Using Action Templates

Reusing animation and assets is an important aspect of cut-out animation. This is why Harmony includes a library for storing all the reusable information.

When you created the character rig, you most likely created a master template along with some action templates

To save time, you can take an action that you've already animated, such as a walk-cycle or jump, and reuse it. You can store the initial animation's keyframes in the Library view, then drag it into a master template of a new scene.

You can import a master template into the Timeline view (or Node view) and start animating with it. You can import an action template into the right side of the Timeline view. An action template is composed of drawings (like a blink) or keyframes (like a walk cycle) that you can reuse in an animation sequence.

To insert an action template into a master template, the layer ordering has to be exactly the same. If it's inconsistent, the templates cannot be combined.

You can create a single keyframe action template of the different views (front, three-quarter or side view). Then import and insert them into the animation to turn the character. The same pattern can be created for a head, arm, full upper body, etc.

If the master template you are importing was created in the Node view, make sure to import it first and drop it into the Node view or the left side of the Timeline view. Failure to do this may break some node system connections.

If you created templates for different body parts, you can reuse them in your scene by dragging them to your layers. You can also open a template as a folder and select a particular drawing from it and drag it onto a drawing layer.