News: Toonboom Storyboard Pro 4 has arrived!

Toonboom has finally released Storyboard Pro 4!

Anyone who knows me personally knows that I have always been a fan and advocate of Toonboom Storyboard Pro. Over the years I’ve had a number of heated arguments with friends over it; most of them entailing why they can’t support 2d bitmapped drawing. While I see the benefits of vector drawing, I also understand the need for an easy flowing 2d brush as it’s much closer to a real pencil and there’s truly no substitute for that. Nevertheless, I have found that, once you learn Storyboard Pro and have made use of it’s timeline there’s really no going back to a program like Photoshop for storyboarding regardless of the vector drawing. It’s far and away a more efficient tool. I have even found it’s vector engine to be far superior with regards to inking as it’s much better than Illustrator and I use it for all my inking and cleanup as well as my coloring.

That said, it looks like Toonboom has been listening to it’s users and has finally released a version with bitmap drawing! Below are some of the newest features of Toonboom Storyboard Pro v4. I’m waiting for my new copy and once it arrives I will do a review of it. 

Very excited about this development!

You can read more about Toonboom Storyboard Pro’s newest release on their site here.

	Toon Boom Storyboard Pro is the artist’s tool of choice for planning games, television series, or feature films, whether the project is for Live Action, Mixed Media, or Animation.
What’s New?
Bitmap Drawing Tools Create custom bitmap-style brushes Create and draw on pixel-based bitmap layers Use the new pixel-based colour picker, and save colours in the palette for reuse 64-Bit Core Take advantage of the new 64-bit core technology Use as much memory as your machine allows Import images, and use many bitmap layers, without memory limitations Playback Enhancements Playback enhancements allow for smooth playback through panels Hear the sound play back with the correct timing Sequences Divide your projects into Acts, Sequences, Scenes, and Panels For Live Action terminology, divide your projects into Acts, Scenes, Shots, and Panels Choose between Animation or Live Action terminology Export your projects with this information embedded into PDF and CSV Integrated 3D Technology Work in a 3D space, repositioning 2D layers in 3D space, and doing full 3D camera moves Import 3D models, such as FBX, OSB, OBJ, or 3DS Animate 2D or 3D layers over time Export projects to Harmony for 2D/3D mixed media projects Export to FBX for full 3D projects to integrate into your 3D pipeline Collaboration Tools Split projects into smaller projects Merge projects together to create a larger project New Advanced Merge replaces existing scenes in a project with updated versions Extract scenes from a project Insert scenes into a project from an outside source Use Pitch Mode to share your project with a group in a presentation format, allowing you to play back panels and draw comments on the fly