Pencil Tool Properties

The Pencil tool allows you to draw simple contour lines that are defined by their centerline and their thickness.

When you select the Pencil tool, the Tool Properties view displays the different Pencil modes that control how the pencil line is drawn.

NOTE To learn how to use the Pencil tool, see About the Pencil Tool.

Pencil Properties

The following properties affect the pencil's width and smoothing. Those properties can be saved into pencil presets for later use.

Property Description
Preview Area

The Preview area lets you see a preview of the stroke your drawing tool will make.

Preview Stroke

Size Defines the width of the pencil line.
Centerline Smoothing

Defines the number of control points added to the centre line. The fewer the control points the smoother (but less faithful) the line.

Pencil Presets

These options allow you to select, create and manage pencil presets.

Icon Property Description
  Presets list

Harmony provides a few pencil presets and also lets you create and save your own. It is a good idea to create and save pencils with precise sizes and parameters when you draw for efficiency and consistency.

You can export the pencil presets that you have created and import those that others have created. This is a good way for you and project collaborators to keep a consistent look for the project.

New Brush Preset

Creates a new preset based on the current tool properties.

Delete Brush Preset

Deletes the currently selected preset.

Brush Presets Menu

Open a menu that contains the following options:

  • New Brush Preset: Creates a new preset based on the current tool properties.
  • Delete Brush: Deletes the currently selected preset.
  • Rename Brush: Allows you to rename the currently selected preset.
  • Import Brushes: Allows you to import brush presets exported from Harmony.
  • Export Brushes: Allows you to export your brush presets into an .xml file.
  • Small Thumbnail: Displays presets in a grid of small thumbnails with a preview of their tip.
  • Large Thumbnail: Displays presets in a grid of big thumbnails, with their name and a preview of their tip.
  • Stroke View: Displays presets in a list, with their name and a preview of a stroke done with each preset.

Drawing Options

These options affect the way your drawing strokes are added to your artwork.

Icon Property Description
Draw Behind

When enabled, your brush strokes will appear behind the existing artwork.

NOTE Your brush stroke will temporarily appear over your artwork as you draw it, until you release the mouse cursor or tablet pen.
Auto Fill

When enabled, drawing a closed shape will automatically fill it with the currently selected colour.

Trim Extra Lines

When enabled, drawing a closed shape will automatically remove the outstanding lines.

Align Handles After Trim

When the Trim Extra Lines option is enabled, enable this option to make the point where the beginning and end of the stroke meet into a smooth curve rather than a hard corner.

Auto Flatten

By default, when drawing, each new stroke is created as a separate drawing object, which can be edited independently from other parts of the artwork. When enabled, the Auto-Flatten option automatically merges strokes into existing artwork.

NOTE Using the Select tool, you can select and remove a segment of flattened pencil lines. Overlapping pencil lines drawn with the Auto-Flatten mode are essentially cut into segments by the overlap and can be treated as individual lines.
Snapping

Allows you to enable or disable snapping for this tool and all other animation and drawing tools that support snapping, as well as to select which types of snapping are enabled.

If you double-click or long-click on this button, it will open a pop-up menu in which you can toggle different snapping modes. You can also click on this button to toggle it off, which will disable all snapping modes, and click on it again and toggle it on to re-enable the snapping modes which were previously enabled.

This tool supports the following snapping mode:

  • Snap to Alignment Guides: While drawing, the drawing tool will snap against nearby alignment guides—see About Alignment Guides.