Harmony 25.1 Release Notes

Harmony 25.1, build 24630 (2025-12-02)

New Features

New Licensing Technology

A new licensing system and a new License Wizard is introduced in Harmony 25.1. The new License Wizard provides a simplified user interface and activation process, and supports new licensing technology that will allow managing licenses remotely.

A new version of licenses is required in order to manage them remotely. These version 2 licences will be rolled out progressively over the next few months to studios and individual users.

The License Wizard user interface has been updated to present a more modern and streamline experience.

The Manage Licenses in your Account window is a centralized location where you can view all your Toon Boom product licenses at a glance. From this page you can view the product name, product key and expiry date of your license subscriptions.

Optimize Backup Files

The Optimize Backup Files operation can be used to remove unused backup files from your scene folder. This lightens scenes and allows Harmony to source the necessary elements without needing to sort through unused data files.

The Optimize Backup Files dialog only lists files that are unused in your Harmony scene. The backup files that appear in the Optimize Backup Files dialog are listed by file name, file size and the file path.

3D File Units

A new option named “Use File Units” has been added to the Layer Properties for 3D models. Previously Harmony was ignoring the units stored in the header of 3D files. This meant that an object that was 1 centimeter and an object that was 1 meter would have the same mesh size in Harmony. It also required specific steps to account for this when exporting 3D models to ensure they would work correctly in Harmony. This is no longer required when “Use File Units” is enabled. Harmony will now use the stored units in the 3D file and account for them correctly.

Any 3D models imported in older versions of Harmony will have this option turned off by default and will appear the same as it did in those versions. However this option will be enabled by default for any 3D models imported with Harmony 25.1. This means that models exported for use in previous versions of Harmony may import at a different scale than before. If the original behaviour is required, “Use File Units” can be unchecked after the file is imported.

Improvements

Ember Functionalities

Toon Boom Ember functionalities are now enabled by default in this release of Harmony.

A free Ember license, which is included with subscription licenses of Harmony, is required for these tools to work.

If you are not using a subscription license of Harmony, you can request a free Ember license add-on by sending an email to licensor@toonboom.com. Please include the email address linked to your Toon Boom account, as well as which product, Harmony or Storyboard Pro, you are requesting the add-on license for.

For more information, see Activating Ember.

Ember functionalities can be disabled by unchecking the “Enable Ember Functionalities” preference, located in the Advanced tab of the Preferences window.

General

  • Optimized the Drawing Substitution view’s thumbnail generation to improve performance and reduce latency.

  • New templates created in 25.1 no longer contain every palette in the palette list and only contain palettes used by the drawings in the template.

  • The Script node now supports HDR and floating point values.

  • The Composite-Generic node now supports OpenGL shaders, allowing its effect to be visible in the Camera view when the “Render Blending Modes” preference is enabled.

  • Rendering of blur effects using graphic card acceleration now supports running on multiple concurrent tasks to improve performance. A new preference named “Number of Concurrent Tasks” is available in the Render tab of the preferences and can be used to limit the number of concurrent tasks allowed.

External Rendering

  • Harmony scenes no longer have to be reloaded after importing a 3D model for the RenderMayaBatch and RenderBlenderBatch nodes to function correctly with it.

  • The RenderBlenderBatch node has been updated to account for changes made to non-linear animations in Blender 4.4.

Master Controller

  • The Grid and Stack Master Controllers now have the option to turn interpolation off or on.

  • CTRL/CMD keys can now be used to toggle the interpolation mode of Master Controller made with the Slider Wizard.

Scripting

  • node::moveToGroup now returns the new path of the moved node instead of the path of the group.

  • node::moveToGroup now has a boolean parameter to enable or disable auto-connection.

  • The following functions have been added to the scripting API to interact with scenes using the Compact File Structure.

    scene::isCompacted

    scene::uncompact

    scene::buildVFSPath

    scene::clearVFSCache

    fileMapper::toVFSPath

    fileMapper::VFSPathToString

Fixes

General

  • Element Palettes remain in the Palette list after the Element is deleted. HAR-11170

  • On Mac, the Optimize Palettes/Drawings dialogs are not completely modal, allowing users to interact with menus and potentially causing crashes. HAR-11406

  • When opening a database scene from the command line with the light theme enabled, the Color View background incorrectly uses the dark theme colour. HAR-11329

  • A crash occurs when using “New Palette From Selected Drawings” with an element module that is not linked to an element. HAR-11361

  • The Pose Copier script no longer functions unless “Paste by Layer Name” explicitly is selected. HAR-11257

  • Newly linked palettes appear striked out until the scene is saved and reloaded. HAR-11330

  • The Edit Pencil Line Properties tool does not work with synced layers that are missing their original parent layer. HAR-11320

  • Add/remove exposure does not work when used on a frame with empty exposures and “Animate using Animation Tool” is not enabled. HAR-10952

  • View toolbars can be deactivated when a tab is dragged out of its panel if the remaining tabs do not have toolbars. HAR-9139

  • View specific toolbars only appear when the view is in a saved layout before Harmony is launched. HAR-9406

  • Incorrect premultiplication is causing antialiasing artifacts when loading PNG images in the Play application. HAR-1116

  • Drawings belonging to unlinked elements appear without names in the Optimize Drawings dialog. HAR-11172

  • When “Advanced Display” is enabled, snapshots use the default display instead of the one set in the Camera view. HAR-10895

  • The default colour and pencil texture palettes are not written on disk when opening a new scene from the database without the scene asset lock. HAR-11336

  • The Top and Side views occasionally fail to display elements with the correct drawing and/or zoom level, when FSAA is enabled. HAR-9524

  • The visual representation of a Timeline range selection disappears when the current frame is changed but the actual selection still remains. HAR-10690

3D

  • When using Vulkan 3D Rendering, some scenes use an excessive amount of memory which can cause Harmony to crash. HAR-11258

  • Clicking a Quaternion or 3D Path layer from a Subnode Animation or Subnode Override node in the Timeline view will unexpectedly deselect the 3D model. HAR-11289

  • Clicking an attribute layer from a Subnode Animation or Subnode Override nodeI in the Timeline view does not select the 3D model. HAR-11294

Compact File Structure

  • The “Cache scene assets locally” option can be enabled when opening a Compact File which will cause drawings to be corrupted. HAR-11335

  • The file path for unlinked palettes in the "Optimize Palettes" dialog is incorrect when the scene is compacted HAR-11096

  • The Unity/Godot gaming export scripts fail to function correctly with scenes in the Compact File Structure. HAR-10845

Effects/Comp

  • Visual artifacts appear in 32-bit scenes when the "Replace" blend mode is combined with a Blur effect. HAR-11324

  • The Dither node renders incorrect results when connected to a Tone or Highlight node. HAR-11203

  • “clFFT resources not freed” message appears in the terminal when closing a scene after rendering a blur using graphic card acceleration. HAR-11239

Ember (AI)

  • Using the Clear mask operation on some Toon Boom bitmap drawings will cause the bounds for subsequent AI mask operations to be cropped. HAR-11211

External Rendering

  • Animations rendered via the RenderBlenderBatch node using a USDZ file are offset by one frame compared with a FBX file from the same source. HAR-11198

Import / Export

  • Some Illustrator files take much longer to import in Harmony 24 and 25 than they did in previous versions. HAR-11256

  • The last frame is sometimes duplicated when importing a video file on Windows. HAR-10924

Library

  • The "Always create new drawings" option in the Template preferences does not function correctly. HAR-11276

  • Entering a non-existent drawing name in the Library view applies a blank exposure. HAR-10738

  • The Drawing Substitution view and Library view incorrectly display drawings in alphabetical order instead of the numerical order. HAR-11267

Linux

  • A memory leak occurs when repeatedly resizing the OpenGL Camera view with Render Effects or Optimized Node Caching enabled. HAR-11321

  • When inserting a template in a scene, the palette confirmation window causes Harmony to freeze. HAR-11086

Nodes

  • The Loop-Transformation node does not work on drawings deformed by Shape Aware Deformers. HAR-10007

  • The Cryptomatte Preview image does not update when the camera is moved. HAR-10571

  • The Cryptomatte eyedropper cannot correctly reference the output from RenderMayaBatch, RenderBlenderBatch and Script nodes. HAR-10417

  • Harmony will crash on frames where a Transformation Limit node has a child node with a scale of 0. HAR-11261

  • Typing in the Folder or Filename attributes of a Write node causes the cursor to jump to the end of the field. HAR-11489

  • The Point Kinematic Output node does not work properly with Free Form and Shape Aware Deformers. HAR-11275

OpenGL

  • Drawing in a Camera view that has a colour space conversion applied causes visual flickering with certain effects when Render Effect and Quality AA are enabled. HAR-11326

  • The Glow node does not apply its blend mode correctly in the OpenGL preview when OpenGL effects are enabled. HAR-11138

  • The Shadow node with Invert Matte enabled does not render the matte inversion correctly in the OpenGL preview. HAR-11142

Palettes

  • Palettes located in the environment level, job level, preferences folder and installation folder are incorrectly shown in the Optimize Palettes dialog. HAR-11212

  • Element palettes without a parent element do not appear as unlinked in the "Optimize Palettes" dialog. HAR-11169

Port Filter

  • The selection behaviour is inconsistent when marquee selecting port names. HAR-9213

  • The "Add Filter to In Port(s)" and "Add Name to Port(s)" toolbar buttons are disabled when a port is selected but no node is selected. HAR-11035

Python

  • When rendering with a pre-render script, it's possible to have a segfault error when closing the application. HAR-11393

  • OMC::Node::move_to fails with a TypeError when the target group's path is a string. HAR-11286

  • OMC::ProjectNamedResolution::projection does not have setter and getter methods. HAR-10922

  • OMC::Cable::flat_cable validation is incorrect and results in errors. HAR-11179

Scripting

  • TB_LinkToElementPalettes script does not work properly with sync layers. HAR-11182

  • Script packages stored in the database user preferences folder are not being loaded by Harmony. HAR-11278

  • Using Action::perform with "owner" as the responder parameter causes Harmony to crash. HAR-11295

  • func::angleEaseIn and func::angleEaseOut return incorrect values. HAR-10832

  • Relative paths do not work in packages loaded from an environment variable path. HAR-10858

  • Using an invalid index with Timeline::setLayerEnabled and Timeline::layerEnabled can cause Harmony to crash. HAR-11126

  • The TB_RemoveUnusedColors script incorrectly removes colors that are still in use in the scene. HAR-10925

SWF

  • Non-inverted cutters become inverted in exported SWFs when the horizontal resolution is smaller than the vertical resolution. HAR-11376

  • The base scale of lines in exported SWF files with non-scalable line thickness enabled changes relative to the vertical resolution of the scene. HAR-11375

Database

  • The database scene modification hash-key is incorrectly affected by the removal of backup files and causes otherwise valid imports to fail. HAR-11043

WebCC

  • Partial packages generated from Harmony with SceneOffline::createDatabasePartialUpdatePackage have incorrect default import settings. HAR-11331

Xsheet

  • The XSheet Status Bar's frame number is one frame ahead of the actual frame. HAR-11283

  • The XSheet view's frame numbers no longer display scene marker colours. HAR-11226

  • Fill Selection", "Sequence Fill" and "Set 3D animation timing" only apply to the last selected frame if the Timeline view gains focus. HAR-11078

  • The "Hide Selected Column" shortcut (Alt-Shift-H) will trigger an undo command instead of the intended operation. HAR-11122

  • The "Go to Previous Drawing" shortcut (F) incorrectly jumps to the first exposed frame of the current drawing rather than the first frame of the previous drawing. HAR-11284