Templates

When you want to reuse artwork and animation from your project in other scenes, you must create a template from it. A template can be seen as a portable scene or package that you can drag inside your project. You can open a template and edit it just like any other project. If you want modify your templates, you can edit them using the Edit Template command.

You can create a template from both the Timeline and Node views:

Master Template
Creating a Template from the Node View
Action Templates
Creating a Template from the Timeline View

To delete templates from your library, use the Library view. Harmony lets you undo the action if necessary.

Master Template

You can create a master template out of a cut-out puppet you created so you can reuse it throughout a single project or a full production. A cut-out character's master template stores the entire rig, structure, drawings, and keyframes of the different poses of your puppet into a single asset.

Master templates are created from the Node view.

Creating a Template from the Node View

The Timeline and Node views display different information about a scene.

A main character's template, also known as a master template, is created from the Node view. This template contains all the connections, effects, composites, nodes, pegs, advanced groupings, function columns, scene lengths, drawings, timings, and so on. The template is saved in the Library view and must be imported back into the scene for use, either into the Node view or the left side of the Timeline view.

NOTE: If you are creating a template from a character rig master template, you should collapse everything inside a master peg and put a keyframe on the first frame before creating the template.

Action Templates

An action template, also known as animation template, is created from the Timeline view. This template allow you to reuse animations, key poses and part of an animation and contains mainly keyframes and drawing exposures. For example, you can reuse head positions or a leg animation from a walk-cycle and place them inside other animations. When it is extracted from the Timeline view, it loses the extra connections, effects, and groupings from the Node view.

An action template is used with a master template. It cannot be used on its own since it does not contain all the information required to rebuild the puppet skeleton and advanced connections. The standard process is to first import the master template to the Node view or Timeline’s left side, and then slide the action template into the Timeline’s right side. This allows you to first build the skeleton and then give it the right pose.

The combination of master and action templates will function as long as the layer order and connections are the same.

When you create an action template, be sure to name it so you can easily identify it as an animation.

Creating a Template from the Timeline View