Toon Boom Animation on Wednesday introduced version 3.0 of Toon Boom Studio, its software for creating 2D animation. Among the new features in this update are a free transform tool that applies combinations of scaling, rotation and skewing to animate faster; the ability to add text to animations; automated lip sync tools with better sound scrubbing for adjusting lip synchronization; the ability to save drawings, animation cycles and motions in the library for reuse; a timeline for organizing layers, setting timing and attaching motion paths to elements; and more.
Upgrades from version 1 or 2 are US$199.99, or $99.99 for version 2.5 owners. The full software is $329.99. Support packages that guarantee a response to a problem within 24 hours cost $49.99 for one year and $69.99 for two years. System requirements call for Mac OS X v10.3, a G4 or G5 processor, 256MB RAM (512MB recommended), 100MB available hard drive space and 8MB video RAM (64MB recommended) with a display capable of 1024 x 768 resolution.