Pencil2D is a free, open-source animation program created in 2009 by Patrick Corrieri and Pascal Naidon, after their previous project, "Pencil," was scrapped. Later, with Matthew Chang, Pencil2D was released under the GNU General Public License. It uses the Qt framework.
It is very basic and great for beginners. It makes up for its lack of certain features by being open source. Pencil2D is not great at handling big projects; however, newer versions make it more stable.
Pencil2D User Showcase 2020
This will serve as an example of animations made using the software.
UI[]
The canvas size and position can be changed useing the camera layer. The UI can be adjusted to your liking.
The UI for Version 0.7.0 of Pencil2D has been provided above. For more info regarding this version, Click Here.
Basic info[]
- How to open Pencil2D projects? : Go to file, click on open project and select the project you want to work on.
- How to rotate the selected area?: Press Ctrl Wile dragging the rotate the selected area in the direction you want to rotate it.
- Layers: There are four types of layers, Camera, Bitmap, Vector and Sound.
Tools[]
Brushes[]
Pencil2D only has three brushes, those being the Pencil, Pen, and Brush. Straight lines can be made with the Polyline Tool, which has the same quality of line as the pen. The pencil is good for roughs and line art, wile the brush is good for highlights. Either way, it's up to you on how you use them.
If you're drawing on a vector layer, then the brush you use won't matter as much as all lines drawn are the same.
Bucket Tool[]
The bucket tool's fill capacity can be adjusted, helping to avoid white outlines between the filled area and the lines of your sketch. Selecting Behind in the bucket tool's blend mode also allows you to outline your sketches. The outline thickness can be adjusted.
Smudge tool[]
Although the tool is mainly for blending, it can be used to make cool effects more easily and seamlessly, making it a very reliable and useful tool; however, it can be a bit tricky for newer artists to get used to.
Download link[]
Resource/More Info[]
- [Website]
- [Wiki]
- [Forum]
- [GitHub]
- [Mango Animate]