How to Use Deformers

Deformers give the ability to animate objects and parts of a character model using computer generated deformations. This allows you to bend or distort drawings without having to redraw them. When used in cut-out animation, they can extend considerably the range of movements and poses a character model can pull without having any of its parts drawn in different poses, which can save a lot of time and make your cut-out animation look much more natural with little effort.

Deformers can be used to deform a single drawing layer or a hierarchy of layers, so a single deformer can be used to deform anything ranging from a simple prop to a whole character rig.

Deformers work by rigging them on the body part you wish to deform, building the deformation structure, then animating it. This can be done easily using the Rigging tool.

There are two types of deformers available in Harmony Essentials:

  • Bone
  • Game Bone

Bone Deformer

The Bone deformation allows you to create a bone-like structure in which each part is solid, but with articulations that are flexible. This is mostly useful for animating a character's limbs, such as the arms or legs, or other parts that can be articulated such as torsos or fingers.

For example, a Bone deformation can be used to articulate an arm that is made of a single drawing, so that the upper arm and forearm can be moved independently, without having to draw the upper arm and the forearm on different layers. Harmony will deform the drawing to make it look articulated. The different parts of a Bone deformation can be rotated around their joint, extended and shortened, giving you the same capabilities as animating articulations on different layers, without having to worry about parts detaching, pivot points, or clipping outlines.

Game Bone Deformer

The Game Bone deformation is very similar to the Bone deformation. It allows you to create a bone-like structure in which each part is solid, but with articulations that are flexible. However, it is optimized for game engines such as Unity. Hence, it is usually only used for game development and not in animated productions. Contrary to the Bone deformations, Game Bone deformations do not have a Bias property. The articulation folds also look slightly more rounded.

Creating Deformers

The most simple way of creating deformers is to use the Rigging tool, available in the Deformation toolbar. With this tool, all you need to do to create a deformer is to select the layer you wish to deform, then place each point of your deformer in the Camera view.

Deformers exist in your scene as a hierarchy of deformation layers. When you create a new deformer, the first point you set is the deformer's root, and each new point you create is a child of the previous point. Deformers are hence created in a chain, and should be created with your character's hierarchy in mind. For example, when you create a deformer for an arm, the root should be the shoulder joint, the second point should be the elbow and the third should be the wrist.

A deformer affects all the layers under its hierarchy. When you create a new deformer using the rigging tool, it is automatically created as a parent of the selected layer, and will affect the selected layer and all its children. Hence, it's important to select the right layer before attempting to create a deformer.

For example, if you wish to create a deformer for an arm, and the arm is broken into several layers, you could rig the arm in a hierarchy where the upper arm is the root, the forearm is the upper arm's child and the hand is the forearm's child. Then, if you create your deformer on the upper arm, it will be created as a parent of the upper arm, and will hence affect the whole arm.

You can also group several layers under a peg, and create your deformer with this peg selected. When you create a deformer on a peg, the deformer is created as a child of the peg, but as a parent of all of this peg's children. This is because a peg is likely to be more useful over a deformer than under. If you move layers that are under a deformer, they will exit the intended deformation zone, and may appear severely warped and distorted. Hence, it's better to create deformations under pegs as much as possible, and pegs under deformers should only be animated if the deformer is left untouched. Since the deformer will be created as a parent of all the peg's children, it will affect all the layers under the peg.

  1. Once your element is selected, select the Rigging tool in the Deformation toolbar.
  1. In the Tool Properties view, enable the Bone mode.
  1. Click where you want to create the root articulation of the bone structure. The root articulation should be the one that is bound to the remainder of the body. For example, for an arm, the root articulation would be its shoulder.

  1. Click where you want the second articulation to be created.

    A bone will be created between the first and second articulation.

  1. Click where you want the next articulation to be created.

Observe that, as you create a new point, the previous point now has a circle around it. This is the radius of the articulation, which allows you to determine how much of the drawing should be part of the articulation. Every point in a bone deformer, except for the first and the last one, has a radius.

  1. Click and hold the previous articulation's radius control point and adjust the articulation's radius so that it properly covers the articulation.

  1. Repeat this until you are finished creating the Bone chain. Make sure you build each articulation in the right order going from the root to the extremity.

Displaying Deformers

Harmony lets you control which deformers are displayed in the Camera view independently from the current selection. When you create a deformation chain, its deformation controls are displayed in the Camera view. However, if you select an existing deformer or a layer that's connected to existing deformers, its deformation controls won't display automatically. Likewise, deselecting a deformation chain will not hide its deformation controls.

Before you can animate or modify an existing deformation chain, you must manually display it.

  1. Do one of the following:
    • In the Camera or Timeline view, select one of the drawing layers linked to the deformation chain you want to display.
    • In the Timeline view, select any part of the deformation chain you want to display.
  1. In the Deformation toolbar, click the Show the Selected Deformation Chain and Hide All Others button.

The selected deformation controls appear in the Camera view. If other deformations were displayed, they are now hidden.

NOTE The Show the Selected Deformation Chain and Hide All Others button will display all deformation chains that are in the hierarchy of the selection. For example, if the master peg of a character model is selected, all of its deformation chains will be displayed. Likewise, if multiple layers linked with different deformation chains are selected, all of their deformation chains will be displayed.
  1. Do one of the following:
  • Click in the negative space of the Camera view, Timeline view or Node view to discard the current selection, then click on the Show Selected Deformation Chain and Hide All Others button in the Deformation toolbar.
  • Select a layer that is not linked to any deformer, then click the Show the Selected Deformation Chain and Hide All Others button in the deformation toolbar.
  • In the Camera toolbar, click the Hide All Controls button.
  • From the top menu, select View > Hide All Controls.
  • Press Shift + C.

Modifying Existing Deformation Chains

As you attempt to animate a deformation, or if you need to make changes to the drawings under a deformation, you may need to make adjustments to the deformation chain to better fit your needs.

  1. Do one of the following:
    • In the Camera or Timeline view, select one of the drawing layers linked to the deformation chain you want to edit.
    • In the Timeline view, select any part of the deformation chain you want to edit.
  1. In the Deformation toolbar, click the Show the Selected Deformation Chain and Hide All Others button.

The selected deformation controls appear in the Camera view. If other deformations were displayed, they are now hidden.

  1. In the Deformation toolbar, click the Rigging tool.

The deformation chain turns from green to red. A green chain indicates that you're animating the deformation. A red chain indicates that you're modifying the rig.

  1. In the Camera view, set up the deformation chain.
  • To rotate the a bone, click and drag on it. This will rotate the selected bone and all subsequent bones in the chain.
  • To offset the whole chain, click and drag on its root control point.
  • To reposition an articulation, click and drag on its control point.
  • To adjust an articulation's radius, click and drag on its radius control point. Make sure the radius of the articulation covers the articulation itself.
  1. Repeat until all the articulations and bones of the chain are correctly aligned to the element to which it is linked.
  1. Test your modifications using the Transform tool.
TIP When manipulating the articulation of a Bone or Game Bone deformer, you can press and hold the Alt key to lock the bone's angle and only shorten or elongate the bone. You can also hold the Ctrl (Windows/Linux) or ⌘ (macOS) key to break the articulation off its chain and make it into a new, separate deformation chain.
  1. Do one of the following:
    • In the Camera or Timeline view, select one of the drawing layers linked to the deformation chain you want to edit.
    • In the Timeline view, select any part of the deformation chain you want to edit.
  1. In the Deformation toolbar, click the Show the Selected Deformation Chain and Hide All Others button.

The selected deformation controls appear in the Camera view. If other deformations were displayed, they are now hidden.

  1. In the Deformation toolbar, select the Rigging tool.

    The deformation chain turns from green to red, meaning that you are editing the deformation chain rather than animating it.

  1. Press and hold the Alt key.
  1. While holding the Alt key, click on the bone where you want to add an articulation.


Animating With Deformers

Just like with animating pegs and drawing layers, you can animate your deformers by creating keyframes on their corresponding layers in the Timeline. Animating deformers works exactly like making modifications to a deformer, except it requires using the Transform tool instead of the Rigging tool. When the Transform tool is selected, deformation controls in the Camera view display in green, which means they are in animation mode, whereas when the Rigging tool is selected, they display in red, meaning they are in rigging mode.

  1. In the Timeline view, collapse your character using the Expand/Collapse arrow.

Collapse Layers

  1. Select the first frame of the scene.

Select First KeyFrame

  1. To ensure your model doesn't disappear after 1 frame, open the Extend Exposure dialog by doing one of the following:
  • Right-click on the first frame in the Timeline and select Extend Exposure.
  • Press F5.
  1. In the Extend Exposure dialog, type in the amount of frames in your scene and confirm. This will make your model exposed (visible) throughout your whole scene.
  1. Now, we will make your character's first pose. First, make sure there is a keyframe on the first frame of every layer of the model. This ensures that when you make the second pose later, your first pose will not be affected. To do this do one of the following:
  • In the Timeline toolbar, click the Add Keyframe button.
  • Right-click and select Add Keyframe.
  • Press F6.

A keyframe is added on the current frame.

Select First KeyFrame

  1. In the Tools toolbar, select the Transform tool or press Shift + T.
  1. In the Tools toolbar, if Animate Off or Animate Onion Skin Range mode is selected, click on it to open the Animate pop-up menu and select Animate Current Frame.
  1. Do one of the following:
    • In the Camera or Timeline view, select one of the drawing layers linked to the deformation chain you want to animate.
    • In the Timeline view, select any part of the deformation chain you want to animate.
  1. In the Deformation toolbar, click the Show the Selected Deformation Chain and Hide All Others button.

The selected deformation controls appear in the Camera view. If other deformations were displayed, they are now hidden.

  1. In the Camera view, do the following:
  • To rotate the whole limb, click and drag on the first bone. This will rotate the first bone and all subsequent bones.
  • To bend the limb, click and drag on another bone. This will rotate the bone and all subsequent bones, but will leave the bones before it in their current position.
  • To reposition an articulation, click and drag on its control point. This can be used to rotate, shorten or extend the bone, and will offset all subsequent bones.

  • To shorten or extend a bone without rotating it, press and hold the Alt key, then click and drag on its control point.

  • To offset the whole limb, click and drag on its root point.
TIP You can also nudge an articulation in any direction by selecting it, then pressing on the arrow keys.
  1. In the Timeline view, go to the frame on which you want to set the next key pose.
  1. Add a keyframe on the current frame by doing one of the following:
  • In the Timeline toolbar, click the Add Keyframe button.
  • Right-click and select Add Keyframe.
  • Press F6.
  1. Transform your deformation chain's points to make your new key pose.
  1. Repeat the previous steps until your animation is complete.