OCA, Open Cel Animation, is an open format to ease the exchange of traditional/frame-by-frame/cel animation between different applications.
We’re providing some implementations of OCA as add-ons for a few applications and other applications already support it natively. If the application you need is not listed, you can politely ask for it in a feature request and we’ll consider it.
Principles
- OCA has to be open and simple: it must be easy to implement an exporter or importer in any application providing a scripting API.
- As it relies on existing and standard file formats (images and json/text files) stored in a simple folder, the OCA format can be imported in any application manually, even if the application does not directly support it.
- OCA stores the most common features used by drawing/animation software: layers, groups, blending modes, animation exposure (x-sheet), etc.
Features
OCA supports the most common features of all drawing/animation software:
- Layers
- Layer Groups (and pass through mode if any)
- Layer Labels
- Layer Visibility
- Blending Modes
- Layer Alpha options (inherit alpha)
- Keyframes and their duration (animation exposure)
- Opacity Keyframes
- Layer Sizes and Coordinates
- Document background color
- Document color depth
- Duration
- Framerate
All these properties are stored in a simple JSON file, and the images are stored in standard image file formats: PNG, EXR, SVG…
Everything is assembled in a folder which name ends with .oca. The JSON file is at the root, while the images are stored in subfolders corresponding to layers and groups.
