More Drawing Tools
Harmony offers a wide variety of useful tools to optimize your drawings and work more efficiently; tools such as Group, Arrange, and the animation disk to rotate your workspace.
Arrange
The different Arrange options let you reorder drawing objects inside a single layer in the Drawing or Camera view.
Name
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Button
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Description
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Access Method
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Bring to Front |
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Moves the selected art to the front (on top) |
From the top menu, select Drawing > Arrange > Bring to Front.
Press Ctrl + Shift + PgUp (Windows/Linux) or ⌘ + Shift + PgUp (Mac OS X).
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Bring Forward |
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Moves the selected art one level forward (closer to the front) |
From the top menu, select Drawing > Arrange > Bring Forward.
Press Ctrl + PgUp (Windows/Linux) or ⌘ + PgUp (Mac OS X).
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Send Backward |
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Moves the selected art one level lower (behind) |
From the top menu, select Drawing > Arrange > Send Backward.
Press Ctrl + PgDown (Windows/Linux) or ⌘ + PgDown (Mac OS X).
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Send to Back |
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Moves the selected art behind everything (bottom / back)
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From the top menu, select Drawing > Arrange > Send to Back.
Press Ctrl + Shift + PgDown (Windows/Linux) or ⌘ + Shift + PgDown (Mac OS X).
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Convert Brush Strokes to Pencil Lines
The Brushes Strokes to Pencil Lines operation converts selected contour strokes into centreline pencil strokes. This command is only available from the top menu.
How to convert brush strokes to pencil lines
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From the top menu, select Drawing > Convert > Brush Strokes to Pencil Lines or press ^. |
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Right-click on the selection, select Convert > Brush Strokes to Pencil Lines or press ^
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Pencil Lines to Brush Strokes
The Pencil Lines to Brush Strokes operation converts the selected centreline pencil strokes into contour strokes brush lines.
How to convert pencil lines to brush strokes
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From the top menu, select Drawing > Convert > Pencil Lines to Brush Strokes or press &. |
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Right-click on the selection, select Convert > Pencil Lines to Brush Strokes or press & |
Strokes to Pencil Lines
The Strokes to Pencil Lines operation converts the selected invisible line to a pencil line.
How to convert strokes to pencil lines
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From the top menu, select Drawing > Convert > Strokes to Pencil Lines or press Shift + F12 (Windows/Linux only). |
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Right-click on the selection, select Convert > Strokes to Pencil Lines or press Shift + F12 (Windows/Linux only) |
Optimize
The Optimize command reduces the number of layers, such as overlapping brush strokes, in the selected drawing objects. Drawing objects will only be flattened and optimized if the selected objects do not change the appearance of the final image when they are merged.
For example, if you have selected a number of partially transparent objects, which you layered to create an additive colour effect, the selected transparent drawing objects will not be merged. This is because merging the transparent drawing objects will cause them to lose the effect of the layered transparent colours.
How to optimize
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Use the Select tool to select the drawing objects you want to optimize. |
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From the top menu, select Drawing > Optimize > Optimize. |
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From the Camera or Drawing view menu, select Drawing > Optimize > Optimize. |
Remove Extra Strokes
The Remove Extra Strokes option let you remove the invisible lines in your selection.
How to remove extra strokes
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1.
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In the Tools toolbar, select the Select tool. |
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2.
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In the Camera or Drawing view, use the Select tool to select the drawing objects you want to remove invisible lines from. |
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3.
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From the top menu, select Drawing > Optimize > Remove Extra Strokes. |
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From the Camera or Drawing view menu, select Drawing > Optimize > Remove Extra Strokes. |
Reduce Drawing Texture Resolution
If you import and vectorize as texture (colour) a high resolution image, the size of your drawing can be heavy. This option is used to reduce the size and resolution of the textures in your drawing. When you import and vectorize drawings using the grey or colour preset styles, you don't have control on the size of the bitmap texture. This tool allows you to reduce that bitmap texture.
How to reduce the drawing texture resolution
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1.
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In the Tools toolbar, select the Select tool. |
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2.
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In the Camera or Drawing view, use the Select tool to select the drawing objects you want to reduce the texture resolution for. |
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3.
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From the top menu, select Drawing > Optimize > Reduce Drawing Texture Resolution. |
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From the Camera or Drawing view menu, select Drawing > Optimize > Reduce Drawing Texture Resolution. |
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4.
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In the dialog box, drag the slider toward the left to reduce the texture resolution. |
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5.
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Enable the Apply to All Drawings option if you want the modification to be applied to all the drawings in your layer. |
Crop Brush Textures
The Crop Brush Textures option is used to crop an unnecessarily large texture bitmap that lies unseen beneath the vector contour of a textured line. This often occurs when you cut and paste textured lines from one drawing into another. If you cut a portion from a textured line and paste it into a different drawing, Harmony pastes the entire unseen texture bitmap from the source drawing into the new one, even if you only took a small portion of the source drawing. Using the Crop Brush Texture command will crop away extraneous texture that does not touch the vector area. If there are many textured lines in your scene, this will greatly reduce the file size.
In the example shown above, a textured line is cut from a drawing and pasted into a new drawing. At first, it appears as if only a cropped section of the underlying texture bitmap was cut and pasted as well. However, using the Contour Editor tool to expand the vector envelope of the textured line, it is revealed that more texture bitmap exists beyond the cropped boundary. If you use the Crop Brush Texture command, the bitmap texture is cropped to the boundaries of the textured line’s vector contour (as seen in the fourth image where the vector envelope has been pulled out to reveal empty space).
How to crop the brush texture
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1.
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In the Timeline or Xsheet view, select the drawing whose texture you want to crop. |
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2.
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From the top menu, select Drawing > Optimize > Crop Brush Textures. |
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3.
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From the Camera or Drawing view menu, select Drawing > Optimize > Crop Brush Textures. |
Create Contour Stroke
The Create Contour Stroke option is used to add a permanent invisible line around a shape that was drawn directly in Harmony. This allows you to unpaint your lines with the Paint tool but maintain the shape of the lines, should you need to repaint later.
This command is useful when inking and painting and using the Apply to All Drawings in Layer option.
How to create contour strokes
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1.
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In the Tools toolbar, select the Select tool. |
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2.
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In the Camera or Drawing view, use the Select tool to select the drawing objects you want to create contour strokes for. |
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3.
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From the top menu, select Drawing > Optimize > Create Contour Strokes. |
Remove Contour Stroke
The Remove Contour Stroke option is used to remove any permanently invisible lines that were created while scanning and vectorizing drawings or manually adding contour strokes. This is useful if you want to remove the intersection triangles created during vectorization.
How to remove contour strokes
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1.
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In the Tools toolbar, select the Select tool. |
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2.
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In the Camera or Drawing view, use the Select tool to select the drawing objects you want to remove contour strokes for. |
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3.
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From the top menu, select Drawing > Optimize > Remove Contour Strokes. |
Grid
Use the Show Grid option to display a grid in the Drawing or Camera view.
Name
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Button
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Description
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Keyboard Shortcut
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Show Grid
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Displays the grid |
From the top menu, select View > Grid > Show Grid
Press Ctrl + ' (Windows/Linux) or ⌘ + ' (Mac OS X).
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Square |
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Displays a standard square grid |
From the top menu, select View > Grid > Square.
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12 Field Grid |
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Displays a 12-field size grid |
From the top menu, select View > Grid > 12 Field Grid.
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16 Field Grid |
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Displays a 16-field size grid |
From the top menu, select View > Grid > 16 Field Grid.
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Underlay |
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Displays the grid under the drawing elements |
From the top menu, select View > Grid > Underlay |
Overlay |
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Displays the grid over the drawing elements |
From the top menu, select View > Grid > Overlay |
Group/Ungroup
Use the Group option to group selected drawing objects. This can help in the selection, repositioning, re-scaling and other transformations to be applied to multiple objects of a drawing.
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From the top menu, select Edit > Group > Group or Edit > Group > Ungroup. |
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From the Camera or Drawing view menu, select Edit > Group > Group or Edit > Group > Ungroup. |
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Press Ctrl + G and Ctrl + Shift + G (Windows/Linux) or ⌘ + G and ⌘ + Shift + G (Mac OS X). |
Hand
Use the Hand tool to pan through the Drawing or Camera view.
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In the Tools toolbar, select the Hand tool, click in the Drawing or Camera view and drag. |
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You can also Hold down the Spacebar, click in the Drawing or Camera view and move your mouse in the direction you want to pan the view. |
Rotate View
The Rotate View tool lets you rotate the Drawing or Camera view, the same way as you would do with a real animation disc. This tool can also be used in the Perspective view.
How to use the Rotate View tool
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1.
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Do one of the following: |
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From the top menu, select Drawing > Tools > Rotate View. |
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Press Ctrl + Alt (Windows/Linux) or ⌘ + Alt (Mac OS X). |
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In the Tools toolbar, select the Rotate View tool. |
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In the Drawing or Camera view, right-click and select Drawing Tools > Rotate View. |
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2.
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In the Drawing or Camera view, click and drag to rotate the space. |