Open standard format(s) for all native files used by OpenToonz

[yvanc]

I cannot find any information or the file specification for the following files used by OpenToonz:
1.) Toonz raster level file (TLV)
2.) Palette file (TPL)
3.) Toonz vector level file (PLI)
4.) Scene file (TNZ)

As I was reading the Japanese manual (OpenToonzスタートアップマニュアル_導入編.pdf) I've noticed that it was written that these file formats are proprietary on page 4.

"OpenToonzで扱う独自のデータ形式とその関係について、下図に示します。"

独自 (dokuji) = 1. original; peculiar; unique; characteristic; proprietary; individual; independent; one's own

So this request is the community to discuss and create an open standard for these files.

[justinclift]

As a thought, do we know if there's an already existing standard which could be used?

[odysseywestra]

What about the OpenRaster format? There been talks about adding animation support to it.

[blurymind]

Open raster will need to also support the type of vector data that opentoonz uses.
having an open format is a very good idea.

[odysseywestra]

@blurymind Maybe create a thread over at the MyPaint Community Forums about this since they are the main community that uses it as default. I think the Developer category will be a good place to post it.

[blurymind]

I contacted vpaint's developers if they are interested. Boris is still open to the idea of integrating vpaint into opentoonz, if someone else does it. He said that his technology will need to mature a bit more first though.

Why did I contact him first before mypaint? He is developing a very interesting animation file format that is centered around a new type of vector graphics technology - that includes a new file type for vector animation. It is closer to what opentoonz is doing. I think ora is mostly focused on raster graphics.

I will try with mypaint devs too.
Edit: Ok posted to their issue tracker as well. Please note that mypaint devs rarely look at the mypaint forum. The gihub tracker will get a much faster and direct response.

[yvanc]

Integrating opentoonz into vtoonz is a good idea.

[blurymind]

@yvanc I though so too :) The two have a compatible license.

[blurymind]

In this case are we looking to replace all formats that toons uses with single open source one? Or With multiple open source ones?

[blurymind]

For the scene file, it would be useful if it writes scenes into a json file. That way cutout animations made in opentoonz will be able to load and run on diferent game engines and take much less memory than image sequences. See spriter and spine2d as an example.

[blurymind]

posted at mypaint forums:
http://community.mypaint.org/t/collaborating-with-opentoonz-libbrush-ora-etc/280

[yvanc]

@blurymind I'm not really sure what route we should take whether we should replace all the format into a single one cause I remember while translating the introduction manual that the purpose of the separate file format is to make it easier for animators to work on the different file collaboratively.

Are any of you guys gonna be attending Libre Graphics meeting this year? Maybe you could make a discussion about it with the other Devs during the meeting.

[Emasoft]

For the vector layer, we should use SVG. It has the following advantages:

• It is already an open standard for vector graphics
• OpenToonz can already import/export vector layers in SVG format
• You can edit the SVG vector layer in other software tools (Inkscape, Illustrator, Affinity Designer, Autodesk Graphics, CAVANi, etc.)
• You can easily create a playable animation from the SVG frames. Just paste each svg frame as a group in a svg file, and add this animate tag inside each group:

<g id="frame60"  style="display:inline">
<animate
       attributeName="display"
       fill="freeze"
       repeatCount="indefinite"
       dur="1.3s"
       keyTimes="0;0.961;0.992;1"
       values="none;inline;none;none" />
...
<g id="frame60content" style="display:inline">
 (...paste the OpenToonz svg frame here...)
</g>
...
</g>

• You can preview the vector animation on every browser.

I've made an animation test, joining the exported SVG in Inkscape (I just pasted each frame exported from OpenToonz in SVG as a new inkscape layer, and saved. But a script can do this process much quicker).

You can playback and download the resulting svg animation from here:

h t t p ://imgh.us/navetta_test.svg (Edit: Bad link)

[blurymind]

I think it should keep its proprietary formats. Some studios might want to use it with retas.

It would be nice if it can export to svg animation for the web.

[RodneyBaker]

Routine issue and PR review.
Adding 'roadmap' tag as the discussion of file formats comes up often.
It would be good for the Opentoonz community to review all currently supported file formats prior used with Opentoonz of which there are many. This would be useful first and foremost because we often don't use what we have to full advantage.

Moving forward, this survey of file formats will then aid in the exploration of creating and adapting other formats.

[RodneyBaker]

General observation: Of all the formats listed in this intitial report it seems scene files (.tnz) are the most accessible for exploiting due to the fact it is a text based file format. The TLV, TPL and PLI formats are all binary.

A related thought I have been interested in pursuing related to the Tahoma2D fork is to encourage (if/where appropriate) the use of a new scene file extension other than .tnz. The rationale being that there are current (although minor) incompatibilities that make opening a scene saved via Tahoma2D problematic but there is not a similar problem opening .tnz scenes created in Opentoonz in T2D. This might present an opportunity to explore a new scene file format similar and compatible with the current .tnz scene format but given a unique extension to make it clear it is not a standard toonz/opentoonz scene file. One possibilitiy would be to simply call the Tahoma2D scene format .t2d. This change might not now be appropriate but should the format of scene files in Tahoma2D become further incompatible it should be considered especially to prevent confusion as to why Opentoonz cannot open a .tnz scene file created with Tahoma.

More broadly, this addition of a .t2d scene file would allow deeper exploration of the scene format itself allowing for further optimizations. (Note: As of this writing John has no plans to pursue a separate scene file format for Tahoma2D as he desires to maintain scene level compatiblity within the .tnz format)

[RodneyBaker]

This is the start of an experiment...
Moving some of the more generic feature requests that are more documenatary to the Opentoonz-docs repo.

[RodneyBaker]

Some useful information on the TLV format here: #137