Toon Boom Harmony 12.2 Release Notes

Version 12.2

 

Here are the new features, changes, improvements, and bug fixes in Toon Boom Harmony 12.2:

Features
Changes and Improvements
What's Fixed?

Features

Feature Description

Xsheet View

The Xsheet view was added to Harmony Essentials.

Web Control Center

Exchange Manager

New option to delete exported files after you download them.
New Refresh List button lets you update the list of scenes.
Exported packages now have informational tooltips that display the dates and full names of the exported packages.

Advanced Options When Exporting Offline

You can choose to export external drawings, environment or job palettes and libraries.

Checking In and Checking Out Scenes

New Checkin and Checkout commands let you lock or unlock scenes when you download them or upload them when your work is complete. Locked or checked out scenes can only be accessed in read-only mode on the database—see Checking Scenes In and Out.

Partial Scene Updates between the Database Scene and Its Offline Version

Web Control Center allows you to update a database scene with only the changes you made to the same scene on your local computer, and vice versa. If there were changes to the database scene, you can download them to its offline version on your local computer. Web Control Center works in tandem with Harmony to make the upload, download and updating of scenes seamless and quick.

When uploading or downloading a scene, Harmony prepares the export package with only the changes in the scene, zips it, sends it over the Internet, unzips it and finally imports it. This is done directly in Harmony Premium or Harmony Advanced; there is no need to do this in the Web Control Center—see Partial Scene Updates.

Assigning Users to Scenes

You can assign a user to a specific scene for easier production management—see Assigning Users to a Scene.

Customizing Scene Statuses with Different Colours

Create scene statuses with different colours to help differentiate them. You can add new scene statuses and customize their name and colour, as well as manually edit the list—see Customizing the Scene Status Colour.

Advanced Scene Search Options

Search scenes by user or state, or both at the same time—see Searching Scenes.

Changes and Improvements

Changes and Improvements Description

Unity Pipeline

Exporting to Sprite Sheets

Before you can access the new functionalities when exporting to a sprite sheet, you must replace the TB_CompositionBuilder.js and TB_ExportToSpriteSheets.js scripts with the most current ones found here:

Windows: C:\Program Files (x86)\Toon Boom Animation\Toon Boom Harmony [version] [edition] \resources\samples\scripts

Mac: /Applications/Toon Boom Harmony [version] [edition]/tba/resources/samples/scripts

Linux: /usr/local/ToonBoomAnimation/harmony[edition]/resources/samples/scripts

For more information, see

New Options in Unity

Ability to move pieces of the character (props of the character), as well as interactively reorder props in the hierarchy.
Unity interface now displays the exported Metadata assets in the Hierarchy tab.
Ability to toggle visibility of any layer in Unity from the Inspector tab.
Animation scripting interface now allows you to play animation in reverse.

Game Toolbar

The new Game toolbar allows you to create anchors and props, as well as export to sprite sheets and Easel JS—see How display the Game toolbar.

Metadata Editor

The new Metadata Editor view lets you access anchor and props options and manage them—see Metadata Editor View.

New Export to Sprite Sheets Options

Three new options were added to the Export to Sprite Sheet window:

Overwrite Project: Overwrites a previously exported project, including sprite sheet information and all Unity data. This does not affect the Harmony file in any way.
Clear Texture Folder: Remove any information from the texture folder within the Harmony file. This does not affect the Unity export but contributes to a lighter Harmony file.
Unit Scale: You can change the Unit Scale when exporting to Unity to accommodate the size of the export without it affecting the Harmony scene. This helps you resize assets properly for Unity without having to resize them in Harmony. The basic scale is one Animation Field for one Unity unit.

For more information, see Export to Sprite Sheets.

Database

Unicode Support for Environment, Job, Scene and Element Names

Names of Environments, Jobs and Scenes can contain up to 120 ASCII characters. This means you can use characters for languages, such as Japanese, Chinese, French, Spanish, and others, characters for names in your database setup.

To enable this feature, select the Allow Unicode Names option in the Preferences dialog box, Advanced tab. This new option is also available from the Admin menu in the Control Center. For more information:

Windows: Unicode Guidelines

Mac: Unicode Guidelines

Linux: Unicode Guidelines

Flexible Scene Data Placement

The /USADATA and /USA_DB directories no longer need to be placed at the root of your file system. This is useful when using third-party asset management and tracking systems.

If you choose to place the directories at a location other than the root, you can create a file that points to the new location of the file system. For more information:

Windows: Flexible Scene Data Placement

Mac: Flexible Scene Data Placement

Linux: Flexible Scene Data Placement

Change of Dictionaries

If you have an existing database, you must replace all the /USA_DB/dicts/ with the new ones from <application installation path>/etc/USADB_templates/dicts/ .

Miscellaneous

Stage Application Renamed

The Stage application is now called Harmony Premium, Harmony Advanced and Harmony Essentials.

3D Path Keyframes

3D Path keyframes can now be gesturally dragged horizontally (in time) in the function views.

Scrubbing Added to Function Editor View

You can now scrub in the Function Editor view.

Preferences Dialog Box

General Tab

The Minimum FOV and Maximum FOV options were removed.
New option for Web Control Center host name and host port in Harmony Advanced and Harmony Premium Stand Alone.

Drawing Tab

New options for defining the default canvas for bitmap layers (resolution, canvas width, canvas height). You can set the default value for the canvas used by bitmap layers in new scenes. This prevents users from creating unusually large bitmap canvases. You can set the resolution and the maximum canvas width and height.

Advanced Tab

New option called Allow Unicode Names lets you use up to 120 ASCII characters for names of environments, jobs and scenes. You can use characters for languages, such as Japanese, Chinese, French, Spanish, and others, characters for names in your database setup.

File Menu

There are two new options in the File menu of Harmony Premium and Harmony Advanced Stand Alone for working with scenes on a database:

New option called Update Database Scene lets you update your database with only the changes you made to the offline scene. To do this, you must enter your host name and host port in the Preferences dialog box, General tab.
New option called Download Database Changes. If any changes were made to the scene you downloaded, you can perform an update by downloading these changes, which will be seamlessly integrated into your offline scene.

For more information, see Partial Scene Updates.

Import 3D Models Dialog Box

New option to convert a 3D model file into an OSB which supports internal texture files.

What's Fixed?

Item Fixed Description

Crashes

Fixed Harmony crash when calling recursively the evaluation of an expression column.

Fixed crash when using very small values in the Blur Radial Zoom effect.

Fixed crash when doing a Reset All on Composite nodes.

Unity 4

Fixed compatibility issues with Unity 4.

Import

Fixed an issue where you could not reimport a scene in a new job if you deleted a job with the exact same name before.

Fixed the Create Symbol for Imported Items option in the Import Images dialog box as it would not import anything.

Drawing

Fixed the Unpaint tool as it could not unpaint a vector drawing made with vector texture preset. When unpainting, the colour would change to a default red.

Fixed an issue where a drawing with deformation nodes affecting it did not display in the OpenGL view but appeared in the final render. This can happen when you flip the image.

Fixed an issue where a Toon Boom bitmap drawing deformed by a deformation node does not update in the OpenGL view after a change done with the Select tool.

Removed deprecated drawing versioning option from the Edit Paste Presets dialog box.

The Apply to Visible Drawings option can now be activated and paints only layers that are the same type (vector or bitmap).

Effects

Fixed sharp aliasing when using the Turbulence effect. The resulting images are now smoother.

Fixed the Normal Map effect to display all the Volume Objects available. In some situations, you could not see some of them in the list.

Paste Special

Fixed the Always Create Drawing Files option in the Paste Special dialog box.

Fixed the Remove Unused Files option to remove the texture files associated with the deleted palettes.

Sound

Fixed an issue where sound was not present in the QuickTime movie. This happened when the sound volume was modified in the Sound Editor.

Miscellaneous

Fixed an issue where textures did not appear in Collada files coming from SketchUp.