Toon Boom Harmony 21.0.4 Release Notes

NOTE This version of Harmony does not natively support the new Apple silicon processors (M1 and later). On systems using these new processors, this version of Harmony runs through Apple’s Rosetta 2. This may cause compatibility issues when running on the new ARM-based macOS systems. For full compatibility with the new Apple silicon systems, use Harmony 21.1 or later.
NOTE The Python plugin, which allows Python 2.7 scripts to be run from Harmony, no longer loads by default on macOS Big Sur and Monterey. You can force the Python plugin to load by enabling the FORCE_LOAD_PYTHON_SCRIPT hidden preference.

Here is the list of improvements and fixes in Harmony 21.0.4, build 21148 (2023-03-21).

Improvements

Utilities

  • The utransform utility now has the ability to print and clear metadata from a TVG using the -print_meta_data and -clear_meta_data options. HAR-8421

Scripting

  • Scene version description can now be queried and set using scene.Description and scene.setDescription from the Harmony scripting interface. The description can also be set when importing a scene through Control Center using ImportData.impDescription. The description text is limited to 200 UTF-8 characters. HAR-8792

  • The scene.closeSceneAndOpen JavaScript function has a new isReadOnly parameter which allows opening a scene in read-only mode. For example using scene.closeSceneAndOpen( "Env", "Job", "Scene01", "1", true); will close the current scene and open Scene01 in read-only mode. This can only be used when a scene is opened in Harmony from the database. HAR-9042

Fixes

General

  • Duplicated drawings may be lost when saving a scene if synched layers have the same base name. HAR-8887

  • Copying multiple synced layers from one instance of a character to another may cause new drawings to go missing. HAR-8899

  • Harmony may crash when typing in the Node View’s Quick insert. HAR-8850

  • The Transform tool bounding box is at the wrong position when using bitmap drawings with weighted or freeform deformers. HAR-7787

  • Harmony freezes when trying to read a TVG that has metadata. HAR-8409

Rendering and Pipeline Integration

  • Harmony may crash with a memory corruption while rendering a scene in batch if a large number of rendering threads are used. HAR-7875

  • Small or simple drawings are sometimes missing from rendered frames when rendering using multiple threads on fast processors. HAR-9012

  • Workstations that don't have a GPU may not have the OpenCL libraries installed and will fail loading plugins that use OpenCL for GPU rendering, such as blurs. HAR-8693

  • Harmony may become unresponsive for a while when rendering asset snapshots for Toon Boom Producer. HAR-8817

  • [macOS] Harmony is unable to save scenes on filesystems that do not support hard links such as LucidLink cloud NAS. HAR-8806

Database / Control Center

  • Palettes are locked during batch renders if colours are being recovered. HAR-8536

  • When 'Update Database Scene' fails the error reporting is uninformative and sometimes wrong. HAR-8843

  • Locks can be taken on the root folder, preventing locks to any other folders in the database. HAR-8556

  • Rendering through Control Center's scripting interface does not use the scene’s default camera if it is not specified by name. HAR-8403

  • [Windows] WebCC does not start on a new Windows installation due to missing MSVCR120.dll in path. HAR-8873

  • Harmony randomly crashes when running specific scene setup scripts. HAR-8838

  • Using the ’‘Update Database Scene” command can corrupt the scene in the database if the scene was changed since it was exported offline. To address this issue, a new dictionary file named export.dict has been added to Harmony 21.0.4. The export.dict file will have to be manually copied to the /USA_DB/dicts/ folder in existing Harmony databases. New databases created using Harmony 21.0.4 have the new dictionary file. HAR-8858

Import / Export

  • PSD files saved with Adobe Photoshop 2021 or later are blank once imported. HAR-8835

  • [Windows] PNG image files cannot be written to folders that have non-english characters in their name. HAR-8902

Performance

  • Top and Side views take a long time to refresh while thumbnails are being rendered. HAR-8760

Scripting

  • addNodeToSelectionNode, addNodesToSelectionNode and removeNodeFromSelection in the selection class do not work with backdrops correctly. HAR-8391