Resources for learning:
http://www.toonz.com/htm/support/sup.htm
The Toonz Harequin 7.1 GUI looks a tad different compared to the OpenToonz version, but it is pretty much all there.
Any linux builds (arch linux)?
Not yet, but we are working on it. If you want to help, post about toonz on arch linux forums as a package request for aur. Here is a link to the relevant git issue
I’m testing if it’ll work under wine until linux builds are up.
so funny, opentoonz crashes immediately everytime when I try to launch it
Same here (Windows 8.1).
Had a look into it, managed to get the source tree building for the main application (took a few hours, with a some areas stubbed out) - see the wip branch.
But with some linking errors, so couldn’t try the application out :S.
Don’t think it will be too long before Linux support is working, though it depends on them accepting portability patches too.
It seems that deleting lvcod64.dll works for some users. Also, there might be an issue with certain dual screen setups, but Toonz works fine on my three screen setup.
Awesome progress on the linux branch! 
A lot of people are asking for ubuntu ppa already btw.
I would build and test it even before it gets merged into their trunk, so keep up the great work.
So far we haven’t seen any activity from the main branch maintainer. I hope he is the developer of the application.
A good getting-started tutorial video(though it’s in french - and I don’t speak french):
It’s almost the same as toonz 7.1. Except few things I didn’t find till now.
- Key frame icon in xsheet
- edit in place mode when entering sub xsheet mode
- can’t able to select column on the fly in editmode tool(column selected), may be a bug.
Other than that it’s a full version of toonz latest.
There is no way of creating or renaming rooms in opentoonz. In toonz you could create your own rooms and put whatever in them. In opentoonz it seems that rooms are hardcoded and the top menu tray in each is different from the other - it is specific to the room.
Some pet peeves:
- No linux version yet and no english manual. The toonz manual lacks instructions on how to do vector drawing. Their official git seems to be very targetted at japanese users and not so much to the rest of the world. But it is sort of being taken by the world atm and lots of people from everywhere have started contributing to it. No word of the trunk branch maintainer yet.
- I wish there was a keyboard modifier I could hold to rotate the canvas. <fixed it>
- Keyboard shortcut to move to next and previous frames <fixed it>
- I still cant figure out a way to delete control points (vector layer), nor merge them. <fixed it>
- I miss having a sketching pencil with some alpha controlled by pressure in the raster layers - or at least i havent figured out how to get one.
- There is no stabilizer slider for the brush tool. It’s important for quick inking. tvpaint calls it “smooth”. Inkscape has it - its called the ‘mass’ value. Krita has a stabilizer (although inking in krita is a painful lag fest atm for me ), most japanese software has it (clip paint) . http://lazynezumi.com/
- There is no workflow approach to easily cleanup line overshoots. <fixed it>
EDIT: There is actually. Its called ‘clean vector overflow’
Toonboom creates nodes at intersections - which also makes it easy to delete line overshoots. I think harmony got a tool for that too.
- No way of storing and sharing keymaps. No default keymap to learn.
Some things to love:
-The bucket tool and coloring frames in general totally rocks! You can create invinsible strokes to do cell shaded coloring. You can easily color entire frame ranges in the matter of clicks - its better than lazybrush or the gmic thing that copied it. Way better.
-You can change your color palete on the fly - on both bitmap and vector layers. It’s the first time I see that workflow working on bitmap layers. You can basically replace a color globally on your character.
- The compositing/node editor - OMG OMG OMG - you can apply line styles in post - kind of like freestyle in blender. You have all sorts of amazing filters and effects. It’s super powerful!
- The vector inking tools - you have tools to sculpt vector lines.
- The power - it is by far the most complete free 2d animation application. It’s almost on par with Toonboom harmony, which is an industry standard.
- The speed - it’s framerate is amazing. Using the app feels light.
Attachments
However, pull requests are being merged, so fixes and updates have been coming in.
Yes, that is awesome! There is a torrent of contributions from day 1.
The linux version port has seen a lot of interest too. If they keep going at that pace, they will port it in less than a week.
I just wish they had someone come out - a figure to lead the project. A foundation to maintain it and keep its focus. Someone like Ton and the Blender Foundation.
Someone who speaks to the world - not only to japan.
Someone made a nice tutorial about customizing the GUI. The OpenToonz version seems almost deliberately devoid of a sensible interface setup (even the basic tools are missing!), and no shortcut keys.
Well, count on the community to remedy that
EDIT Ah, now this version’s GUI starts to make sense:
The open source release is based on a version that was customized for Studio Ghibli, who apparently only use the software for a paper-based workflow where drawings are made on paper and then scanned, hence the toolbar and other interface elements that are relevant primarily in a paperless workflow are hidden by default. The retail versions (like Harlequin and The Tab) also had the option to add and delete rooms built into the UI, which seems to be missing. They also had an isolation mode for jumping into nested X-Sheets that does not seem to be exposed in the UI of the Ghibli Edition at all as far as I can tell.
By the way, you can reveal some of the hidden interface elements shown in this video in the viewer without creating a custom room first. Just right-click on the viewer (for example in the “InknPaint” room) and select “GUI Show/Hide”, then choose the Toolbar/Tool Options Bar as well as the “Console” (that’s the playback controls at the bottom of the viewer, not a command line as one might assume). Though particularly for the Tool Options Bar, it is mostly preferable to use the one from the Window menu because the one attached to the viewer is tied to its size and thus won’t display all options properly if the viewer panel is small.
Since most people won’t be using the paper-based workflow, there is no need to keep the “Cleanup Options” window open like in the video. It works in conjunction with the commands in the Scan & Cleanup menu (as well as the batch cleanup features found in the “Batches” room). You can drag it on its title bar until it floats and then simply close it. You can bring it back any time via the “Scan & Cleanup > Cleanup Options…” command, should you need it.
You may however want to include the Level Strip in your layout since that gives you access to options for Onion Skinning (which has to be enabled in Preferences first) and Tweening (shift-select two drawings with empty frames in-between and click the gray bar that reads “INBETWEEN” and select an interpolation). You may also want to create a custom room for effects/compositing with the XSheet, Function Editor, Schematic (Node Editor) and a viewer panel.
Also, since the XSheet is missing a context menu item for deleting levels/frames for some reason, you may want to assign the “Del” key to the Edit > Delete menu item using “File > Configure Shortcuts…”.
I just tried this, and it is best to edit the layout.txt file with a proper code editor such as Notepad++.
Also, change the mysettings.ini’s toobar and tool options to TRUE instead of false: the toolbar and options then become part of the comboviewer and cleanup panels.
Also, when you create a custom animation room, the main menu no longer hides all the options - it suddenly makes FAR more sense as an interface. I really feel the GUI mess was done on purpose.
With these changes it looks more or less like Harlequin.
The Harlequin 7.1 manual download is here:
http://www.toonz.com/cgi-shl/download/71H/Toonz%20Harlequin%2071%20User%20Guide.pdf
Thank you for sharing this. So it can have custom rooms, however that functionality is no longer exposed to the interface. Toonz harlequin had a menu option to create and edit rooms.
Edit: I suggested a change to the layouts -
You can download the original layouts from toonz.harlequin from the link and put them in your toonzstuff folder. They make much more sense to new users.
I also found a bug: https://github.com/opentoonz/opentoonz/issues/82
please confirm if you have it too!
blurymind, thanks a lot. That works like a charm. Also your suggestion is right on time. Without it I can see young people downloading and uninstalling much like Blender 2.48. Damn if there doesn’t seem to be a community growing up around OpenToonz already. Time to dust the little tablet off now.
I made an updated version of the rooms layouts at the github link:
I made a few tweaks to the ‘drawing’ and ‘ptedit’ rooms. I also added The cleanup (scanning) and xsheet rooms from the original ghibli setup.
I added a viewer to the xsheet room.
Here is the updated version of the rooms layout setup:
OpenToonz.betterRoomsLayout-ver1.zip
So it combines the toonz harlequin setup and the ghibli setup and tweaks them both to make the application much more user friendly. Advanced users can also benefit from it.
I would make a pull request, but I still have no idea how it creates the toonzStuff folder.
I started studying it’s predecessor. We need to write some documentation and tutorials, because it really lacks it
I made a few other suggestions to make it user friendly and also reported a few bugs. Hopefully the developers will take notice. Please write a comment at github to support my suggestion about the default rooms being confusing. Maybe they will fix it if more people cry out.