Harmony Unity SDK

This section will guide you how to import Harmony animations into Unity through the use of Harmony SDK.

Prerequisites

  • Install the latest Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio.

    • https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/2977003/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads

  • NOTE The SDK requires the latest version of the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio. Without the above prerequisite, the native HarmonyRenderer.dll will fail to load and animations will not appear in the editor or the player.

SDK Contents

Once the .unityasset package file have been imported, find a Toon Boom Harmony Game SDK folder that consists of:

  • Harmony Game Previewer: Assets for the previewer application.
  • Harmony SDK: Assets for the SDK. This can be imported into another project.
  • Source: It contains source code for the native C++ library that processes Harmony animations.
  1. Export Harmony animations within Unity into an XML format from the Harmony game tools. Please see <Inset link to game export docs page>.

Once exported, you will see a folder with the files as shown below. These files can be placed to the desired location on your computer.

  • audio folder: This is optional and unused

  • spriteSheets folder: If exported as a sprite sheet.

  • sprites folder: If exported as separate sprites.

  • animation.xml

  • drawingAnimation.xml

  • skeleton.xml

  • spriteSheets.xml If exported as a sprite sheet.

  • Stage.xml

  1. Import plugin inside Unity.

  2. Create a new Harmony Project Import.

This is an asset containing the custom import settings for your Harmony project.

  1. Right click in the project view or use the Assets menu and select Create Harmony Project Import.

  • Harmony Project XML Path: This is the path to the Harmony Project folder. Click Browse to navigate to the folder containing your Harmony project to import.
  • Output Path: This is the path to the Harmony Project asset that will be created and updated when importing the asset. Choose an appropriate save location within your Unity project.
  • Generate Prefab: If checked, the importer should automatically generate a prefab for this Harmony project.
  • Existing Prefab: This shows a reference to the prefab to update, if one exists already.
  • Frame Rate: The animation frame rate used by Unity's animation system to playback the Harmony frames. This should match your frame rate in Harmony.
  • Stepped: If checked, the animations will pass between integer frames and thus not interpolate smoothly. If unchecked, the animation will be played back between integer frames, for a smooth animation.
  • Strip Prefix: This is used to remove a prefix on the animation name. For instance, if we want "Wishling_Idle" to become "Idle", we set the prefix to "Wishling_". This is useful where the animation name for games is same for all the characters.
  • Animation Folder Name: The name of the sub-folder that contains the generated Unity animation files.
  • Import: The button to trigger the importing process.
  1. Click the Import button to start the import process and the prefab generation.

The importer will automatically generate a prefab that can easily be dragged into the scene to use as a Game Object.

NOTE
  • For large characters this can be a lengthy process.

  • If the sprite were exported separately, it will also generate sprite atlases for the asset.