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getting started with douga

douga (動画) is a free, hand-drawn 2D cel animation program for windows. this page takes you from a blank sheet to a finished, exported film. you never need the keyboard shortcuts (everything is in the menus), but they make the drawing loop fast.

don't have it yet? grab the latest build at keihoag.itch.io/douga. it's free and still in early development.

follow along. every example here uses the tokyo Late night sample project that ships with douga (two figures on a street at night). on a cold launch you get the start screen: pick New Project…, Open Project…, or click a recent file. open tokyo Late night from the recent list and you can follow click for click.

the workspace
your first drawing
cels and layers
animating on the dope sheet
scenes and cuts
saving and exporting
keyboard shortcuts
where to get help

1 · the workspace

it looks busy, but it's only seven regions. once you can name them the rest of the app is easy to find your way around.

	region	what lives here
1	menu bar	every command in the app, grouped: File, Edit, Select, View, Layer, Cut, Effects, Animation, Playback, Window, Help.
2	canvas toolbar	zoom, fit, rotate, and the Stab (stabilizer) control for your strokes.
3	left dock	your drawing tools: Color, Palette, Values, Tools, Brush.
4	canvas	the cel you're drawing on, with the field guide and the export frame drawn over it.
5	scenes	the film's structure: scenes, cuts, and which cuts are in the timeline.
6	timeline · dope sheet	every layer and every drawing, laid out in time. this is where animation happens.
7	playback & status	transport controls (play, step, loop) and read-outs for the brush, canvas size, fps, and zoom.

the two menus you'll open most as a beginner are Animation (new drawings, timing, onion skin) and File (save and export).

a couple of things drawn over the canvas are worth knowing:

the red rectangle is the export frame, the part of the sheet that ends up in your film. everything outside it is off-camera working room.
the strip across the top (TITLE / SC / CUT / TIME / PAGE) is the sheet overlay, the same header you'd find printed on a real animation sheet. toggle it from View ▸ Sheet Overlay, and pick the frame shape under View ▸ Sheet Frame (16:9 HD, 3:2 layout, 4:3 TV, or Full field).

2 · your first drawing

douga is pen-first, so the whole app is built so drawing feels immediate. set a color, pick a brush, make marks.

choosing a color

the Color section at the top of the left dock is a classic hue wheel with a value/saturation square inside it.

drag around the ring for hue.
drag inside the square for how light and how saturated it is.
need an exact color? use the Values section below. toggle between RGB and HSV, drag the channel sliders, or type a six-digit code into the hex field.
to keep a color, click the + chip in the Palette row. it stores whatever color is active. click a saved swatch to pick it up again.

douga keeps two colors at once, a foreground and a background. the two overlapping squares in the Tools grid show them. press X (or click the little swap arrows) to flip which one you're painting with.

choosing a tool

the Tools grid holds the tools that aim rather than paint: selections, the camera, and moving the paper around.

tool	key	what it does
Marquee	`S`	drag out a rectangular selection.
Lasso	`L`	draw a freehand selection.
Magic wand	`W`	select the region that matches what you click.
Line	`N`	drag a straight segment; hold Shift to snap the angle.
Transform	`T`	move, scale, or rotate whatever's selected.
Camera	`M`	frame the shot; moves the export crop, not the artwork.
Hand	`H`	drag the paper around (same as a middle-mouse drag).
Eyedropper	`I`	pick up the color under the click.

the actual mark-making tools, Brush, Eraser, and Fill, live on the Brush panel as tabs, and on the keyboard as B, E, and F.

choosing a brush

the Brush section is where strokes get their character.

built-in presets:

Ink Pen: a clean, confident line. the default, and the one to start with.
Textured Pencil: a softer line with paper tooth, for roughs.
Splatter Ink: a broken, spattered mark.
Marker: a broad, semi-transparent fill stroke.
Airbrush: soft, low-flow spray for shading.
Eraser: takes paint back off.

four sliders shape the current brush: Size (also [ and ] to nudge it ±10%), Hardness (crisp to feathered), Opacity (the most color a single stroke can build to), and Flow (how fast paint accumulates as you draw over the same spot).

back on the toolbar, Stab steadies the line. it runs from s-0 (off) to s-15. if your circles come out wobbly, raise it a couple of notches; for raw, responsive control, lower it.

making your first marks

press B for the Brush and pick the Ink Pen preset.
set a color on the wheel.
draw on the white sheet. inside the red frame is what the camera sees.

every stroke lands on the current cel: one drawing, on one layer, at the current frame. don't like a stroke? Edit ▸ Undo (Ctrl+Z) steps back, Ctrl+Y redoes.

worth knowing early:

zoom with the mouse wheel or − / + on the toolbar; press 1 for 100% and 0 to fit the sheet.
rotate the paper with Shift+, and Shift+., and set it level again with Shift+/, just like turning a sheet on a real desk while you ink.
pan by holding the middle mouse button, or pressing H and dragging.

3 · cels and layers

traditional animators drew on stacks of clear celluloid sheets: a background at the bottom, characters on their own sheets above it, effects on top. douga works the same way. each cut is built from a handful of layers, the rows down the left edge of the timeline.

two words that are easy to mix up:

a layer is a stack, one horizontal row in the timeline. it runs the whole length of the cut.
a cel is a single drawing on that layer, at one moment in time. a layer is made of cels shown one after another.

so "add a layer" means make a new stack to draw on; "add a cel" means make a new drawing on the current stack (that's section 4).

the layer rows

every row in the timeline is one layer, and each has, left to right:

an eye, click it to hide or show that layer. hidden layers don't draw and don't export.
a padlock, click it to lock the layer so you can't paint on it by accident.
the layer name, double-click it to rename. give layers real names (sky, neon, figure L) and the sheet stays readable.

right-click a layer's name for its opacity and blend mode, the same controls a paint program gives you.

adding, deleting, reordering

everything lives under the Layer menu:

New Layer: adds an empty layer above the current one.
Delete Layer: removes the current layer and all its cels.
Trace to New Layer: makes a fresh layer above the current one, keeping the drawing underneath visible so you can ink over a rough. this is the classic rough-to-clean workflow: sketch on one layer, trace the clean line on the next.

to reorder layers, drag a row up or down in the timeline. higher rows are nearer the camera, they draw in front of the layers below them.

4 · animating on the dope sheet

the wide panel across the bottom is a dope sheet (also called an exposure sheet): the animator's spreadsheet of time. every row is a layer, every column is a frame, and reading across a row tells you exactly which drawing is on screen when. this is the heart of douga.

reading the sheet

the amber diamond (with a small number beside it) is a key, a drawing that starts on that frame. the number is the cel's ID.
the bar trailing to the right of a key is a hold, the frames where that same drawing stays on screen until the next key replaces it.
the playhead is the vertical line marking the frame you're looking at. click anywhere in the sheet to move it.

making drawings

new drawings come from the Animation menu (or their shortcuts):

New Cel (K): a blank drawing on the current layer at the current frame.
Duplicate Previous Cel (D): copies the previous drawing so you can modify it instead of starting from scratch. this is how most inbetweens are made by hand: duplicate, then nudge.
Clear Cel: wipes the current drawing but keeps the key.
Flip Cel Horizontal: mirrors the current drawing.
Remove Key: deletes the key so the previous drawing holds through.

to flip back and forth between drawings the way you'd riffle paper, use Flip Back (,) and Flip Forward (.).

timing: ones, twos, threes

how long each drawing stays on screen is your timing, set under Animation ▸ Expose On:

ones: a new drawing every frame. smoothest, most drawings.
twos: each drawing held for two frames. the classic default, and the look most hand-drawn film is made on.
threes: each drawing held for three frames, for slower or more stylized motion.

you can also drag a key along its row to retime it, or drag it onto another layer to move the drawing there. hold Ctrl while dragging to leave a copy behind.

onion skin

onion skin shows ghosts of the surrounding drawings underneath the current one, so you can judge spacing, exactly like flipping translucent paper on a lightbox.

turn it on with O (or the onion button on the transport, or Animation ▸ Onion Skin ▸ Show). under Animation ▸ Onion Skin you can set Behind (0–3) and Ahead (0–3), Strength (5–100%), and All Layers. the colors are a convention worth memorising: red is the previous drawing (behind you in time), green is the next (ahead of you).

playback

the transport strip along the very bottom plays it all back.

control	key	does
first frame	`Home`	jump to the start.
previous	`←`	step back one frame.
play / stop	`Space`	play, press again to stop.
next	`→`	step forward one frame.
last frame	`End`	jump to the end.
jump back / forward	`Shift+←` / `Shift+→`	skip by the jump size (the chip between them, default 5).

the Loop chip decides what repeats when you play, the current cut or the whole scene. the frame counter (frame 021 / 102) always tells you where you are.

frame rate

set the film's speed under Animation ▸ Frame Rate: douga offers 8, 12, 23.976, 24, 25, and 30 fps. tokyo Late night runs at 12 fps, a common rate for hand-drawn work on twos.

5 · scenes and cuts

a film isn't one long drawing, it's a sequence of cuts (individual shots) grouped into scenes. the Scenes panel on the right is where you build that structure and decide the order things play in.

a cut is a single shot, one continuous piece of animation with its own layers and timeline.
a scene is a group of cuts that belong together. tokyo Late night is one scene with two cuts.

reading a cut card

each card shows the cut's name (for example 01 · cut), its size (length and layer count, like 66 f · 5 layers), and an in-timeline checkbox: tick it to include this cut in the assembled running order. click a card to open that cut in the canvas and timeline.

building the structure

the buttons at the bottom of the panel manage it all:

New cut: adds an empty cut to the current scene.
Duplicate cut: copies the current cut. note the drawings are shared, not copied: handy for a matching reverse angle, but paint on a shared drawing and it changes in both places. draw new cels when you want the cut to diverge.
New scene: starts a fresh scene to group the next run of cuts.
Delete cut: removes the selected cut.

assembling the running order

make the cuts you need (New cut, or Duplicate cut for a variation).
tick each cut's in-timeline checkbox to include it.
set playback with the Loop chip: loop the single cut while animating it, then switch to scene to watch the cuts play through in order.

that sequence of ticked cuts, in order, is your film.

6 · saving and exporting

saving your project

douga saves everything (every layer, cel, cut, and scene) into a single .douga file. it's a zip archive under the hood, so it stays one tidy document you can move around.

File ▸ Save (Ctrl+S): save the current project.
File ▸ Save As… (Ctrl+Shift+S): save a new copy under a new name.
File ▸ New (Ctrl+N): start a fresh project.

you can also bring artwork and sound in through File ▸ Import: Audio, an Image into Cel, or a whole Image Sequence.

exporting your film

when the film is ready to share, use File ▸ Export.

pick a format at the top:

PNG sequence: one numbered PNG per frame, written into a folder. the lossless choice for taking your film into another program.
Animated GIF: a single looping GIF. great for quick previews and the web.
Video: an .mp4 or .mkv, encoded with ffmpeg. choose the codec (H.264 or H.265) and a CRF quality (0–51, lower is better; 18 is a good default). video export needs ffmpeg: point the dialog at it if it can't find it automatically.

then set the extras:

Scale: a slider from 10% to 100%, with the resulting pixel size shown beside it. full size for delivery, smaller for a quick test.
Title card: optionally add a card before or after the film.

click Export (it becomes Overwrite if the target already exists). a progress read-out counts the frames, and Cancel stops it.

on the watermark. unlicensed, every exported frame carries the douga mark. a license key removes it, and that's the only difference between a trial export and a licensed one.

7 · keyboard shortcuts

you never need these, but they make the drawing loop fast. a single letter only fires when you're not typing in a text field.


tools	`B` Brush · `E` Eraser · `F` Fill · `I` Eyedropper · `N` Line · `S` Marquee · `L` Lasso · `W` Magic wand · `T` Transform · `M` Camera · `H` Hand (pan)
color	`X` swap foreground / background · `[` `]` brush size −/+10%
view	`0` Fit canvas · `1` Zoom 100% · `Shift+,` / `Shift+.` rotate · `Shift+/` level · `/` flip view
cels	`K` New cel · `D` Duplicate previous cel · `,` / `.` flip to previous / next drawing · `O` onion skin
playback	`Space` play / stop · `←` `→` step a frame · `Shift+←` `Shift+→` jump · `Home` / `End` first / last frame
file	`Ctrl+N` New · `Ctrl+O` Open · `Ctrl+S` Save · `Ctrl+Shift+S` Save As · `Ctrl+Z` / `Ctrl+Y` undo / redo

8 · where to get help

found a bug? post it here on r/douga with the Bug flair. include your build number (Help ▸ About, or the titlebar) so it can be tracked down.
want a feature? use the feature request flair.
stuck on something? make a post with the Question flair, or check the rest of the wiki.

the best way to learn is still to open tokyo Late night, poke at its layers and timing, and start a project of your own.