Cartoon Studio – an open-source desktop app for making 2D cartoon shows
Hi HN — I built Cartoon Studio, an open-source desktop app for making simple 2D cartoon scenes and shows. The basic flow is: place SVG characters on a scene, write dialogue, pick voices, and render to MP4. It handles word timestamps, mouth cues, and lip-sync automatically. This started as me playing around with Jellypod's Speech SDK and HeyGen's HyperFrames. I wanted a small tool that could go from script to video without a big animation pipeline and next thing I knew I was trying to create my own South Park style show and here we are. :D A few details: - desktop app built with Electron -…
In plain words
Cartoon Studio is an open-source desktop application for creating 2D cartoon videos without requiring extensive animation expertise. Users place SVG characters on scenes, write dialogue, select text-to-speech voices, and render to MP4, with the software automatically handling lip-sync and mouth cues. Built with Electron and supporting multiple TTS providers, it streamlines the workflow from script to finished video by eliminating the need for complex animation pipelines.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hi HN — I built Cartoon Studio, an open-source desktop app for making simple 2D cartoon scenes and shows. The basic flow is: place SVG characters on a scene, write dialogue, pick voices, and render to MP4. It handles word timestamps, mouth cues, and lip-sync automatically. This started as me playing around with Jellypod's Speech SDK and HeyGen's HyperFrames. I wanted a small tool that could go from script to video without a big animation pipeline and next thing I knew I was trying to create my own South Park style show and here we are. :D A few details: - desktop app built with Electron - supports multiple TTS providers through Jellypod's Speech SDK - renders via HyperFrames - lets you upload or generate characters and backdrop scenes - includes default characters/scenes so you can try it quickly - open source It runs from source today. AI features use bring-your-own API keys, but the app itself is fully inspectable and local-first in the sense that there’s no hosted backend or telemetry. Here are some fun examples of the the types of videos you can create: https://x.com/deepwhitman/status/2046425875789631701 https://x.com/deepwhitman/status/2047040471579697512 And the repo: https://github.com/Jellypod-Inc/cartoon-studio Happy to answer questions and appreciate any feedback!
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