Get best of the week

Flash, “Whether he dies again is unknown, but the flowers disappear ...”

I always did all the animation in Adobe Animate CC. And then all these dying flash, multiple burials, chants, which are probably exaggerated. But the sediment, as it happens, remained. Remained in the form of a question: In general, is there anything better for 2D animation, other than Adobe solutions? I will not retell how, but after many installations and de, I came to Toon Boom Harmony.

If you read a lot of laziness, then Yes. The answer is yes. I stayed on Harmony and don’t want to go back. Who cares to find out why and try on what is known to your needs, I recommend reading further.

My first acquaintance with flash happened, as with many people, from watching Masyanya in shaggy years. Well, over time, I became a fan, who had already become by then Animate CC with all its capabilities and dullnesses. By the way, Adobe software is really great for a beginner. Quite easy to understand yourself and a large number of materials in Russian. And certainly for a beginner the functionality is more than enough.

Canadian Harmony is different. There are practically no materials in Russian. All that is - experienced years to outdated versions of this program. In English - the picture is noticeably different and there are a lot of materials - from the whole official courses, available for free on the developer's website, to amateur ones.

The first installation of Harmony and ta-damm ....! Nothing! My first experience at Harmony was so confusing to me - when I installed the new software, I couldn’t do anything familiar - neither draw, nor animate. As a result, I concluded that for this tricked out software my laptop of 8 years ago simply does not pull. Studying the manuals from the original source in English, after 2 weeks I only found out that this software is completely different from everything that I came across before (After Effect, Illustrator, etc.). He has his own logic and this logic is completely focused on professional animation of full-length cartoons, television series, starting from the classic frame-by-frame “live” animation from sheets of paper and ending with modern compositing tools. Only a few weeks later, having figured out switching the Draw / Zoom / Animate modes, I was ablefor the first time on it, sanitizing a frame-by-frame animation of the ball and realizing that in front of me is a completely different warehouse and it's so easy to figure it out is not easy. My attempts to master it by typing only led to annoyance and reading / watching manuals on it was simply necessary.

It took me almost 1 year to get comfortable with Harmony. This is definitely a solution neither for beginners, nor for doubters, or for those who want to just try, indulge in something new. Do not waste your time. It is necessary to clearly understand why you climb into it and what you want to get in the end. What did I get?

  1. Once in the past, food processors gained popularity due to their combine harvester, and indeed they were cute at that time ... Harmony is, in Adobian terms, an Illustrator, Animate, After Effect, Character program combine - all this here in one program . Due to this, you definitely get an increase in work efficiency and it’s just damn nice to stay in one window and get the result often much better.
  2. , (Node – 3D, 2D ), , , «» (Peg), , . , . , , , .
  3. , – , , . , . , . - (, ) – . , .
  4. . . , .
  5. . . , , .
  6. 3D- 2D-, «» , .
  7. – () – , , …
  8. TOP – 3D-.
  9. 360 .
  10. – , .

What was not enough for me in Harmony, but it was in flash? Nothing! In Harmony, it turned out everything that a professional animator needed and much more than that.

There is still one minus - Harmony is not able to use a video chip for rendering. Therefore, take the maximum processor for it, you can take the most ordinary video card.

Harmony is a heavyweight among 2D animation programs. And almost always, one-time products are easier to make in the Adobian universe. But if you plan to do some kind of project, then Harmony will ultimately make your work much more efficient, not to mention the unlimited possibilities that open up.

How long does it take to learn Harmony? A lot of. It will take about a year to understand the logic of her work. I mean, really understand. Not that feeling when you seem to know. This software has a strange learning curve - it seems that it creates a false impression that you know everything and a new layer opens, which completely destroys the previous simplified picture. And to study all its functionality and capabilities - it will take several years. But it’s worth it if you decide to seriously get down to business.

More articles:


All Articles