After making characters in Harmony I would like to export to a vector format for editing the art in promotional images.
PDF export creates a flat non layered and non vector image that can’t be modified in Illustrator, SWF export can’t be opened by any current editing program.
How to do it?
I see this has been a problem since at least 2007, so it must have been fixed by now?
https://forums.toonboom.com/toon-boom-studio/general-discussion/export-to-vector-image-sequence
Why do you say it’s a “problem”? Harmony is conceived as a vector animation software, so it has options to import art, bitmap or vector, to make the final vector work, it was not meant to be an intermediate stage in vector drawing. I think you’d find similar scenarios with other software, I don’t know, can you export effect layers from After Effects to Nuke or something like that? In most cases you will use one or the other software. Of course, more options is better than less options, but I wonder if, by the manufacturers point-of-view, being able to export vectors to continue work in another software wouldn’t be conceding Harmony isn’t good enough for that work.
You can add a suggestion on the Feature Requests board.
Harmony provides everything to make the characters, but if you then need to make scalable vector artwork of those characters afterwards and you can’t export to vector, then that’s a very big problem.
I don’t care about what other software lacks because I’m trying Harmony and these are the Toon Boom forums.
Of course, more options is better than less options, but I wonder if, by the manufacturers point-of-view, being able to export vectors to continue work in another software wouldn’t be conceding Harmony isn’t good enough for that work.
Harmony is for animating, not for making artwork, so it wouldn’t make sense if they thought that.
Well said Luis.
I understand your point, I’m just pointing out that the fact that any software not doing something is not necessarily a “problem”. That doesn’t mean it cannot be a feature to be added in the future. So you should definitely suggest it on the Feature Requests board. Harmony imports all sorts of files, including 3D, scans drawing on paper and can be used for digital traditional or cut-out animation. But it was conceived as a final stage in animation production or compositing, hence exporting options are mainly the export of final frames or for compositing on a third party software, in the form of bitmap or video files, not to continue a type of work the software actually does on another software.
–
Luis Canau
Not well said, saying that it’s not a problem doesn’t help me or the lots of people wanting to do this since 10 years ago.
I’ve found now that Opentoonz can convert the art made with it to standard SVG format. Very useful.
Speaking of OpenToonz: you could export your Harmony art as a high resolution bitmap, and import that into OpenToonz - then convert to a high quality vector version, and export to SVG. It is also possible to work in layers, exporting parts as you need, and reconstruct the final vector files in a vector illustration app. Also remember that OT can either export SVG outlines or center lines: the center lines will not maintain variable thickness, of course. Exporting as center lines can at times be useful, though - using native vector software’s variable thickness tools to adjust later as you see fit.
I’m sorry that I made a comment that didn’t solved your problem. I only tried to explain why, even if it’s something that you can request as a feature to be added to Harmony (and I suggested you do so), it’s not really a (software) problem considering the context in which the software was conceived for and in the pipeline most people and studios use it. In the same way that, for instance, it’s not an Adobe problem if I can’t export a brush from Photoshop to use directly in Harmony. But it’s great OpenToonz does what you want and maybe that’s something Toon Boom will add later to Harmony.