Chapter 14: How to Animate a Cut-out Character
Harmony provides you with some great tools to animate your puppets. You can create simple animation using the Transform tool and you can create advanced animation using both forward and inverse kinematics. Harmony has advanced onion skinning and image swapping features to help you animate efficiently and quickly. For animation freedom, you have the ability to mix several different techniques of animation, such as simple rigging, hierarchy and symbol animation.
How to create a simple cut-out animation
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In the Tools toolbar, select the Transform tool or press Shift + T. |
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In the Tools toolbar, enable the Animate mode so everything you move will be keyframed automatically. |
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From the top menu, select Animation > Stop-Motion Keyframe so the interpolation is not created automatically between keyframes. |
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In the Timeline view, collapse your character. |
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In the Timeline view, go to the frame where you want to set the first pose. |
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In the Camera view, select the parts to animate. |
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Use the Transform tool to rotate, skew, scale or translate the selection to its new position. To rotate the piece, place your cursor slightly outside of a corner until you see the rotation cursor. |
A new keyframe appears in the Timeline view.
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To ensure that nothing moves on the new pose, in the Timeline view, select the frame corresponding to the pose, right-click and select Add Keyframe or press F6. |
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In the Tools toolbar, enable the Onion Skin feature. |
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In the Timeline view, go to the frame where you want to set the second keyframe. |
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In the Camera view, animate your character. |
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Repeat this process for all the poses. |
If you created a layer hierarchy when you built your puppet, you can use the keyboard shortcuts to travel up and down the parent-child chain. You can also navigate between the children of the same parent.
How to set ease on multiple parameters
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In the Timeline view, select a keyframe from one or more layers. |
Only the first keyframe selected on a given layer will be considered when using the Set Ease for Multiple Parameter function. If many keyframes are selected on the same layer, the ease values will be applied only to the first one and the rest will be ignored.
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In the Timeline view, right-click and select Set Ease For Multiple Parameters. In the Timeline View toolbar, you can click the Set Ease For Multiple Parameters button. If the button is not in the Timeline View menu, you can add it through the Toolbar Manager. Right-click on the toolbar and select Customize. |
The Set Ease For Multiple Parameters dialog box opens.
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In the graph interface, pull on the Bézier handle to adjust the velocity for all the selected functions. |
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If you want to apply these easing parameters to a certain type of function only, such as Rotation or Scale, in the Filters section, deselect the function types you do not want to affect. |
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Motion: Applies the easing parameters to the selected Position X, Position Y, Position Z and 3D Path functions |
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Rotation: Applies the easing parameters to the selected Angle functions. |
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Scale: Applies the easing parameters to the selected Scale functions. |
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Skew: Applies the easing parameters to the selected Skew functions. |
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Morphing: Applies the easing parameters to the selected Morphing Velocity functions. Note that it applied to the Morphing velocity function in the Layer Properties dialog, not to the basic Morphing ease in the Tool Properties view. |
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Other: Applies the easing parameters to all the other selected functions, such as all functions created to animate effect parameters. |
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You can also adjust the easing by typing values in the Time Ratio and Value Ratio fields. The values are calculated in percentage. |
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In the Left Time Ratio and Right Time Ratio fields, type the percentage value corresponding to the length of time you want the easing to last. The value must be between 0% and 100%. |
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In the Left Value Ratio and Right Value Ratio fields, type the percentage value of how strong you want the easing out. The value must be between 0% and 100%. |
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If your Time Ratio and Value Ratio values are equal, you will have a linear motion. |
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Once done, click one of the following buttons: |
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Apply: Applies the easing parameters to the selected keyframes. |
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Apply/Previous: Applies the easing parameters to the selected keyframes and then selects the previous keyframe in the timeline. |
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Apply/Next: Applies the easing parameters to the selected keyframes and then selects the next keyframe in the timeline. |
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Close: Closes the dialog box. If you did not apply the modifications, they will be cancelled. |