Skip to main content

Springboard - Fast Digital Storyboarding on a Budget

Storyboarding an animation is one of my least favorite parts of the creative process and yet it's also one of the most important after writing the script. It's where the planning of the visual representation of the script takes place.

The Problem....

I've struggled with storyboarding because I knew there had to be a better way than drawing tiny thumbnails on a sheet of paper with script and camera direction notes crammed underneath - an example of which can be found in my post for my music video animation, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. This method isn't exactly client friendly as my handwriting scrawls can become unreadable even to me over time.

The other technique I employed was using the storyboarding features of Celtx Script Writing Software. Celtx allows you to import your scanned thumbnails (or any digital image) into its storyboard where you can add text and camera direction into scrollable text boxes below each image - and never run out of room. I employed this technique for my business clients. You can see an example in the blog post I wrote about the animation I created for My Network One.

The trouble with Celtx is, if you hand draw the thumbnails, whether on actual paper or in a graphics software program it introduces an additional step of importing the images into the software. Celtx also doesn't have any way to export storyboards either. Thus I had to resort to taking screen grabs - rendering those scrollable text boxes useless if they needed to be scrolled to read their full contents.

What I wanted was software that would let you draw directly into the storyboard panels (using my graphics tablet - or you could use your mouse), let you enter any amount of text and then let you export it all into a easily viewed presentation for clients.

Toon Boom Storyboard Pro... Overkill!

I knew the makers of industry standard Toon Boom Studio had a solution with their Toon Boom Storyboard Pro Software but that costs US$899.00 (even the basic version is US$199.00). It's also a fairly complex program with advanced drawing tools. In short overkill for my modest needs.

Springboard... Easy, Cheap and Powerful

I started Googling for an alternative and what I found was Springboard, a free to try digital storyboarding tool that I decided to pay up the US$39.95 for within hours of installing and trying out. However, if you wish to try it longer, the free trial lasts for 30 days.

Springboad 1.03 screen shot.
Springboard is suitable for both large and small film and animation projects. It can break up larger projects into sections so that you're not saving the entire project every time you make a small change here and there.

The screen shot above right pretty much shows you everything you need to see when it comes to using the software.

Program Layout and Features...

On the far left you have the Story Tree where you can sort everything into Acts, Chapters, Scenes, Sequences or Shots. Below that you have the properties for the selected item in the story tree.

To the right of the Story Tree you have some basic bitmap and vector drawing tools. It's not the most sophisticated drawing program you'll ever use but it does support layers and transparency. If you have a Wacom tablet it'll also support some basic functions of that such as turning the pen around and using the eraser.

The drawing tools palette includes some additional storyboard specific tools like arrows for adding directional information such as camera movements. There is even a camera tool that you can use to actually simulate camera movements when you come to compile your board into an animatic.

If you do have a favorite drawing program then there is some support to link it directly to this program so you can edit a drawing externally and have it automatically updated inside Springboard. Something you might do if you're creating high quality presentation storyboards for a film pitch to a client or studio.

The main part of the screen is filled with the storyboard panels themselves. You can adjust the resolution of these before you begin depending on what kind of quality you need and how big your project is. I set mine to size of 640 x 360 pixels (16:9) ratio. Not only can you draw directly onto the panels you can also import images into them, like a logo for example to include as part of your drawing.

The nice thing is that you can edit a story board panel at any time, whether you're zoomed into it or not, making it easy to work across two or three panels at once. Shifting panels around is as easy as dragging and dropping them within the storyboard tree.

Across the bottom of the screen is the text box for the selected panel. You can enter as much text as you need here as the program will format your text neatly next to your panel should you need to export your boards for any reason. Currently you can export just the images to various image file formats or the entire storyboard, including text to a customizable but neatly formatted HTML web page (perfect for uploading to a website host and showing online clients or you can format the pages for printing from your browser).

Just above the text box (not shown in the screen shot) is where the controls and timeline pop up when it comes time to edit, record and preview your animatic.

Animatics with Sound...

Animatics can not only include camera movements but also you can import audio as uncompressed .wav files. You can even record sound directly into the program with your microphone. Springboard will let you export just the audio track as a .wav file, so you could use Springboard as a way to develop a master audio track for projects too.

Free to Visualize...

I've found that Springboard takes the monotony out of creating storyboards. I can simply divide my script across however many frames I think I'll need then start drawing. I can draw just the frames I have ideas for or add in extra frames if I need them without destroying the flow of the page. Trying to cram in text under each frame is no longer an issue. I'm completely free to just concentrate on visualizing my story.

Unfortunately it's not all great. I did manage to crash this program, losing a number of panels in the process. I'm not sure how I did it and haven't managed to repeat the problem. As a result I'd recommend saving your work often.

That aside this software is excellent value, easy to learn and ideal for short film or animation projects. To see an over view of the software the video below by Youtuber drawtips runs you through most features. Note that he's a little slow to get started but stick with it as it's a really good overview.



Popular posts from this blog

AE Juice - Animation Presets, Motion Graphics, Templates, Transitions for After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Other Video Applications

Level up you video edits and animations with AE Juice's motion graphics and templates. Some days you just don't have the time to create flashy motion graphics for your latest video or animation. For some of us it's more a question of our own artistic abilities being a little less than the awesome we'd like them to be. Whatever reason a resource like AE Juice's animation presets, motion graphics, templates, and transitions packs for After Effects , Premiere Pro , and other video applications can really make your work stand out very quickly. AE Juice gives you access to an instant library of free, premade content elements and sound effects, which you can add to with additional purchases of various themed packs from their store. There are three ways to manage their content, all of which can be used in commercial projects . The AE Juice Standalone Package Manager makes it easy to browse previews of all your pack contents and to download and find just the elements yo

Should You Buy or Upgrade to MOHO 13? *Spoiler* Yes. Yes You Should!

MOHO 13's New Character Set. Smith Micro released MOHO 13 , their all in one, 2D animation studio, this week. The question is should you buy or upgrade to the latest version? Obviously I've already spoiled this in the title, so the actual question is why do I think you should buy or upgrade? To be clear, I'm only talking about MOHO 13 Pro. If you're considering MOHO 13 Debut be aware that you're missing out on some of the new features, and a lot of existing features that are only available in the Pro version. Debut is fine if the budget doesn't stretch to Pro, but, if you never want to be disappointed about not having a feature, it's Pro or nothing! The other thing I need to be transparent about is I'm not, by any stretch, a frequent MOHO user/animator. However I took the time to learn MOHO 12 Pro fairly extensively, blogging about my process and sorting out 104 free MOHO training videos into a logical viewing order in the process. I think I ha

TimeBolt: Fast Video Editing for Anyone Creating Online Courses, Podcasts, or Vlogs.

I resisted making tutorial videos for a long time because I don't like editing. Specifically I don't like editing me teaching as I step students through a process during a screen record. I have a tendency to insert long pauses not just in the middle of sentences but between multiple words in the middle of sentences as my pace matches what I'm doing onscreen. This makes for very long and very slow paced video tutorials. To counteract this I have to edit out all the pauses. This can take hours, or even days on particularly long tutorials. For example, when I created my main course, The Lazy Animator Beginner's Guide to Cartoon Animator , I literally injured the thumb on my right hand, operating my mouse, as I spent weeks taking out all my pauses (seriously, I had to wear a thumb brace for a few weeks to fix the pain). Recently I came across TimeBolt , a very affordable, fast editing application with the featured purpose of removing all the pauses from your video (and even

Make Disney/Pixar Style Characters with Reallusion's Character Creator and Toon Figure Bases

The Extraordinary Tourist Classic Coat outfit created using Reallusion's Toon Designer for CC3. I've talked before how I've wanted to get into 3D Disney/Pixar style character animation since I first saw the animated cutscenes for the very first Tomb Raider game back in 1996. It's why I initially bought Reallusion's iClone 3D studio app as soon as I could afford a computer that would run it. But then Reallusion released their 3D Character Creator (CC) for iClone and I wanted to create my characters with that (and I did try with Bat Storm ). But the focus of CC was realism, even with ToKoMotion's stylised body morphs . Now with Reallusion's Cartoon Designer bundle for CC3 which features two packs, Toon Figures , and Toon Hair , designing Disney/Pixar style 3D characters just got a whole lot quicker. The two packs are the bare essentials for creating Toon style characters. Five body morphs (2 male, 2 female, and one adolescent body morph that w

Can You Learn Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5 for Free Using Their 137 Official YouTube Video Tutorials Sorted Into a Logical Learning Order?

Or you could just buy The Lazy Animator Beginner's Guide to Cartoon Animator . While Reallusion's Cartoon Animator is one of the easiest 2D animation studios to get up and running with quickly, learning it from all of the official, free, video tutorials can be more overwhelming than helpful. With more than 137 videos totaling more than 28 and a half hours of tutorials, spread across three generations of the software (Cartoon Animator 3 through 5) it's hard to know if what you're learning is a current or legacy feature that you either need to know or can be skipped. Many of the official tutorials only teach specific features of the software and don't relate at all to previous or later tutorials. As a result there are many features either not mentioned or are hard to find. To make your learning easier, on this page, I've collected together all of the essential, official, free video tutorials and sorted them into a learning order that makes sense. Simply start at

Review: CrazyTalk Animator 3 vs Moho Studio Pro 12

Reallusion's CrazyTalk Animator 3 or Smith Micro's Moho Studio Pro 12. Which of these 2D animation applications is right for you? Regular readers of this blog will know I'm a strong supporter, and fairly proficient user of CrazyTalk Animator since version 1. It's a great piece of software for producing 2D animations from purchased content quickly and, with version 3, is easier than ever to create animations from your own art. Lesser known is that I first purchased Moho Studio Pro 12 (then known as Anime Studio Pro 9) back in October of 2012 and have been upgrading it to the latest version ever since because I believed in it as an application for creating great 2D animation to TV quality standard. As such, it's a much more complex application than CTA3 that I only got around to learning properly late last year. I'm still in the process of blogging my progress . Despite this I feel I've learned enough of Moho to compare it to CTA3 to help you determ

Creating a G3-360 Head From a Single Photo in Reallusion's Cartoon Animator

Source Photo from Generated Photos . Ever since Reallusion introduced the G3-360 Character Head into Cartoon Animator 4 I've wanted to see if their 360 Head Creator tool could be used to create an animated head using a photo. Part of the reason I've never given this a shot, until now, is that I just assumed it would be difficult, and require a lot of photo editing to blend out the sprite edges. It turns out, creating a photographic G3-360 head is not that much more difficult than creating a cartoon head, and can be done using a single photographic image using my own G3-360 head rigging system . While this article isn't intended to be a full tutorial, I'll run through the basic steps of how I achieved my photographic G3-360 head, shown in the comparison below, of a Cartoon Animator Morph-based head on the left, and my G3-360 head on the right. Pros and Cons Cartoon Animator's morph-based head system is ideal for animating photographic faces. It uses a semi 3D wire me