Toon Boom Animation has announced the upcoming release of Toon Boom Storyboard Pro 2 (http://www.toonboom.com/products/storyboardpro/), a new version that the company says infuses more power and flexibility into the idea creation, development and visualization process.

New feature highlights include:

° Content creation tools: an extended set of tools and tool properties; the creation and reuse of brushes with specific settings; creation of custom brushes using a stroke or a series of strokes; setting of separate colors for Brush, Pencil and Paint tools; selection of strokes based on the current color selection; extended rich text support for captions; and the addition of sketch captions on a panel-by-panel basis.

° Input/output capabilities: Final Draft 8 support; customization of the PDF export on a panel-by-panel basis; improved PDF Export with Analyze functionality; extended export to Final Cut Pro through XML; Final Cut Pro conformation (import/export); and the ability to assemble a storyboard project from scanned images.

° Storyboarding capabilities: creation of new panels using all or only specific layers of currently selected panels; tracking of changes made to panels; naming convention improvements; and safe locking of panel names

° Animatic capabilities: camera movements across panels; optimized playback; real-time transitions; and a thumbnails playback option.

° User interface improvements: full scene anti-aliasing support (smoother drawing); enhanced support of both horizontal and vertical layer displays; layer transparency; customizable workspaces; and Save As and Auto-Save capabilities

You can biy Toon Boom Storyboard Pro 2 now at the special pre-launch price of US$699.99, valid until Aug. 4. As of July 21, 2010, all new clients will receive a temporary Toon Boom Storyboard Pro 1.5 product code. Upon product release, all Storyboard Pro 2 customers will receive instructions by email on how to access their version 2 product code. Upgrades will be available upon customer release. All orders requiring shipping will be processed upon the product’s release.