Chapter 3: About Toon Boom Harmony
Toon Boom Harmony is the most advanced professional animation software on the market. Bringing together an impressive 2D drawing toolset with the ability to work in a real 3D space, and import 3D models,
Harmony Network combines the animation toolset of Harmony with an impressive database for collaborative workflow. Share assets, batch vectorize and render, and increase production efficiency.
Top Features
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Advanced Drawing Tools: Texture brushes, and thick and thin pencil lines |
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Smart Colour Palettes: Colour you can adjust on the fly |
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Character Rigging: Hierarchy, deform, and effects for creating sophisticated rigs |
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Special Effects: An array of effects including highlights and shadows, glows, blurs, and a full particle effects engine |
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Real 3D Camera: A camera you can reposition in a full 3D space |
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3D Integration: Allowing you to import 3D models, position and animate them in 3D space |
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Batch Vectorizing and Rendering: Quickly process images for import and export through a single workstation or a render farm |
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Database File Sharing: Share libraries, colour palettes, animation, and more across the whole team |
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Production Pipeline Integration: Seamlessly integrate content from pre-production via Toon Boom Storyboard Pro |
Toon Boom Pipeline
Toon Boom Harmony has been recognized for its excellence by winning many awards, including a Primetime Emmy® Engineering Award and the prestigious Ub Iwerks Annie Award for the integrated pipeline with Toon Boom Storyboard Pro.
Harmony works perfectly with Toon Boom Storyboard Pro for all pre-production phases. Therefore, animatics created in Toon Boom Storyboard Pro can be imported seamlessly in Harmony for animation and scene setup guidance.
Modules
Harmony Network is composed of the following modules:
These modules are all accessible from:
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Windows: Start > Programs > Toon Boom Harmony 11.1 |
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Mac OS X: Applications > Toon Boom Harmony 11.1 |
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Linux: /usr/local/ToonBoomAnimation/harmony_11.2/lnx86_64/bin |
Control Center
The Control Center module controls the database and organizes the production. The Control Center module is used to create the environments, jobs and scenes, as well as importing and exporting scene packages. The technical director or system administrator also uses the Control Center to create the login information for users to access the database.
Control Center is also available in a cloud form where users can access scenes via the Internet.
Stage
The Stage module is the core of Harmony. It comprises all the major drawing, animation and compositing features. It is used to work in the scene: design, character breakdown, cut-out animation, traditional animation, ink and paint, exposure sheet, timeline, effects, compositing, camera moves, colour styling, and so on.
You cannot create scenes in Stage Harmony Network, you require Control Center. You create them directly in Stage with Harmony Stand Alone.
Draw
The Draw module is a component of the Stage module. It contains all the tools necessary to create a paperless frame-by-frame animation project. There is no node system in this module, only the basic essential effects. Contrary to the Stage module, instead of creating effects in the Network view, you simply create them in the Timeline view. The Draw module also includes all the scene setup and camera features for you to do the compositing for your project.
Sketch
The Sketch module is a component of the Stage module. It contains the essential tools to animate frame-by-frame drawings and paint them. It allows you to add layers and animation, and paint and adjust the timing. There are no effects, camera or other compositing tools included in this module. The Sketch module allows you to focus on the paperless animation tasks at hand without being distracted by other features that are not necessary to your work.
Scan
The Scan module is used to scan drawings in batch. It creates a drawing list from the timing and exposure previously created in the exposure sheet (via Stage or Xsheet module).
It is possible to scan the drawings from a TWAIN device directly in the Stage module.
Xsheet
The Xsheet module is a component of the Stage module. It contains the tools used to create digital exposure sheets, columns and timing. It is mainly used in large traditional animation studios to maintain a structure and avoid users having to learn the full product application. This way, the Xsheet team can concentrate on their task without having to deal with the compositing and drawing tools.
Paint
Paint module is a component of the Stage module. It contains the drawing, painting and colour styling tools. It is mainly used in large traditional animation studios to maintain a structure and avoid users having to learn the full product application. This way, the colour styling or ink and paint team can concentrate on their task without having to deal with the compositing and timing tools.
Play
The Play module is used to play back the rendered image sequences enabling the user to view the final scenes and compositing results.
Cloud
Access your Database via the Cloud. When you're running a studio, you will most likely have a database set up. This enables all the artists working on your production to share the same scenes and assets.
What the Toon Boom Cloud enables you to do is to host this database on the Internet. When you do so, you can have freelancers log in from anywhere with an internet connection. Then they can download a scene from the database, work on it, and upload it again.
No more need to spend time copying files to an FTP. No need to have an admin exporting and importing files from the database. Do it all directly through the Cloud.