Content on this page requires a newer version of Adobe Flash Player.

Get Adobe Flash player

 

Pencil Check Pro

 

 

 

Go back to basics

Toon Boom has always been committed to animators, developing leading-edge technology to support their creative process. As a testament to that, Toon Boom Pencil Check Pro is the most flexible line testing software available in the industry. Developed for the most prestigious and demanding studios, Pencil Check Pro provides an extensive feature set designed around a user friendly interface. Pencil Check Pro is the classic animators’ best friend, sitting next to the animation table for fast and accurate line tests. An easy to use must-have tool for students learning animation principles.

Animators’ best friend

  • Create and preview the line test movie with synchronized sound, in real-time.
  • Fill the exposure sheet using industry standard tools and the audio waveform display.
  • Annotate and draw directly in the exposure sheet column using the pen tool.
  • Animate camera motion with pencil drawing composited on top of a background.

Educational animation school

  • Enjoy an easy-to-use application to quickly test your drawings with
  • Capture paper drawings on-the-fly with any kind of supported image device
  • Draw intuitively to produce frame-by-frame paperless animation
  • Paint characters while you refer to colour models

Professional Line Testing Tools

Developed with professional animators, Pencil Check Pro integrates an extensive feature set including real-time capture preview, vectorization presets, paper feeder support for batch capture, alignment and registration for acquisition of large backgrounds and automatic matte creation for instant overlay preview. You can also import images and capture or draw directly within Pencil Check Pro to quickly create a line test. Complete your line test by easily adding camera motion.

Extensive Capture Devices Supported

Toon Boom Pencil Check Pro comes with an impressive list of built-in capture technology such as Microsoft DirectShow and WIA as well as Apple QuickTime and Image Capture. Combine this with TWAIN interface and proprietary drivers for high speed production scanners, Pencil Check Pro supports the widest variety of devices available for a line test application and fi ts into your pipeline and your budget.

Draw, Ink and Paint Digitally

Line testing can also be done paperlessly with Pencil Check Pro, thanks to its unique vector and pressure-sensitive drawing tools. Sketch, draw, clean and paint in colour to produce a high quality line test. Pencil Check Pro comes with all the tools required for animation such as Onion Skin, Light Table, Backlight andToon Boom’s legendary rotary animation table to fully mimic a traditional animation workspace.

Playback Composition Instantly

Preview your line test animation with a real-time playback interface synchronized with sound and camera motion. Defi ne the transparency and colour of each column to identify drawings easily. Resolution independent, Pencil Check Pro can render line test as an image sequence, a QuickTime movie or a SWF vector animation at any resolution. Overlay time code information for easy referencing of later modifi cation.

Acclaimed Exposure Sheet

With more than ten years of legacy in animation, Toon Boom Pencil Check’s exposure sheet includes everything an animator could dream of. Fill the Xsheet manually, randomly or sequentially, adjust the duration on-the-fl y or simply let the capture module fi ll it for you. Pencil Check Pro Xsheet can display the sound waveform for accurate timing. You can also draw or import annotations as if you had a paper margin and mark key and breakdown drawings.

Filled with time-saving features

Toon Boom Pencil Check Pro completes the animation pipeline by offering a wide array of capture options, an effi cient line testing process and an advanced feature set. Capture drawings using market-leading devices. Preview your animation in real-time. Set your timing and pace with sound. Add colours and camera moves to refi ne your project look and feel. Using Pencil Check Pro during pre-production translates into signifi cant time savings throughout the production.

Capture

  • Support capture devices
  • TWAIN and production scanners on Mac OS X and Windows
  • QuickTime and Image Capture video devices on Mac OS X
  • DirectShow and WIA video devices on Windows
  • Perform line test with imported bitmap (see Import)
  • Automatic Feeder support with scanners (ADF)
  • Register peg holes automatically with scanners
  • Preview video devices source in real-time
  • Capture your drawings in black and white, greyscale or colour separation lines
  • Auto-assemble your drawings for painting
  • Colour scan pre-coloured drawings and backgrounds
  • Auto-splice pan cels (characters and backgrounds)
  • Capture nuances of hand-drawn lines using true-line vectorization and line texture
  • Preserve original line textures such as pencil, crayon or chalk
  • Adjust Black/White point and Gamma
  • Control luma keyer threshold for paper removal
  • Create Matte automatically for instant overlay

Digital Drawing

  • Create resolution-independent vector artwork
  • Brush tool to draw pressure sensitive contour line stroke with tablet
  • Pressure sensitive Eraser tool available on all vector drawing
  • Line Art and Colour Art layer available to keep line and painted colours independent
  • User friendly navigation in your drawing with virtual animation disk to simulate panning, zooming and rotation
  • Duplicate and manipulate vector-based drawings such as position, scale, rotate, skew, fl ip or perspective
  • Access a full range of digital tools such as cut, copy, paste, scale, rotate, squash, stretch, etc.
  • Use the light table and multi-level onion skinning features
  • Quickly locate a colour in a palette using the Dropper tool
  • Display 12-fi eld or 16-fi eld Grid to register elements
  • Mark In-Between, Breakdown, Keyframe drawings for precise frame by frame animation

Paint

  • Access 16 million colours; unlimited fi ll colours, line colours, transparencies per layer
  • Create unlimited number of colour pots in palette
  • Paint colour art, re-colour line art, and check for paint errors
  • Close gap tools to manually close gaps
  • Close gaps automatically on all your drawings
  • Manage colour models in independent view
  • Quickly paint at all output resolutions
  • Use Backlight for instant verifi cation of the completeness of the paint process
  • Use advanced cleaning tools to remove dirt and hair easily

Xsheet

  • Emulates a traditional exposure sheet
  • Create, edit and save exposure sheets
  • Print exposure sheets
  • Automatically build the timing in your exposure sheet with simple click and drag
  • Copy and paste cells with drag and drop
  • Display audio waveform
  • Defi ne transparency and colour for each column
  • Draw annotations directly in the exposure sheet with a drawing pen

Playback

  • Play back current scene
  • Play back animation with sound in-sync
  • Play back as a fl oating window
  • Scrub through scene with sound in-sync
  • View frame sequences at full D1 resolution and above
  • Play back up to 60 fps

Import

  • Bitmap TGA, PSD, PNG, JPEG, BMP, YUV, PAL, SGI, SCAN
  • Vector TVG, SWF, PDF, AI
  • Audio MP3, WAV, AIFF

Export

  • Overlay Time code and text information
  • Render to any resolution and aspect ratio such as NTSC, PAL, HDTV, fi lm (1K, 2K, 4K) and beyond
  • Output to QuickTime Movie, Flash SWF and image sequence TGA, PSD, YUV, PNG, SGI

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Mac OS X Systems

  • OS: Mac OS X v10.4 and v10.5
  • PowerPC G5 (Minimum) and Intel (Recommended)
  • 512 MB of Ram (Minimum), 1 GB (Recommended)
  • 250 MB of available hard disk space for the software
  • Video card fully supporting OpenGL with 128 MB of RAM
  • Monitor supporting 1280x1024 resolution
  • Wacom tablets for drawing (Optional)
  • Capture device supporting QuickTime or Image Capture interface (Optional)

Microsoft Windows Systems

  • OS: Microsoft Windows Vista, XP and TabletPC
  • 2 GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor (Recommended)
  • 512 MB of Ram (Minimum), 1 GB (Recommended)
  • 250 MB of available hard disk space for the software
  • Video card fully supporting OpenGL with 128 MB of RAM
  • Monitor supporting 1280x1024 resolution
  • Wacom tablets for drawing (Optional)
  • Capture device supporting DirectShow, WIA or TWAIN interface (Optional)

PLUG AND CAPTURE

Perform all capture operations from a unique and common interface, with real-time preview for devices equipped with live video stream. With Pencil Check Pro you can automatically capture drawn lines and ignore the paper image. You can create the inside matte in your drawings for instant, accurate compositing of your sketches on top of backgrounds.

EASILY LEARN ANIMATION PRINCIPLES

Learning and practicing animation fundamentals using Pencil Check Pro is easy. No special training is required; sketch key poses directly within the software with instant playback preview and audio track capability while fi lling the exposure sheet. Draw the in-betweens, clean the animation and prepare your work for inking and painting.

BEYOND LINE TESTING

With Toon Boom Pencil Check Pro, thanks to its unique features, line testing will never be the same again! Easily control the colouring and opacity of each of the columns for accurate preview. Enjoy the digital exposure sheet and use its annotation columns to add comments and sketches directly in the Xsheet. Reference exported line test movies with time code and text overlay.