Animation Menu

The Animation menu lets you access tools, adjust animation timing, set deformation, morphing and IK parameters, lock or unlock layers, and select elements in the Xsheet and Timeline views.

Command Description
Animate

Animate Current Frame

When this option is selected, every time you use the Transform, Advanced Animation or Inverse Kinematic tools to manipulate an element in your scene, the position of the element will be stored in a keyframe at the current frame. This allows you to animate elements in your scene without creating keyframes manually.

Animate Onion Skin Range

When this option is selected, if you use the Transform or Advanced Animation tools to make transformations to an element in your scene, the transformations will be stored as keyframes at the beginning and at the end of the current Onion Skin range, as well as on every existing keyframe in-between. This can be useful if you want to reposition an element that you have already animated, but only during a specific range of frames, which you can define by enabling Onion Skin and setting the Onion Skin range to cover that range of frames.

Animate Off

When this option is selected, if you use the Transform or Advanced Animation tools to make transformation to an element in your scene, the transformations will affect the element throughout the whole scene. This can be useful if you want to reposition an element after you have already animated it.

Stop-Motion Keyframe

Converts the selected keyframes to stop-motion keyframes. Between a stop-motion keyframe and the next keyframe, Harmony does not generate any animation and the element remains static until the next keyframe.

Delete Keyframe

Deletes the selected keyframes.

Tools

Transform

Allows you to select drawing layers and position, rotate, scale and skew them.

Inverse Kinematics

Allows you to pose a character model by pulling on its extremities, such as hands and feet, and have the other connected limbs follow. Can be used on any piece connected in a hierarchy.

Translate

Lets you move the selected element along the X and Y axes.

Rotate

Turns a selected element around its pivot point.

Scale

Increases or decreases the size of a selected element. You can scale an object up to make it larger or down to make it smaller. Press Shift to scale the element while maintaining its proportions.

Skew

Slants the selected element.

Maintain Size

Keeps elements the same size aspect ratio in the Camera view as you move them towards or away from the camera.

Spline Offset

Lets you reposition the visual trajectory without offsetting or modifying your animation. By default, the trajectory is located at 0,0,0 fields. If your elements were drawn in a different location than the centre of the drawing area, it will look like the trajectory is not aligned with your drawing. Also, if you have several elements attached to one trajectory, you might want your trajectory to be at a different location to represent the group's motion better.

Reposition Drawing

Lets you reposition, scale, rotate or skew all drawing strokes on every drawing included in a layer.

Cell

Increase Exposure

Adds one more exposure to a selected cell; repeating this action adds an extra cell each time. This is an efficient way to extend a drawing's exposure and is always set in Insert mode. Increasing an exposure pushes the existing exposure forward.

Decrease Exposure

Decreases exposure of a selected cell by one; repeating this action decreases one exposure adds an extra cell each time. This is an efficient way to shorten a drawing's exposure. Decreasing an exposure pulls in the existing exposure.

Set Exposure to

Lets you set the exposure to 1, 2, 3 or a custom exposure.

Extend Exposure

Lets you enter the frame up to which you want to extend the exposure. You can expose the drawing in the frames and replace the drawings that were originally there or move the subsequent frames forward in time.

Add Key Exposure

Adds a key exposure to the selected cell.

Remove Key Exposure

Removes key exposures from the selected cells.

Remove Duplicate Key Exposure

When working with drawings to adjust the timing of a mouth in a lipsync, for example, and forcing the use of specific key exposures, unnecessary key exposures will be created. You can delete these duplicates without affecting the rest of the drawing. The first drawing of the selection will be used for the range.

NOTE Duplicate key exposures may occur when pasting with the Enforce Key Exposure option selected.

Fill Empty Cells

Fills the empty frames in the selection with the exposure just before. For example, if you select a range of frame that starts with an exposed drawing and then ends with empty cells, all of the empty cells in the selection will be filled with the exposed drawing just before the empty cells.

Insert Blank Cell

Adds an empty cell between other cells.

Clear Exposure

Removes the exposure from the selected cell.

Clear Exposure and Pull

Replaces the exposure from the selected cell with exposures that follow it.

Fill Selection

Lets you fill the same value over an entire selection. The selection can be over one cell, a cell range in one column, a cell range over many columns, an entire column, or many columns. You can use numbers, words, letters, or any alphanumeric value.

Sequence Fill

Lets you create a numbered sequence over a selection. The sequence can be forward, backward, single, double or higher increment, as a cycle, and so on. The selection can be over one cell or a cell range in one column or more or an entire column or many entire columns.

Fill Cells Randomly

Lets you fill in random values over a selection. You can give a maximum and a minimum value and create a range for Harmony to choose the random values from. The selection can be over one cell or a cell range in one column or more or an entire column or many entire columns.

Hold Exposure

Lets you expose a drawing for three, four, or five cells and so on.

Deformation

Set Curves and Offsets Independent from Parent

When you transfer a curve's position to its parent offset, first you must to set curves and offsets independent from parent.

Transfer Curve Values to Offset

Lets you transfer all of the information from first curve deformer to its parent Offset node. This is useful for a legacy scene created using Curve deformations where the Offset's position has been placed far away from the drawing to make sure it doesn't affect the drawing's deformation. You can bring back the offset and give it the first curve's position. The Envelope deformation lets you animate the offset of each curve separately. The offset no longer needs to be placed far away.

Convert Elliptic Deformation ROI to Shape

After you have created a deformation chain using Elliptic as the Zone of Influence type, you can select your deformer and click on this button to convert it to a Shaped type. Control points will appear around the shape making it easy to customize.You can also convert the Elliptic zone of influence to a shape. Select Animation > Deformation > Convert Elliptic Deformation ROI to Shape. This will create a much smaller initial zone of influence than if you were to convert it directly to a shape.

Convert Deformed Drawing to Drawings

Convert deformation animations to drawing sequences, so you can adjust the drawings using the drawing tools. You may also want to change the timing and set it on double frames instead of single frame.

Convert to New Drawing and Add Deformation Chain

Takes the pose/drawing and the deformer of the selected frame and converts it to a new pose/drawing with the corresponding deformer.

Envelope Creator

Create Envelope

Opens the Envelope Creator dialog, which allows you to automatically generate a deformation chain based on the artwork in the current layer.

Among other things, the Envelope Creator dialog allows you to set the parameters for the amount of deformation points in the envelope as well as its shape and type.

Draw Envelope

Opens the Envelope Drawer dialog, which allows you to draw a deformation chain in the Camera view using a mouse or pen tablet. The deformation chain will be created as a parent of the current layer.

Among other things, the Envelope Drawer dialog allows you to set the parameters for the amount of deformation points are created and how the shape of your drawing is processed.

Exposure Fill

Using Render Change

Modifies the timing (exposure) of the selected layer, lets you adjust the parameters to assign when the texture exposure changes will occur. You can adjust the type of filter to use for the motion detection, as well as threshold values to indicate what will be considered a big enough motion variation for an exposure change—see Animating Textures Based on Action .

Master Controller

Launch Stack Wizard

Opens the Master Controller Stack Wizard, which allows you to create a Master Controller that combines a 2D point widget and a slider. The 2D point widget can be used to rotate part of your rig in any direction, used a grid of preset poses, and the slider can be used to switch between different grids of poses.

Launch Grid Wizard

Opens the Master Controller Grid Wizard, which allows you to create a Master Controller with a 2D point widget that can be used to rotate part of your rig in any direction, using a grid of preset poses—see Master Controller Grid Wizard Dialog Box.

Launch Slider Wizard

Opens the Master Controller Slider Wizard, which allows you to create a Master Controller with a slider widget which can be used to change the pose of part or all of your rig, based on a line-up of 2 or more poses—see Master Controller Slider Wizard Dialog Box.

Morphing

Create Morphing

Allows you to create and configure a morphing sequence, which will automatically generate the in-betweens between two drawings in the current layer.

Insert Morphing Key Drawing

Creates a morphing keyframe from a selected morphing frame.

Delete Morphing

Once a cell is selected in a morphing sequence, deletes the entire sequence between the two keyframes.

Convert Morphing to Drawing

Lets you convert your morphing inbetweens to real drawings you can edit. This is useful when manually editing a morphing sequence or if you prefer to have animation timing in double frame (on twos) instead of single frame (on ones).

Contour Hint

The Contour Hint point is used on the colour fill zone and brush lines; in other words, on Contour vectors. It allows you to control the line thickness and contour position. Also, if a contour is not animated correctly, you can use hints to correct the animation. For example, if a flag is not waving properly.

When adding a Contour Hint point, make sure to place it far enough away from the contour so you can see it snap to the contour.

Contour Hint points are yellow.

Zone Hint

The Zone Hint point is used on a colour zone to control the proximity rule. The Zone Hint is placed in the centre of the colour zone. Sometimes a colour zone is not associated with the corresponding one by default. For example, in a splash animation there are many water droplets that are the same colour. Harmony automatically morphs the droplet to the nearest one. This is not always the one you may have predicted. A Zone Hint will force a colour zone to morph with another one.

Zone Hint points are cyan in colour.

Pencil Hint

A Pencil Hint point is used to control a pencil line, also known as central vector. It can be used on drawings that were done using the Pencil, Polyline, Ellipse, Line and Rectangle tools. Like the Contour Hint, the Pencil Hint snaps to the central vector. Make sure to place it far enough away from the line so you will see it snap when you move it.

Pencil Hint points are magenta in colour.

Appearing Point Hint

An Appearing Point Hint is used to control the trajectory of an appearing shape. A shape will appear in the destination drawing when there is no corresponding shape in the source drawing. If you do not place an Appearing Point Hint to control the point of appearance, the shape will appear from its centre and expand outwards.

Appearing Point Hint points are violet in colour.

Vanishing Point Hint

A Vanishing Point Hint is used to control the trajectory of a vanishing shape. A shape will vanish from the source drawing when there is no corresponding shape in the destination drawing. If you do not place a Vanishing Point Hint to control the point of disappearance, the shape will vanish into its centre.

Vanishing Point Hint points are green in colour.

Switch Between Morphing Key Drawings

Toggles between the two key drawings in your morphing sequence. This option is useful while setting hints. You can use the default keyboard shortcut F4 to toggle between your drawings.

Go to First Frame

Goes to the first frame of your morphing sequence.

Go to Previous Frame

Goes to the previous frame of the selected frame in the morphing sequence.

Go to Next Frame

Goes to the next frame of the selected frame in the morphing sequence.

Go to Last Frame

Goes to the last frame of your morphing sequence.

Suggest Hints

Automatically sets hint points on key drawings as a help tool. If you're not sure where to set hints, you can use this option. It will set the main hints which you can then fine tune.

Hide Hints

Temporarily hides the hint points from the key drawings. Use this option when you have a series of hint points hiding some lines you would like to see.

IK Constraints

Set IK Nail

Blocks the X, Y and Z positions.

Set IK Hold Orientation

Blocks the angle.

Set IK Hold X

Blocks only the X position.

Set IK Hold Y

Blocks only the Y position.

Remove All Constraints

Removes all nails except the minimum and maximum angles.

Lip-Sync

Change Mouth Shape to

Lets you change the mouth shape to one of the following: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, X.

Auto Lip-Sync Detection

Generates a sound detection for lip-sync.

Map Lip-Sync

Automatically maps drawings in an element to the mouth chart you have generated for a sound. This can save time when you are lip-synching a voice track.

Flip

Flip Horizontal

Flips the selection horizontally.

Flip Vertical

Flips the selection vertically.

Flip Scale X

Once your drawing layer is rotated, the original horizontal and vertical axes change. The Flip Scale X and Flip Scale Y will perform a flip on your drawing layer following its original axis.Remembers the original X-axis of the layer and flips the element following it.

Flip Scale Y

Remembers the original Y-axis of the layer and flips the element following it.

Linear Motion

Switches between a linear and curved corner.

Lock in Time

Indicates whether the point is locked to a specific frame (keyframe) or only locked to a specific position and the curve can flow through it freely as other points are being added, moved, or adjusted (control point).

No Z Dragging

Keeps the Z value constant when you drag a character using the Transform or Translate tool.

Substitute Drawing Previous

Replaces the drawing or cell's symbol on the current frame by the previous drawing.

Substitute Drawing Next

Replaces the drawing or cell's symbol on the current frame by the next drawing.

Go to Previous Keyframe

Goes to the previous keyframe.

Go to Next Keyframe

Goes to the next keyframe.

Select Previous Keyframe /Point

Select the previous keyframe/point.

Select Next Keyframe /Point

Select the next keyframe/point.

Select Child Skipping Effects

Lets you select the first element parented to the selected peg element in the Timeline view skipping effects in the hierarchy.

Select Child

Lets you select the first element parented to the selected peg element in the Timeline view.

Select Children

Lets you select all elements parented to the selected peg element in the Timeline view.

Select Group Content

Selects all of the contents of the group.

Select Parent Skipping Effects

Lets you select the parent of the selected element in the Timeline view skipping effects in the hierarchy.

Select Parent

Lets you select the parent of the selected element in the Timeline view.

Select Previous Sibling

Lets you select the previous element (above current element) in the Timeline view.

Select Next Sibling

Lets you select the next element (below current element) in the Timeline view.

Lock

Lock

Locks one or a multiple selection of layers.

Unlock

Unlocks one or a multiple selection of locked layers.

Lock All

Locks all the layers in the Timeline view.

Unlock All

Unlocks all the layers in the Timeline view.

Lock All Others

Locks every layer except the selected ones.

Reset

Returns the value of the selected element to the initial value of the active tool. For example, if the Rotate tool is active, the transformation angle will be reset to 0 and if the Transform tool is active, all the transformation values will be reset.

Reset All

Resets all transformations on the current frame in a selected layer. Your keyframe will remain, but all the values will return to the starting value. All transformations are reset regardless of the tool you're using.

Reset All Except Z

Resets all transformations on the current frame except the Z position. This is useful when doing cut-out animation. Cut-out puppets often have a particular Z ordering for the different views of a character. You might want to reset the transformation, but not necessarily the Z position.