With The Princess and the Frog DVD arriving in stores today, it’s high time we mention that Toon Boom was the technology of choice behind the Oscar-nominated feature. Much of the animation process was traditional (flipping paper and such), but the crew at Walt Disney Animation Studios used the enterprise-grade Toon Boom package Harmony to bring it to the screen. In fact, many of the Annie-Award-winning effects were “paperless” – drawn with a Cintiq right into Harmony.

Toon Boom has just announced the upcoming release of Animate 2, a powerful software package that rivals Flash. The second iteration of the software includes full SWF export, better velocity controls and a type tool. The pre-launch price is $549.99, and if you buy now, they’ll give you the first version to use until its’ successor arrives. Here’s some of my favorite Toon Boom animation from recent months:

Um Lugar Comum (A Common Place) from São Paulo-based studio Split Filmes

Water FX from Canadian Chris Graf

I also really like André Ruivo’s Januário e a Guerra.

Depending on where you sit, the US economy is either rebounding or falling deeper into the void. For the real truth, Google it. That’s the conceict of the latest Ted Rall cartoon, titled Googling While America Burns. David Essman animated this piece with Toon Boom.

One of the things that stood out for me when I first learned my way around Toon Boom Animate was the color palette. It’s got intelligent color management that allows you to pair a color with an object – the equivalent of saying pants=blue. Down the road, if you want to change those pants to green, and on multiple drawings, it’s as easy as shifting that color — once. While Flash obviously has its advantages too, it faulters in this regard, as you can see in this video below:

For the Australian mockumentary TV series Kenny’s World, Bernard Derriman was called upon to create a number of interstitial animated segments. His weapon of choice on this project was Toon Boom, and Derriman brought on his friend and countryman Adam Phillips to help with effects animation and backgrounds. A half-dozen of these are over on YouTube, and below are two of my favorites:

Kenny’s World – Bears

Kenny’s World – Japan