Summary: Now, thanks to RLM,  DV uses a single license manager on both Windows and on MacOSX so the programming is simpler and the license management was implemented with minimum time and effort and at a reasonable cost.

About Digital Video S.p.A. – Toonz:
Providing powerful tools for cartoon animation

Digital Video (DV) S.p.A., the parent and R&D Company of Toonz, was founded in 1986. Based in Rome, Italy, Digital Video has made the development of the Toonz software package its mission, and Toonz has become a world leader in cartoon animation applications.

Toonz latest release, Toonz Harlequin, was born from DV’s experience and knowledge of traditional animation to meet the evolution of animation creative and technical standards. Toonz Harlequin integrates vector drawings in its traditional workflow based on raster drawings to allow the artist to step into paperless animation.

Another step in this direction is Toonz Bravo!, a software product that includes all the professional features of a 2D animation application, but is a cost-effective solution for studios wanting to produce paperless animation.

DV also develops a product line for web animation and broadcast, the TAB, that is a perfect fit for web animators and for Flash users looking to enrich the animation content of their work. The line includes the TAB Kids that allows any kid to create animations and cartoons with amazing results, thanks to a user-friendly interface based on icons and buttons. The TAB MANGA product is designed to create mangas (the Japanese term for comics) and animations from start to finish.

DV has developed other products for the animation industry:

• LineTest that offers a low cost solution for pencil testing.
• Scintillae, a powerful yet easy to use Particles & Fx generator.
• Toonz 3D Export plug-in to SI|XSI and SI|3D that allows camera data to be exported directly from SI|XSI or SI|3D to Toonz.

The list of professional companies currently using Toonz is enormous, as the installed base of Toonz is well over 3,000 seats. The DV products are successfully used to produce hours of animation per day for film, television and multimedia.

Selecting a License Manager
Before adopting RLM, DV used two different ways to license its products on MacOSX and on Windows platforms.

On Windows it used an older license manager, similar to RLM, while on MacOSX it used dongles (hardware keys).

Reprise presented a solution with support for all the platforms DV required, and an SDK with many useful options. DV started to integrate RLM into its products at the end of 2007 and the porting to RLM has been very simple and fast.

Now, thanks to RLM,  DV uses a single license manager on both Windows and on MacOSX so the programming is simpler and the license management was implemented with minimum time and effort and at a reasonable cost.

Digital Video supports two license types currently: floating and node-locked counted, both demo and full.

An important RLM feature is the ability to create custom hostid-processing code in order to integrate custom hostids such as dongles. Also RLM is simple to customize, allowing Digital Video developers to modify it exactly as they want and the addition of the custom hardware key routines within RLM code was quick and easy.

Thanks to the excellent support received from Reprise Software, Digital Video released Toonz 5.2 with RLM integration in Q1 2008.

For more information about Digital Video visit https://www.toonz.com.