File Menu

Creates a new project while closing any scene already open. The New Project dialog box opens, asking for directory, name, and resolution information.

Uses your Final Draft script to create a new Storyboard Pro project. This saves you time as it handles the creation of scenes and panels, as well as inserting all the text in the proper captions automatically.

You can create a project from Harmony scenes. Before you do this, in Harmony, you must mark the frames you want to use as panels in your project. Frames must be marked in an annotation column called "EM". For each marked frame, a panel is created in Storyboard Pro. If you don't mark your frames, the first frame of each Harmony scene will be used.

You must group all your different Harmony scenes in one folder. Storyboard Pro will create one scene per Harmony scene. If your Harmony scene contains several EM markers in the annotation column, Storyboard Pro will create multiple panels within the scene.

Displays the Open Project dialog box where you can browse for a project file. You can open a new project from the current one and the previous project will close.

Displays a list of the most recently opened projects.

Clears the list of recently opened projects.

Closes the currently opened project, but does not close the Storyboard Pro application.

Saves all changes made to the opened project, drawings, palettes, and palette lists. If you are working on an unpacked project, your changes are saved to the local cache.

Saves the current file with a different name and at a different location.

Saves the current state of a project as another project. The Save As window prompts you for a new name and a different location for this project before saving it. This will create a complete project directory for the new project.

You can also save a project as a single file by saving it as an .sbpz file—Saving Projects as a Single File.

Saves an unpacked project and rezips it to the original zipped project file—see Saving Projects as a Single File.

Project Management

Opens the Split Storyboard dialog, in which you can divide the current Storyboard Pro project into two smaller project so that two different project collaborators can work on each half simultaneously. The project will be split at the currently selected panel, so you should select the panel where you want to divide your project before opening this dialog.

Opens the Extract Storyboard dialog, in which you can extract different parts of the current project into several smaller projects, so that several project collaborators can work on different parts of your project at the same time.

Opens the Merge Storyboard dialog, which allows you to combine several small projects into the current project. You can insert each project in a specific order, before or after the scenes in your current project.

Allows you to browse for an insert another Storyboard Pro project into the current project. The selected project will be inserted after the currently selected scene.

Opens the Advanced Merge Storyboard dialog. This dialog allows you to select one or several projects that were extracted from the current project, then modified by project collaborators, and scenes in the current project with their corresponding scenes in these extracted projects. You can manually select which scenes to import from the extracted projects.

Opens the Merge Modified Panels dialog. This dialog allows you to select a project that was extracted from the current project, then modified by a project collaborator, and to quickly import the changes that were made to this project into the current project. It automatically selects which panels to import, either by the time and date of their last modification, or based on whether or not they are marked as tracked.

Lets you locate a previously backed up version of a project and opens it.

Creates a compressed version of your project. Backing up your work provides a safety net against corrupted files and allows you to have several versions of your project at different stages, in case you ever want to go back and work from an earlier point in the production.

Opens the Optimize Project dialog box from which can remove unused elements, flatten all drawings and reduce the texture resolution in the project. This will reduce the file size of a project and increase the speed at which you can work on a project.

When using any of the playback options in Storyboard Pro, the software has to calculate the positioning of all the *.tvgs (Toon Boom vector graphics), the file format that is created from all your drawing strokes. This calculation tends to slow down the rate of playback. There is, however, a way to circumvent this problem.

There is a a second file format, the *.tvgo (Toon Boom vector graphic optimized) that has all the pixel position information precalculated. Using these drawings should significantly speed up playback—see Advanced Preferences.

Lets you get the most up-to-date thumbnails in the Thumbnails view. As you draw, a series of small images (thumbnails) is generated. These thumbnails are automatically refreshed based on the refresh duration you set in the Preferences dialog box (Advanced tab, Delay Before Updating Thumbnails parameter).

You can update thumbnails immediately. This removes all cached thumbnails in the Thumbnails and Timeline views, and forces new thumbnails to be regenerated.

Let you import one or several images and automatically create a new scene for each. This is useful if you have a series of bitmap images that you need to include, such as backgrounds or scanned storyboards.

The supported image formats include: .bmp, .jpg, .omf, .opt, .pal, .png, .psd, .scan, .sgi, .tga, .tif, .tvg, and .yuv.

As you build a scene, you may want to use bitmap images for backgrounds and overlays. You may also want to import an image as a reference for a vector drawing you want to create.

With Storyboard Pro, you can import a variety of bitmap formats (.jpe, .jpeg, .jpg, .opt, .pal, .png, .psd, .omf, .scan, .sgi, .tga, .tvg, .yuv) which you can combine with vector-animated content to create rich and unique graphic styles.

You can import a single image (or multiple images located in the same folder) into a new layer.

Allows you to import images or movie files into clips in video tracks, which are independent from your animatic and can be made to appear over or underneath the elements in your storyboard.

Movie files can be imported as video clips to be played in your projects. Still images can be imported as static video clip which can be made to last any amount of time.

You can import any image file supported by Storyboard Pro as a video clip. You can also import movie files in QuickTime Movie (.mov) or MPEG-4 (.mp4, .m4v) format which are encoded with the H.264. On Windows only, you can also import Windows Media Video (*.wmv) files, and on macOS only, you can also import QuickTime Movie (.mov) files encoded in Apple ProRes.

Allows you to import sound files (.wav, .aif, .aiff or .mp3) as sound clips into an audio track.

Allows you to record a sound clip using your workstation's recording device directly into an audio track in your project.

Export

Lets you export a storyboard project to bitmap files in .psd (with separate layers), .tga, .jpg or .png format. A separate bitmap file is exported for each panel in the storyboard. When exporting .psd files, animations and transitions are not exported, but camera movements are rendered into an independent layer.In the case of a .psd file, transform and transition animations are not exported. However, camera moves are rendered into an independent layer.

Lets you export the current frame into a .jpeg, .psd, .tga or .png image. Note that .psd files will contain each layer in the panel, named by their layer name.

Lets you the data in a storyboard project in comma separated value (.csv) file format. You can view this data in any application that supports comma separated value files, such as Microsoft Excel. If you do not have Microsoft Excel installed, you can save the .csv file to your computer and open the file in another application.

Once a storyboard is complete, you can send it to a Non-linear Editing (NLE) system to complete the animatic in a real editing suite with a direct return on TV or use it as a pre-editing map to replace the storyboard scenes with the final materials (shot in live action or rendered from a 2D or 3D software).

You can export your storyboard project and preserve the timing, motions, and sounds edited with Storyboard Pro, directly to Apple Final Cut Pro 7 or Adobe Premiere using the EDL or XML formats, or to Avid Xpress, Sony Vegas or Adobe Premiere using the AAF format.

Lets you export your storyboard and animatic as a movie file to share and play back easily for an efficient timing reference. You can export your movie file in different movie formats (Windows Media Video, QuickTime or Flash) and as image sequences (.jpeg, .tga or .png).

Lets you export your storyboard project as a .pdf file which you can later print or share electronically. This is where you will find the way to set up your visuals to represent a classic storyboard on paper. An extensive number of options, settings and customizing is possible while exporting to PDF.

Allows you to export your project's audio into one or several sound files. You can choose to export a single file for all your project's audio tracks, or to export each audio track individually. You can also choose to export a single track for your whole project, or to separate it by scene, sequence or act.

Allows you to export your animatic into a set of Harmony scenes. After the export, you can open the scenes Toon Boom Harmony right away and kickstart the production of your animation project. If you are working with Harmony Server, you can export a package of scenes that can be imported into your database using Control Center. The resulting Harmony scenes will be the same length as the scenes in your Storyboard Pro project, they will contain each of their panels so that you may animate over them, and they will contain their respective part of the animatic's soundtrack.

Lets you export your storyboard project in FBX format, which allows you to store any motion data (from element motion or Camera angles/zooms), as well as the 2D and 3D elements in your scene. Once exported to FBX, you can open the storyboard elements in a third-party 3D application and continue to work on them.

These elements should only be exported to FBX when you are finished with them in Storyboard Pro. Normally, you would not bring the elements back into Storyboard Pro.

Conformation

Allows you to export your Storyboard Pro project for conformation. You can export your project in a format compatible with Final Cut Pro 7 or Avid Media Composer. You can then make edits to your project in the intended software, and conform it back into Storyboard Pro to integrate the changes made in the video editing software.

Lets you export the selected panels for conformation, instead of the entire project.

Lets you export tracked panels for conformation, instead of the entire project.

Once you have imported your project’s conformation (XML or AAF) into the-third party software and finished editing it,, you will need to export it once again as an XML or AAF file to bring it back into your Storyboard Pro project. This option allows you to import the resulting XML or AAF file back into the project and apply the changes made in the editing software to your animatic.

Lets you update the captions in your project. If you generate a .csv sheet (comma separated values) from your project, you can update the file, then import it into Storyboard Pro. Doing so will update all caption fields automatically. You must first generate the CSV from your current project.