Any way to determine XY values in a scene?

Harmony Harmony Support and Troubleshooting
1

Hi there,

I’ve been using the amazing crop module for some time now.
But there’s one thing I don’t get when editing the properties.

I have several objects in my scene that I want to be rendered separately, and finding these objects by blindly typing in the offset can be quite difficult when you’re in a 7000 pixels wide scene.
That makes it a guessing game since I can’t really say where my objects are exactly.

So is there any kind of panel (that’s probably disabled by default) telling me the exact coordinates of my cursor or the object itself?

I always end up with empty sprites because I entered the wrong XY values. After two or three attempts when I finally hit it, it’s still cut though.
So it can take up to five or six attempts until I get the object rendered correctly and that’s annoying.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

2

I am away from home on my laptop without the software so I am just quickly pulling this from Google.

In Drawing View the coordinates are displayed across the bottom of the view window frame. This does not indicate the object’s position as it relates to a scene but it does display the cursor coordinates in the Drawing View.:
https://docs.toonboom.com/help/harmony-10.3/Content/HAR/Stage/004_Drawing/007_H1_Drawing_View.html

EDIT: There is also use of a field chart that might help.

http://docs.toonboom.com/help/harmony-12/premium/Content/_CORE/_Workflow/031_Effects/058B_H2_FieldChart.html

Perhaps it is a start in the right direction when looking for the object’s location in a scene.

Unfortunately, I think everything is based on a start position of 0, 0, 0 and the movement from its original starting position. Nothing seems to measure the object’s position relative to the scene.

Good luck!

3

Those coordinates for the cursor aren’t they based on the field chart?

Say I have a square drawn and then I select it with the transform tool, before I press down and move it, I instead move the cursor left to right and top to down of the frame of the 1920x1080 project, those coordinates go from -16 to 16 for the X, and go from 12 to -12 for the Y.

What I would like to see in future versions of Harmony is how it is in other software that has 3D space. For example if I am in Apple’s Motion. I draw a Square that is say 200 x 200 pixels and it is in the center of the scene that is 1920 x1080. I can go into the coordinates of that Square and punch in -960 for the X and 540 for the Y and that Square is now in the upper left hand corner of the project.

If we had coordinates like this it would allow for alignment of objects and probably make using the Crop module easier too. Unless there is some hidden checkbox somewhere?

4

Sorry for my late response and thanks for your replies, but I’m afraid the cursor coordinates won’t help.
I recently found a more or less elegant solution I can live with.

Create a new drawing and draw a huge rectangle, paint it red or whatever color you like, we use this as a template.
The sides don’t have to be perfectly straight.
On the contrary, be sloppy and make them a bit tilted or curved, that makes it easier for you in the render view later.

Now make sure that your display module is connected to the crop module instead of the composite and swap to the render view.
You’ll notice that it only renders the area that’s inside the crop module.

Since my character animations are on a transparent background, I needed something to tell where exactly the edges of the cropped area are going (my initial problem), so I don’t have to export everytime just to find out that parts my animation are cut off.

With the rectangle in it, you can now see it immediately.
See:
http://fs5.directupload.net/images/160718/hbx6kpts.gif

Once you’ve found a good positioning for everything, just turn off the rectangle and start the export.

5

Hi 10tacle,

You can select your Crop node and display its control with View > Show Controls.
Using the Translate tool, you can move the Crop box around. It might make your process simpler.
You can see the crop box in OpenGL.

http://docs.toonboom.com/help/harmony-14/premium/motion-path/display-control.html?Highlight=show%20control

http://docs.toonboom.com/help/harmony-14/premium/staging/use-translate-tool.html?Highlight=translate%20tool

I hope this helps.

Marie-Eve

6

Hi Marie-Eve,

just tested it out and it is amazing!
That’s definitely going to make things easier.

Thank you for your help.

7

Awesome!!!

I’m really happy it worked!

Marie-Eve