Moho Animation Forum

Can anyone recommend a decent storyboard software? In free or dirt cheap price range?

Dale

http://celtx.com/
Windows & Mac & Linux
different languages
Open Source

Try Springboard Has just about everything you want (including pan and zoom facility, and ability to load soundtracks so you can use it to produce animatics). There is a free trial download (with watermark), and it is fairly cheap.

You should really try Celtx since it's free and pretty cool. Also free is Directors Boards.

I recommend you toon boom storyboard pro.

PARKER wrote:I recommend you toon boom storyboard.

I don't know this software, but I don't think "dirt cheap" is an adequate description...

Toon Boom story board (pro) is what you want for pro work, especially if there are many frames to contend with and you need a pro printout with full editable text fields
It works with vector lines or imported images, it's own drawing tools are only really good for clean up.=]p-

Celtx is truly awesome, fee app no strings- they have the beginnings of a great story boarding tool. All the images should be made in an external app like painter or gimp and imported as frames.
I use both, personlay prefer Celtx even though it is currently still in embryonic development.
I know the development team are sprucing up the boarding, I among others have been assisting them on a few of their ideas using my boards as test files.
Because Celtx holds many other files in an online directory with the script,schedule and a bunch of reference material for easy net collaboration.

chucky wrote: Celtx is truly awesome, fee app no strings ... I ... personlay prefer Celtx even though it is currently still in embryonic development.

I looked at Celtx a couple of years back when looking for pro scriptwriting tools - I found the inability to renumber scenes to 1a, 1b,1c very frustrating ... I ended up with Final Draft 6 as script tool of choice - (superb but expensive). The reason is animation scenes are often broken into smaller chunks at storyboard stage ... being able to amend the master script to match the board in development is a must.

However, I like some of the other tools, especially the collaborative approach. If this numbering issue is now resolved, then I need to revisit the product.

Anyone with experience of Celtx know if the latest version now facilitates the 1a, 1b, 1c numbering approach?

Rhoel

Celtx is the current leader in my quest for something that is cheap and will work. That and Storyboard Solution form atomiclearning. I'm look for something that I can collaborate with other animators for a film project. It will be a paid project with animators hopefully around the world. I need to get started on the storyboards and have them by this fall. This summer I have a month off to get the voice work done. So by the fall I should be ready to do the animation. Because it is so much work I'll be needing other people to help with the animation. We should have storyboards that everyone can use.

Rhoel I have work with you before and hopefully again.

Dale

dueyftw wrote:
Rhoel I have work with you before and hopefully again.

Dale

Ditto, look forward to it.

Tim

aka Rhoel

Celtx has come a long way in a couple of years, just check out the new version Rhoel. They released version. 1.00 earlier this year. They will consider any reasonable feature requests.They have an open and friendly dev team.

chucky wrote:Celtx has come a long way in a couple of years, just check out the new version Rhoel. They released version. 1.00 earlier this year. They will consider any reasonable feature requests.They have an open and friendly dev team.

Okay, will download again and review: It will be interesteing to see how the online thing works on 6.5 k/bps .. Asian net feeds are lightning quick

The numbering issue is peculiar to animation so it is not too surprising it was missing in earlier versions.

Rhoel

You can add and remove frames anywhere. If you add a pic it ends up at the end of the file, but you can drag it to where you want it and it will get the proper number. The nice thing is that it save all frames compressed. So If I send someone a file they don't need the art work in a separate file.

Storyboard Solution from atomiclearning pictures are just too small.
Dale

Sorry to dig up an old thread but I just bought Springboard it is really awesome and the developer, Tim, is very cool. I sent him an email with some thoughts about the program and he responded kindly--how many software developers have done that for you?!

The GUI may look a bit outdated, but it has a lot of great features; here's a few I really like:

1. You can edit panels externally in whatever drawing/painting program you prefer and it will update dynamically. You are not a slave to the programs drawing tools. Like Painter but need a timeline? There's your solution. It even works with 32bit alpha channel tga files.

2. Create moving animatics and export to avi, or print storyboard layouts for meetings, complete with script text.

3. Most software gets burdened quickly if it has to hold fifty gazillion images in memory, this has a "Split Out" feature that basically allows for nesting small projects into the main project and will only call what it needs.

Oh and its only $35! Tim said it may double in price when version 1.0 comes out so get moving. If I remember correctly, if you buy now you get updates up to and including version 1.0 --but double check that.

You will find v.2 of Celtx at http/www.celtx.com