Drawing with Bitmap Brushes
With Harmony, you have the choice to draw with vector or bitmap brushes. When adding a new drawing layer in , you can set your art layers (Line, Art, Colour Art) to vector or bitmap. This way, you can draw in bitmap and paint in vector, draw everything in bitmap, or whatever other combination suits you.
Not all drawing tools are available when working on a bitmap layer. You can use the following tools:
• | Brush |
• | Cutter |
• | Dropper |
• | Ellipse |
• | Eraser |
• | Line |
• | Paint |
• | Paint Unpainted |
• | Pivot |
• | Rectangle |
• | Repaint |
• | Reposition All Drawings |
• | Select |
• | Text |
• | Unpaint |
In Harmony, when adding a new drawing layer to the Timeline view, you can select the art mode for each art layer. You can set the Line Art layer to vector while setting the Colour Art as bitmap. You also have the opportunity to adjust them later by converting them from one to the other. If you are using the Overlay and Underlay layers, you can also set them to either bitmap or vector.
If you selected the incorrect art mode for your layers, you can open the Layer Properties view and modify them there directly. If you switch the art mode for a layer that already has strokes on it, the artwork will NOT be converted. You will be able to add new strokes. A drawing with bitmap strokes will be converted to a vector layer but the bitmap artwork will remain as bitmap. You will be able to use vector drawing tools to continue drawing on it. A drawing with vector lines switched to a bitmap layer will allow you to draw new bitmap strokes and move the vector strokes with the Select tool, but you will not be able to edit the vector art further. You need to convert the drawings in order to pass the artwork from one mode to the other.
To always reuse the same art mode settings, you can adjust them in the Preferences dialog box.
Before you start drawing in bitmap, it is important to understand that your artwork will now be resolution dependent. If you zoom in your scene, you artwork will be enlarged. It is important to plan ahead and decide how high of a resolution you need your artwork to be. If you plan to zoom in your scene, the smallest section of the image that the camera will frame must be 100% the size of your scene resolution. For example, if your scene resolution is set to 1920 x 1080 and you zoom in at 300%, then the resolution of the bitmap also has to be set to 300%. It is important to change the bitmap layer resolution before you start drawing.
The bitmap resolution can be set at the scene level or drawing level. The setting at the scene level affects newly created bitmap art layers.
Note that even if your drawing resolution is set to be very large, it doesn't mean that your file will be very heavy. It depends on the amount of artwork your draw in it.
There is a function to change the resolution of bitmap art for individual drawings. You can reduce the resolution of your bitmap file as well as increase it. Be careful because enlarging the bitmap resolution on an existing drawing will result in a loss of quality.Harmony will perform a pixel smoothing pass (resampling) and create additional pixels to avoid losing too much quality, but only to a certain extent. For example, you used the default scene’s resolution for bitmap art but then discover you are zooming quite close into the lines. If you do not want to see the pixels appear too much when you are zoomed in, you can set the bitmap resolution to 200% and the bitmap art will have a higher resolution with smaller pixels, but will NOT retain 100% of its quality. You can use this function on multiple drawings using the Apply to All Drawings option. Changing this option will affect existing and selected bitmap art layers.
If you drew an outline drawing on a bitmap layer, you can vectorize your artwork. Using a vector drawing layer, you can simply select your bitmap drawing and the vector cell on which you want your new vector layer to be, and use the Vectorize Line Art in Selected Drawing function.
You should avoid scaling up your bitmap strokes using the Select tool. If you do, keep in mind that when you continue drawing, your image will be resampled and your new strokes will be at the original resolution and not the scaled up size.
1. | In the Timeline view, click the Add Drawing Layer button, |
The Add Drawing Layer dialog box opens.
If you are using the Overlay and Underlay layers, those art layers are also displayed.
2. | For |
3. | Click OK. |
1. | Open the Layer Properties view. |
2. | In the Timeline view, select the layer you want to edit. |
3. | In the Layer Properties view, select the Drawing tab. |
4. | In the Art Layers section, select the art mode for each art layer. |
1. | In the Timeline view, select the layer that contains the drawings you want to convert. |
2. | From the Timeline view menu, select Layers > Convert Drawings to Match Art Layer Type. |
You can also right-click on the selected layer and select Convert Drawings to Match Art Layer Type.
All drawings in the layer are converted to the selected art mode. Note that bitmap strokes are not vectorized when converted to a vector art layer. They are simply inserted in a square vector frame containing a bitmap texture.
1. | From the top menu, select Scene > Scene Settings. |
The Scene Settings dialog box opens.
2. | Select the Bitmap Resolution tab. |
3. | Change the bitmap resolution settings and click OK. |
The bitmap resolution settings at the scene level affects newly created bitmap art layers.
1. | In the Timeline view, select the drawing whose resolution you want to change. |
2. | From the top menu, select Drawing > Change Bitmap Drawing Resolution. |
The Change Bitmap Drawing Resolution window opens.
Resample Bitmap |
When this option is selected, the existing bitmap image is modified to match the new resolution. If the width and height are increased, more pixels will be created to enlarge the image. Visually, the existing artwork will look the same, maybe a little bit smoothed out, but the size will look the same. When this option is deselected, the artwork is not modified. Only the reference grid is resized. If the scene resolution is 1920 x 1080 and you reduce the bitmap resolution to 960 x 540, the image will be scaled up to twice the size of the scene. |
Apply to All Drawings | The modified settings are applied to all drawings in the drawing layer for a given art layer. If the Apply to Line Art and Colour Art option is enabled, it will then be applied to all bitmap art layers. |
3. | Change the bitmap resolution. |
4. | Click OK. |
1. | In the Timeline view, add a bitmap drawing layer—see How to add a bitmap layer. |
2. | In the Tools toolbar, select the Brush tool or press Alt + B. |
3. | In the Colour view, select a colour. |
‣ | To switch the bitmap colour picker from HSV to RGB, in the Colour view menu, select Colour > Bitmap Colour Sliders > HSV Sliders or RGB Sliders. You can also right-click on the colour sliders and select RGB Sliders or HSV Sliders. |
When using bitmap colours, there is no longer a link between the painted zones and selected colour. You can modify the colour picker as much as you want. Your drawing will not be affected. You can still select colours from your vector colour palette to use the same tint, but you will not create links between your drawing and the swatches.
4. | In the |
1. | In the Timeline view, add a vector drawing layer BELOW the bitmap drawing layer containing the drawing to vectorize. In your bitmap drawing, the artwork to vectorize must be placed on the Line Art layer (default drawing layer). |
If you place the vector drawing on top of the bitmap layer, you will not be able to perform the operation. A warning dialog box will display.
2. | On the right side of the Timeline view, select the bitmap drawing and corresponding cell in the vector drawing layer. |
3. | Right-click and select Drawing > Vectorize Line Art in Selected Drawing. |
The Convert to Vector Drawing dialog box opens.
4. | In the Vectorization section, select a vectorization preset. You can customize your own preset using the Add or Edit buttons—see Custom Vectorization Parameters . |
5. | Click OK. |
Your vectorized drawing is created in the vector drawing layer. Your bitmap drawing remains intact.