able to export to more formats, including gif. There are still

some bugs with it but I will cover them near the bottom.

WHILE YOU ARE HERE, also go to the Drawing category right below this and

make sure the default level type is set to Toonz Raster Layer. It is for later, and I

won't be getting into the reasons in this tutorial, just trust me on this one.

Quick Start guide:

NOTE: I am running the linux version but I used the windows version before and I be-
lieve they are all identical. At the time of writing this the current version is 1.1.3.

Creating a new project:

Once you open The application you will get the startup window:

NOTE: the default project is the Sandbox. As far as I know it doesn’t save the same way
regular projects do, so you should avoid making anything especially important in it.
TIP: if you closed the startup window by accident you can open it by clicking on help →
startup popup (alt + s)

You can create a new project by clicking the “New Project…” button and you will be lead
to this:

You should worry about just entering the Project Name for now, even though you have a
lot more options here.

Creating a new Scene:

After the project is created you will need to create a scene. A project can have many
scenes and they are what new untitled documents you create are in other programs, but
scenes in the same project can share resources, like frames, color palettes, sounds and
such (no need to worry about that for now).

To create a new scene, you need to at least enter the name for it and click Create
Scene
However, I would also advise to select a camera size (document size). I use the one se-
lected in the image for my dailies, but you can use whatever you want. You can always
change it later if you change your mind (I won't cover how in this tutorial, though).

Basic Room and Setting up your own:

Once you get started you have the scene ready, you should have the same setup as on
the image:
This layout you see is the Basic Room and it has the recommended tools to get stuff
made. I however think for getting started you need a lot less, so we will make a new
room with just the bare minimum as to not worry about all the extra panels. You can see
all the rooms that are available by default all the way on the top right (basic, cleanup,
etc).

You can make new rooms and change existing ones, so for now right click on any of the
rooms and select New Room.

A new Room should appear to the left of the Basic room. You can click it to open it or
double click it to rename it (I name mine “tutorial” for this).

Once you open it it will be completely empty. To get panels into it, at the top left click
Windows → ComboViewer.

A little window will appear and as soon as you drag it by it’s top, it will snap once re-
leased and cover the entire room.

Do the same steps for two more windows, and snap them to the edges where you feel
you will like having them:
Xsheet (I snapped it to the right edge)
Palette (I snapped it below the Xsheet)
BUG WARNING: for me it doesn’t want to snap when my OpenToonz window is maxim-
ized. It might not happen to you, but if you don’t see the red snap line appear when
dragging the window to the edges, that might be the cause of it.
TIP: if you double click the top of the little windows at any time they will maximize. Dou-
ble click their top again to return them to their original size
This is what my room looks like after those two have been added (and I zoomed in us-
ing the mouse wheel):

Remember the names of these windows (ComboViewer, Xsheet, Palette) because I will
keep referring to them from now on

The Basic Tools:

All the drawing tools are available at the top of the ComboViewer, right above the main
canvas, and in case you can’t see them all, click the arrow all the way on the right. With
all of them expanded it should look like this:

You can see their names and shortcuts when you leave your mouse hovered over them
for a while. All shortcuts can be changed from the file → Configure Shortcuts... if you so
desire.
I will only mention the ones you really should care about right now, starting from left:
Edit Tool – used for animating tweens like moving and rotating. You first will need to
create something to move, but that is the tool for it. It's covered in the separate tuto-
rial >here<
Selection Tool – for selecting an area of the drawing and afterwards transforming or
manipulating it. This is for actually changing the graphics, not animating it.
Brush Tool – for all the basic hand drawing needs. It works with pressure sensitivity
and everything.
Geometry Tool – for drawing lines, rectangles, circles and such
Type Tool – for typing out text
Fill Tool – flood fills areas that are clicked.
Paint Brush Tool – Works a bit like the Brush tool but it paints areas by default. You
should use the brush tool for most thing but know this is here for later.
Eraser Tool – For erasing what you have drawn
All the way on the right are the navigation tools (Zoom Tool, Rotate Tool, Hand Tool) but
you will mostly use them via their shortcuts or with the mouse wheel, but do test them
out.
To be honest, I don’t know what most of the other tools do yet, but they are not required
for basic drawing so I will skip mentioning them for now.

Xsheet, Columns and Levels

I will have a whole separate tutorial just to explain everyone how these things really
work, since there is quite a lot of tricks to working with them, but if you are just going to
scribble and experiment, this is what you need to know:
Xsheet is the window we pulled out before and snapped to the right and it is kind of the
Timeline of the scene. There are a lot of differences to timelines in other programs, most
notable one that time goes downwards and layers go to the right, with the rightmost be-
ing on top layer (it covers all those below it). The layers are called Columns and there
are also differences with them too, but none are immediately apparent. You can navi-
gate the xsheet with the arrow keys on the keyboard or by selecting the cells, though
they are all now empty..
Levels on the other hand are a bit difficult to explain, since they don’t exist as such in
other programs. For now, let’s just say that they are collections of images (frames) with
a shared color palette, and they are completely separate from the columns and the
xsheet. If used right they make everythng a LOT easier, but if misunderstood they are a
source of frustration. I will explain through an example.
Select the top left cell in the xsheet and use the Brush Tool to draw a line or anything
onto the canvas (the white area on the left). After that you will see a green rectangle ap-
pear in the xsheet where we selected and a letter A and number 1 on it:
NOTE: if the line looks very smooth but like it didn't quite follow what you actually drew
(it curls or just looks wrong) make sure you did everything that was said under the "Any-
thing else I should Get" section (specifically the last part). After changing that, undo the
line and try again.
If you already drew something onto the canvas before it might be a different letter, but I
will use A for the example.
That A means it just automatically created a new level named A with the image of that
line at the index 1. If you select the cell right below this one, and draw a different line, it
will make A2 the 2nd image in the level, and so on.
However, if you don’t draw directly below it (in another column for example), it will cre-
ate a new level B. If you are just scribbling you won’t notice a difference between A and
B but I will cover one of the important differences under Style Palettes below.

You can also extend images to last longer in the xsheet by either copy pasting them or
by pulling down the little handle below the selected image/s. You can also make them
last shorter by selecting more and pulling the handle upwards.
You can move them around by selecting them and then dragging the bright green bar on
their left side. Same with columns.
You can hide columns by selecting the orange bar near the top, and if you hold the
mouse click pressed on it you will be able to adjust it's transparency too. Do note the or-
ange bar is the visibility while drawing the image and yellow bar is visibility when output-
ting the image. So you can have something just appear when you work with it instead of
when you export it to .gif, or you can hide something you are not working on right now
and it will still render.
Playback and Onion Skin
Once you have a few images drawn, you would want to play the animation. You can
click and drag the mouse on the numbers to the left of the green cells to see how things
look.
Or you can click the play button at the bottom of the combo box:

You can also set the playback FPS on the right if the animation goes too fast for you.
Chances are, the animation doesn’t play all the way for you, or it looks wrong because
you couldn’t track what happened on the previous image while you were drawing the
next one. You can adjust these things on the Xsheet as below:

On the left side you will see the index of the frame and next to the currently selected
one will be a red and green circle. That is the onion skin marker and you can toggle the
onion skin by clicking directly below it on the frame whose image you want to see from
the current image. Same can be done upwards, and even many frames in advance or
behind, and more than one (you can even drag and make an onion skin of how many
frames below you want).
Also, when you choose the next frame, the marker moves as well, and any onion skins
you set also move relative to it. If you want one image to be visible from any position,
even if the marker moves, you can click slightly to the left of the marker, like where I
clicked on the first frame in my image. That way, that image will stay onion skinned no
matter how far down or up you move.
As for the playback start and end, there are those two triangles to the right of the onion
skin marker. You can drag them by hand where you want and the animation will play be-
tween them. Otherwise, it will try to automatically place them from the first and last
frame (and sometimes will fail).

Right clicking on the frame number will bring up a menu that will allow you to do all of
these things in case you don’t feel like clicking the small icons. You can also remove the
playback markers if you want to let the program try and figure them out again.

Style Palettes (colors)

Unlike many art programs, OpenToonz uses a controlled color palette for all the art you
draw in your levels. If you select any image you drew so far you will see the palette ap-
pear on the bottom (where we put it before) with 2 colors in it:

These colors are called Styles in OpenToonz and that is how I will refer to them as well,
since they can do more than just have different colors. These two are the default Styles
for every new palette and they cannot be removed and the style 0 cannot be changed at
all and is always completely transparent.

Try to change the style 1 (the black line) by double clicking on it. The Style Editor will
open up:
You may snap it somewhere to keep it around if you want but it is not used all the time
so it is not required.
Make sure the Auto Apply button is selected near the bottom, otherwise you will need to
manually press apply whenever you change anything (you may want this sometimes,
but rarely).
As you mess with the colors, you will notice that all the lines you pulled on the screen
are changing color, on all the images! They all share the same style and thus they will
change on all the images on the same level. Indeed you will notice that the lines you
pulled on the layer B are NOT changing at all.
This is important to keep in mind since it’s a great strength of the level system but also
will cause a lot of headache if you make too many levels by accident and want to
change a color on all of them.
In the palette you can right click and you will notice you can copy and paste styles
around and create a New Style from the one selected. You can also copy them from one
palette into another but they will not stay linked. You can, for example make 2 black
styles and later change only one of them to blue, and the other will remain black along
with all the lines you drew using it.
You can also switch through first 10 styles on the fly by using the numbers on the key-
board (though indexes are offset by 1)

Saving and Exporting

You can save everything by using the shortcut ctrl+s or going to file → Save All.
It should be noted that Opentoonz saves all of it’s elements separately instead of into
one big file, and you can do so as well if you so desire. You can save only the palette or
just the current level or xsheet, for example.
To export the animation into a gif file, open up file → Output Settings… (ctrl+o)

You can set everything you want regarding the current export, like the start and end
frames near the middle of the window or the framerate under the other settings at the
bottom.

The most important part should be the file name and the output format right next to it. It
usually starts with suggesting .tif as the export format but you can select many others.
If you set up FFmpeg as was described near the beginning of the tutorial, you should
also see the gif format in the list. If you don’t see it, double check those steps or reopen
OpenToonz.
Clicking the options next to the format you can select to downscale the gif if you want (I
do it for previews to 20% and you can too), just make sure to do it under a different file-
name else it will overwrite the other output.
Once you set everything up you can click Render on the bottom and it will have your gif
ready in a few moments.
It will place the output in the project’s output folder by default, but you are free to
change the path in the Save In line or by clicking the “…” next to it.
BUG WARNING: There is currently a pretty annoying bug when exporting a gif that has
frames that repeat a few times down the line but not in a row. It will merge those frames
together in the exported file and the timing will appear broken (the first time the frame
appears it will freeze for a while and the later time it would appear it will just get
skipped). The way I deal with it is either by making sure the frames are not identical
(adding a secondary motion, making the animation better in the process), or export it in
a different format and then converting it to a gif in another way (there are many ways to
do it online for free).

Conclusion
If you got through all that and followed the instructions,
Congratulations!
You should now understand enough OpenToonz to be able to make animations like
these (providing you know general animation principles unrelated to the software itself):
Let me know if you found this helpful or if you have any questions or you found some-
thing confusing, and I will update it if I can
My second tutorial covering motion tweening can be found >here<.

My first tutorial on the free animation software OpenToonz!

You should be ready to make simple animations once you get through it.
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COMMENTS51

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C-PuffProfessional Filmographer
Thank you so much for the tutorial! I am still unable to save animations out as a gif (de-
spite following instructions) so I'm not sure what's going wrong there, but now I feel I
can at the very least start to figure out how to use this program! I'm use to Toonboom
but can't afford it with the exchange rate, and after hearing how "confusing" Opentooz is
to use, I'm really grateful for this introduction! The program doesn't seem all that difficult
to understand the basics of after you've explained it!
I'll go through your other tutorials for it as well! And hopefully I can use Opentoonz to
buff up my demoreel a little bit.
Thank you again for the help!
Reply
Sep 29, 2019

PowerOfSinHobbyist General Artist

After following you for so long, I found it a surprise to have you show up in person in my

comments xD

Check the updated tutorial, since I made some things more clear, and if you face any

specific issues, ask away, I should be able to help.

Specifically for the gif export, it's usually due to not going to the correct path where the

ffmpeg file is actually at. So double check that, and don't forget to restart OpenToonz af-

terwards.

Also, maybe check for comments on both tutorials, I think some have asked similar

questions so it may be of use.

Reply
1
Sep 29, 2019
C-PuffProfessional Filmographer
omg I didn't even know you followed me! X'D that's kind of funny in a way.
But thank you! I will check the updated tutorial and see where I might have gotten things
wrong as far as the gif export goes! And I'll definitely check your other tutorials as well!
and thank you for posting this, once again!
Reply
Sep 30, 2019

AStarryVoidHobbyist Digital Artist

((sorry I'm really late))

Okay so I'm trying to figure out an effective way to color my animation on OpenToonz.

I'm used to programs like Medibang, Sai, that have separate layers for colors, lineart,

sketches, etc. For the life of me, I cannot figure out how to replicate this effect in Open-

Toonz.

Do I create separate levels that contain each color/lineart/sketch?

If so, I am encountering the problem where I use the "fill" tool on my Color Level, and it

fills up the entire canvas. I've looked at almost every video tutorial and can't find a

straight answer. I would really appreciate any help if you're able ;w;
Reply
Edited Apr 11, 2019

PowerOfSinHobbyist General Artist

Hello.

I went a bit more in depth on the level styles and tools here:

So you may find that helpful.

But in short, if you use the Toonz Raster level (and if you go through the basic tutorial,

you will) when you draw lines with a brush, they are counted as lines on the same im-

age, and if you use the fill tool, it will fill it behind the lines on that same image, and then

it will still keep them separate, so you can erase them individually later, like they are on

separate layers, but are still on the same image.

Go through all the tutorials carefully if you have some time and I am sure you will figure

it out

Reply
Apr 11, 2019

cinnoniHobbyist Digital Artist

this is really vague... i don't see anything labelled rooms

Reply
Dec 23, 2018

PowerOfSinHobbyist General Artist

You are absolutely correct.

I have updated the tutorial in a way which should hopefully make it less vague. Thanks

for the feedback

Reply
Dec 26, 2018

cinnoniHobbyist Digital Artist

very late, but thanks for the reply!

Reply
Jan 28, 2019

vividskHobbyist Digital Artist

Nice tutorial, but I have a question. Can you take the frames in opentoonz and import

them into an art program to color them? I saw an artist do that once and I wonder if this

software can do the same.

Reply
Nov 16, 2018

PowerOfSinHobbyist General Artist

Thanks
You can export a level (the set of numbered images) by going to file > export level...
You can then import them back by right clicking on the timeline and choosing load
level...
But I am not sure how it will keep the order of frames if you jumbled them up, so you
may need to rearrange them again after import. Also, not too sure on the file types sup-
ported, but the basic png and jpeg work for sure.
Reply
Nov 16, 2018

vividskHobbyist Digital Artist

Thanks a lot I really appreciate it

Reply
Nov 17, 2018

ericjaguaraHobbyist Digital Artist

have liked the tutorial

Reply
Jun 21, 2018

livin4thelambHobbyist Digital Artist

Thank you so much for your help! I was able to animate this because of your tuto-

rial! Link
Reply
Mar 25, 2018

PowerOfSinHobbyist General Artist

Woah, thanks for the thanks xD

Not many show me what they make after they figure things out, so it's good to see suc-

cess stories

Keep it up, and maybe check out the other tutorials once you get comfortable with the

basics (not that I have many atm).

Reply
Mar 25, 2018

livin4thelambHobbyist Digital Artist

I definitely will! Thanks again!

Reply
Mar 25, 2018

CapelloviciProfessional Artist

Perfect ! Gracias
Reply
Jan 15, 2018

PowerOfSinHobbyist General Artist

Reply
Jan 15, 2018
CreativeOwletHobbyist General Artist

can you import frames (drawn in a different program) and edit together?
Reply
Dec 28, 2017

PowerOfSinHobbyist General Artist

Yes, you can. If you export them as png, gif or jpeg individually you can just right click

on the xsheet and "load level" the file directly.

You can, also, name the frames as such:

exported_frame_something.0001.png

and so on in order. If you do, OpenToonz will grab all of them at once and put them in-

side the same column one after another. I believe most drawing applications already

have an option to export frames in that way (and that's the only way some of them do).
Reply
Dec 28, 2017

SarcasticSamplesHobbyist General Artist

Once you're done with an animation, how do you transport it to some other app like win-

dows moviemaker, etc? This is the first time I've ever handled animation xd
Reply
Dec 23, 2017

PowerOfSinHobbyist General Artist

I am not quite sure about the movie maker import but to export from OpenToonz into an-

other format, just do the same steps I explained for gif export down near the bottom of

the tutorial, just choose a different format from the dropdown, instead of the gif. I as-

sume the ones that would be easiest to import are mp4 and possibly bmp, png or tiff

(which will export all the frames individually, but a lot of programs like it that way).
Reply
Dec 23, 2017

SarcasticSamplesHobbyist General Artist

Will reinstalling opentoonz delete all of my current animations?

Reply
Dec 25, 2017

PowerOfSinHobbyist General Artist

They are kept in a separate folder, it shouldn't affect them.

Reply
Dec 25, 2017

SarcasticSamplesHobbyist General Artist

Ah I downloaded the app again and I can't seem to find any of my older animations,

where can you find them?