i have yet to get my hands on the harmony 14 upgrade, so i can’t fully comment on what’s new/fixed (yet another gripe i have with toonboom, extremely pokey about sending out update/upgrade information to paid maintenance subscribers!).
that said, i’m pretty unmoved by the bullet-point list of new features, especially with the implied giant leap forward that compels toonboom to officially skip a version number. with that sort of confident jump ahead, i’d expect some kind of “ground-up” rewrite of mired legacy code, or so many new features and/or fixes to long-standing giant, well-known bugs that, well of course they couldn’t fit it into a single version increment! alas, here we are and they only have 4-6 items that are new to h14 (some of the new features being adjustments to the 3d tools, which remain useless to many premium customers such as myself)… what?! i just don’t understand toon boom’s business model any more, might be the last year of my contract renewal, i dunno.
i’ve stated before that i (we) don’t really need new features or version increments at this time; bug fixes and improvements to the existing tools would be much more valuable. how many non-studio entities are actually using the 3d toolset boondoggle that toonboom keeps insisting that we pay for, regardless whether we are using it or not? are the palette locations still being reset at every project launch? is the unity export toolset still crippled? is the documentation still fragmented, redundant and difficult to engage with for answers? without an update tracking history, don’t even know what is “still broken” //-- oops, there is a release note page, i’ve linked to it below.
Which begs the question - how does one submit a feature request to TB? Is it only by support ticket and then you don’t hear anything back? Or, is TB only asking or listening to big studios about what features they want? When has TB asked you about what features you wanted to see in Harmony? I’ve never been asked.
Seems to me they don’t listen to single animators, even though, we would have paid the same price for the same software. I completely agree with you 6 features is not alot. Two of those features (Deep compositing and 3D animation) I won’t even be able to use… The others are just improvements on existing features or workarounds have been found in the pipeline.
where are the known issues? i see the list of fixes, but i’m referring to a section that lists significant remaining/unfixable issues that the team knows about. am i not seeing something obvious? of course this is your prerogative whether you divulge this info or not, but it is nice to see acknowledgement of existing problems that might manifest for harmony users.
I really wish snap to contour was fixed for line tool/pencil tool (the entire draw screen bugs out and things jump non stop glitching the entire screen). Happened throughout all of version 12, and same for version 14. I’ve used both windows 8 and 10 and it happens in both (have a gtx 970). It goes crazy when i try to move the mouse around and if i zoom in/out it just goes absolutely bonkers (in both regular view and draw view).
I have a perpetual license for Harmony Premium and no support contract so I’m not eligible for an automatic upgrade. I knew that I could have purchased a support contract for over $500 AU before the release of 14, but I wanted to wait and see the new features first (or at least get an idea) so I could make up my mind whether or not it was worth upgrading or buying a support contract. Unfortunately there was no information or hints about new features so I passed. I’m ok with that, that was my decision. The things that REALLy disappoints me is that I need to pay $1600 AU to upgrade to get all of those bugs fixed. IMO the fix list outweighs the new features list and I don’t think it’s right that I should have to pay that much for bug fixes. So what, I keep using a frustrating, buggy version of Harmony 12 or pay $1600 AU to get it fixed? Yes, I’m having a whinge. Sigh. Like many people I’ve been trying to work on projects in Harmony 12, dealing with crashes, tools that worked inconsistenly, trying to meet deadlines. I was constantly checking for updates which didn’t come. Dissapointing.
Thank you for your feedback. We appreciate you sharing your comments and we take them into consideration.
Would it be possible to know what build you are using?
I would be interested to know more about the issues you are having and if some of them are resolved in 14 or not.
Maybe we can see if there is something that can be done in Harmony 12 to handle some of them.
I’ve been posting them on the forum as they appear. Mostly I’ve had issues with performance and tools acting inconsistenly. Here’s a just a few things that I’ve been experiencing that slow me down.
All three of these methods should do the same thing: Insert Keyframe. But one of them acts differently.
If I use the keyboard shortcut F6 it creates a keyframe on selected layer and all nested collapsed layers (like it should).
If I click the ‘Insert keyframe’ button on the timeline toolbar it also works like it should.
Right click and choose ‘Insert Keyframe’. This only creates a keyframe on that particular layer even when nested layers are collapsed. (This is the method I was using before I realised it wasn’t creating keyframes on collapsed layers). It took me ages to work this out.
I have major issues with performance which I didn’t have before V12. Harmony is basically unusable. I would move an object in camera view and it would either crash, or come to a complete stop for minutes at a time. The following things helped, but not always:
Had all toolbars expanded so that I had no >> showing.
Drawing in Render View was actually faster than Open GL view. That’s right, drawing in RENDER VIEW. There will be a lot of people who think that’s around the wrong way but it worked for me, sometimes.
Deformation causes all sorts of trouble with performance too. Not even complicated rigs either. Also, If you are in deformation setup mode and click the “reset deformation” button under “Operations” on the Tool Properties tab it will only reset the deformer on that keyframe. But if you click the “reset deformation” button on the deformation toolbar, (whether you’re in deformation setup or not) it will wipe all keyframes and animation.
I’ve never gotten a movie to work with the animation codec for some reason. Every time I try to export a movie it’s an unplayable file so I have to export image sequences instead.
As I remember more issues I’ve had I’ll post them.
I run Harmony on a 2011 Macbook Pro with the latest OS. I know that to have optimal performance I’ll need to upgrade soon and that’s ok. I was just keen to see if the performance would be better with an upgrade and little quirks would be fixed for us V12 users too.
I don’t even know how to activate my upgrade. All my Harmony 12 installs are gone and replaced with Harmony 14 and an upgrade code. However, this code doesn’t work for activation. Where am I supposed to use it?
I’m in a similar situation - less than 6 months since purchasing a perpetual license for Harmony Premium 12, no support contract and now left feeling extremely disappointed that there will be no more bug fixes.
I really wish snap to contour was fixed for line tool/pencil tool (the entire draw screen bugs out and things jump non stop glitching the entire screen). Happened throughout all of version 12, and same for version 14. I’ve used both windows 8 and 10 and it happens in both (have a gtx 970). It goes crazy when i try to move the mouse around and if i zoom in/out it just goes absolutely bonkers (in both regular view and draw view).
This issue is not a bug but a result of the graphic card. To make sure that you won’t have this issue anymore, go to the Preferences > OpenGL tab and then change the state of the “Support Desktop Effects” option.
