Toon Boom Harmony 16.0.3 Release Notes

Here is a list of changes in Harmony 16.0.3, build 14965.

Master Controllers
Drawing
Digital Animation
Node View
Harmony Server
Scripting
Enhancements
Fixed Issues

NOTE The following list contains all the changes since Harmony 16.0.1 was released. It covers changes for both Harmony 16.0.2 and Harmony 16.0.3.

Master Controllers

Feature	Description
Pose database storage	When creating a Master Controller in Harmony Server using the Interpolation Grid Wizard or the Interpolation Slider Wizard, you will be prompted to select at which level (scene, job, environment or global) you want the Master Controller's poses database to be stored.

Drawing

Feature	Description
Keyboard shortcut for Draw Behind	It is now possible to assign a keyboard shortcut to toggle the Draw Behind tool property. This shortcut is listed as Draw Behind under the Drawing Mode section of the keyboard shortcuts list, and has no default assignment.

Digital Animation

Feature	Description
Exclude layers in Pose Copier	The Pose Copier dialog now allows you to select layers in your rig to exclude from the pose copying process. This can be useful if you have a template containing many full character poses, but you only want to paste certain parts of these poses on your character. To use this feature, first, select every layer you want to exclude in the Timeline view. Then, right-click on them and select Tag >Timeline Tag. Then, once in the Pose Copier dialog, check the checkbox next to the Exclude Layers button, then click on this button.

Feature

Description

Exclude layers in Pose Copier

The Pose Copier dialog now allows you to select layers in your rig to exclude from the pose copying process. This can be useful if you have a template containing many full character poses, but you only want to paste certain parts of these poses on your character.

To use this feature, first, select every layer you want to exclude in the Timeline view. Then, right-click on them and select Tag >Timeline Tag. Then, once in the Pose Copier dialog, check the checkbox next to the Exclude Layers button, then click on this button.

Node View

Feature	Description
Follow Node View hierarchy instead of Timeline view hierarchy when navigating nodes	The keyboard shortcuts, Select Parent Skipping Effects (B) and Select Child Skipping Effects (Shift + B) are often used to quickly navigate the hierarchy of a scene. However, in certain cases, the hierarchy may appear different in the Timeline and in the Node views. Up until now, these keyboard shortcuts only followed the hierarchy in the Timeline view. A new option,Follow Node View Parenting for Node Navigation, was added to the Advanced tab of the Preferences dialog. When enabled, these keyboard shortcuts will allow you to navigate the scene's hierarchy as represented in the Node View, rather than in the Timeline view.

Feature

Description

Follow Node View hierarchy instead of Timeline view hierarchy when navigating nodes

The keyboard shortcuts, Select Parent Skipping Effects (B) and Select Child Skipping Effects (Shift + B) are often used to quickly navigate the hierarchy of a scene. However, in certain cases, the hierarchy may appear different in the Timeline and in the Node views. Up until now, these keyboard shortcuts only followed the hierarchy in the Timeline view.

A new option,Follow Node View Parenting for Node Navigation, was added to the Advanced tab of the Preferences dialog. When enabled, these keyboard shortcuts will allow you to navigate the scene's hierarchy as represented in the Node View, rather than in the Timeline view.

Harmony Server

Feature	Description
Scene locking mode	It is now possible to customize the way Harmony Server locks a scene when it is opened by a user. By default, when a Harmony Server scene is opened, it is locked so that no one else can make changes to it. It can also not be opened more than once by the same user. The database server daemon, dbserver, now has a -logical-lock parameter which can be specified to modify this behavior. The parameter supports the following modes: individual: The default locking behaviour. A scene cannot be opened more than once, whether by the same user or by different users. disabled: No scene locking is enforced. A single scene can be opened any amount of times by any amount of users. host: Locking is enforced on a per-user basis. A single user can open a scene several times, but when a scene is opened by a user, it cannot be opened by other users. To learn how to specify command line parameters when launching the database server, please contact support.

Feature

Description

Scene locking mode

It is now possible to customize the way Harmony Server locks a scene when it is opened by a user.

By default, when a Harmony Server scene is opened, it is locked so that no one else can make changes to it. It can also not be opened more than once by the same user. The database server daemon, dbserver, now has a -logical-lock parameter which can be specified to modify this behavior. The parameter supports the following modes:

individual: The default locking behaviour. A scene cannot be opened more than once, whether by the same user or by different users.
disabled: No scene locking is enforced. A single scene can be opened any amount of times by any amount of users.
host: Locking is enforced on a per-user basis. A single user can open a scene several times, but when a scene is opened by a user, it cannot be opened by other users.

To learn how to specify command line parameters when launching the database server, please contact support.

Scripting

Feature	Description
Running script in batch without saving	It is possible to run scripts on Harmony scenes from the command line by running Harmony with the -batch parameter. However, since scripts are typically used to make changes to a scene, this saves the scene by default. When running a script in command line on a Harmony Server scene, it is possible to make Harmony execute the script without saving the target scene. To do this, simply add the -readonly parameter—see Harmony Scripting Interface Reference.
Get tension of an ease function	The tensionEase() method was added to the func class. It will return the tension of the ease function that is passed as its parameter—see Harmony Scripting Interface Reference.

Feature

Description

Running script in batch without saving

It is possible to run scripts on Harmony scenes from the command line by running Harmony with the -batch parameter. However, since scripts are typically used to make changes to a scene, this saves the scene by default.

When running a script in command line on a Harmony Server scene, it is possible to make Harmony execute the script without saving the target scene. To do this, simply add the -readonly parameter—see Harmony Scripting Interface Reference.

Get tension of an ease function

The tensionEase() method was added to the func class. It will return the tension of the ease function that is passed as its parameter—see Harmony Scripting Interface Reference.

Enhancements

The way Harmony initializes the DirectSound interface on Windows has been modernized, which may increase the stability and reliability of audio playback as well as prevent playback issues.

Fixed Issues

The following issues have been fixed in this release:

When opening a scene on Windows, Harmony sometimes fails to initialize the audio device, preventing audio playback.
Crash when attempting to undo after copying and pasting animation keyframes on a layer's parameters in the Timeline view.
Crash on certain macOS workstations when moving artwork with the Select tool while both the Drawing and the Camera views are visible.
Crash when attempting to view the layer properties of an Element node created when the Preserve Line Thickness By Default preference is enabled.
Crash on certain macOS workstations when selecting a Drawing node that has the Adjust Pencil Line Thickness property enabled with the Transform tool if there is a floating Camera view in Render View mode.
Crash when deleting a composite node inside a group if the composite node is connected to multiple input images going from the Multi-Port-In node and some of its cables are crossed.
Crash when generating colour art from artwork that was created while the Pixel Density Proportional to Camera preference is enabled and the camera zoom is not at 12F.

Rare crash when using curve or envelope deformations on a drawing with pencil lines.
Crash when manipulating a 3D Rotation widget in a Master Controller node.
Crash when attempting to rename a newly created template while the Library view is in Detailed display mode on Windows in Stand Alone mode.
Crash when selecting Top in the Monitored Attributes list of a Master Controller wizard, then clicking on the Search button.
Crash when dragging and dropping a vector or bitmap image from the Library view to a cell in the Xsheet view.
Possible crash when attempting to move the Playback toolbar on macOS.
Crash when selecting artwork from multiple art layers and multiple drawing layers at the same time, then copying and pasting it into a different layer.
Performance of scenes with Pass Through composites is unnecessarily impacted by disconnected drawing nodes that are not displayed in the Camera view.
Harmony computes the bounding box of selected elements multiple times when refreshing the Camera view, impacting performance.
The Camera view takes longer to refresh in Render View mode each time it has to refresh if the scene has deformations.
Output image of composite node does not appear in rendered image if the composite is connected both an element that is at a position higher than 0 on the z-axis and a node such as the Line Art, Color Art, Underlay, Overlay, Image Switch or Layer Selector node and which has no input image.
Using the Select Child Skipping Effects keyboard shortcut (Shift + B) does not work if the child layer is connected under a deformation group containing a Transformation-Switch node.

NOTE Attempting to select a child node through a group that contains a Transfromation-Switch node will only work if the Follow Node View Parenting for Node Navigation preference is enabled. This preference can be enabled in the Advanced tab of the Preferences dialog.
Impossible to select a point with the Contour Editor using a tablet pen.
Drawing slowly using a pen tablet on a bitmap layer on macOS results in shaky lines.
On Windows, when drawing a very long brush stroke with a pen tablet, then immediately drawing another stroke, the second stroke starts off with a straight line segment.
Using the Reposition All Drawings tool in the Drawing view offsets a drawing multiple times if it is exposed multiple times.
Some Brush tool tips that were packaged with earlier versions of Harmony were not packaged with Harmony 16.0.0 and Harmony 16.0.1.
Buttons to flip a stamp horizontally or vertically in the Tool Properties view appear too small when using a Retina display on macOS.
Bounding box of element selected with the Transform tool is inaccurate if the element is selected while the Camera view is rotated, then the Camera view is reset to its default angle.
Bounding box of selected drawing does not update when undoing a transformation with the Transform tool in Animate Off mode, if the selected drawing is animated with a 3D path function.
When a layer that is a clone or a duplicate of a synced layer is selected, the synced layer indicator appears for that layer in the Node view and the Xsheet view.
In Harmony Server, if a palette stored in a job or environment that is locked for editing by another user is selected while Edit Palette mode is enabled, its colour swatches will not load in the Colour view.
Imported layers are not properly scaled when importing a multi-layer PSD file as individual layers with the alignment rule set to Project Resolution.
Keyframe is created when modifying a deformation point with the Rigging tool.
Empty Group layer gets locked and cannot be unlocked when collapsed in the Timeline view.
When nudging a deformation point with the keyboard while in Animate Off mode, the deformation point moves too far.
When copying and pasting artwork from multiple art layers, with the Apply to Line Art and Colour Art tool property enabled, all of the artwork ends up only on the current art layer.
When pasting layers using Paste Special, with the Palettes option set to Copy and create new palette files in element folder, the palette files get copied to their origin folder and renamed.
When creating a Master Controller in a Harmony Server scene and creating the poses database (.tbstate) file at the job or the environment level, Harmony will not create the scripts folder in which to store the Master Controller, causing it to fail to create the file.
The Load Grid Preset button of the Grid Wizard opens an Open File dialog, then displays an error message.
In Harmony Server, when inserting a template that contains a Master Controller from a different job, the Master Controller's pose database files do not get copied over.
Errors in the script samples of the Master Controller widgets provided in the scripting documentation.
Copying and pasting text with rich text formatting into any of the script fields of the Layer Properties for a Master Controller or Script node may result in illegible or scrambled text.
Error message when clicking on the Save Grid Preset button in the Grid Wizard.
Some synced layers are ignored when using the Pose Copier dialog with a template that has synced layers.
Some drawings are discarded when importing a template containing synced layers.
Render Preview node does not update when selecting a frame in the Timeline view if the Enable Interactive Camera View Cache preference is enabled.
When loading a skin on certain gaming character rigs, the exposure of some of the drawings in the affected layers is reduced to one frame.
Scripts designed to duplicate the timing of Xsheet columns for paperless workflows (TB_PL_LOKEY, TB_PL_KEYMC and TB_PL_MCIB) renumber the drawings incrementally instead of copying their numbers.
When changing the icons for scripts added to the Scripting toolbar, they do not get updated until Harmony is reluanched.
The names of every layer listed in the Convert to Synced Drawing Layer dialog are prefixed with Top/.
The custom configuration of some toolbars is not preserved after closing Harmony.
Using the [ and ] keyboard shortcuts to substitute the current drawing does not work in the Timeline view, the Node view or the Library view.
If the user syncs two layers, undoes, then copies and pastes one of the formerly synced layers using Paste Special, the resulting copied layer will appear to be synced.
The Play application always launches in Stand Alone mode in Japanese.
Missing menu command to import 3D models in trial mode in Japanese.
Some text in dialogs intended for Japanese animation workflows were not translated to Japanese.
In the Japanese workflow mode, in the Create Repeating Cycle dialog, it is possible to set the number of cycles to 0, which causes unexpected changes in the Xsheet.
Blank cells are added after the exposure when extending the exposure of a repeat cycle in Japanese workflow mode.
Blank cells are left behind when reducing the exposure of a repeat cycle in Japanese workflow mode.
Harmony cannot load SDK plugins unless their path is specified in the TOONBOOM_PLUGINPATH environment variable onGNU/Linux.