Story Planner – storyboard and animatics software

Rome-based Digital Video, developers of Toonz 2D animation software announced the release of Story Planner and Story Planner Pro. The new application is a tool for creating storyboards with graphical and textual information, and generating animatics with soundtrack and animations. Sample videos and a trial version are available from Toonz.com. Read on for more. Story Planner allows a streamlined creation of a storyboard with sketches and notes laid out in an unlimited number of panels describing the flow of the story. Sketches can be created with a full set of raster-based drawing tools, or any image can be imported; captions and notes can be added and formatted. The story flow can be quickly organized in panels and scenes; camera movements and other graphical elements can be used to define actions in the scenes. Storyboards can be printed out, or exported as PDF files, according to a custom page layout.

Story Planner PRO adds to the standard features the possibility to compose complex animatics in a timeline editor. Moreover, the timeline controls the animation of the camera and of graphical elements placed in sketch layers. Audio tracks can be added and edited to create a sound track in sync with the animatic, and fade and dissolve transitions can be used. After a real-time preview, the animatic can be generated with a single-click command.

Both versions are available for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Mac OS X running on both PowerPC and Intel processors.

For additional information about Story Planner, visit Toonz.com.