I find it odd that there’s not much general discussion about animation techniques, or tips and special tricks when using this software. I use a couple other 2D animation applications that tend to have a more lively community. Are there other places on the interwebs where Harmony or even Animate Pro users are hanging out?
I’ve had pretty much all versions of ToonBoo’s animation applications, starting with Studio many, many years ago. I think that first version was the one right before bones were introduced. I’ve also had Animate Pro 3 for a long while as well, upgrading from Studio. Although truth to tell, I rarely ever used Animate Pro. I found the whole node compositor or node netwrok thing waay too confusing. I was more interested in wanting to animate than I was in learning that cumbersome and confusing thing. I switched to Anime Studio Pro, which I still like, but I find it’s drawing tools tedious. And even though it’s bones system is capable of a lot of way cool things, I find the actual binding process to a PITA, and often a trial to get correct.
Recently I was offered a great deal to upgrade from Animate Pro 3 to Harmony Premium, and thought it was a pretty good deal, although I still had great reservations about the node network thingie… But I did it anyways. Oddly enough, I don’t find it nearly as intimidating as I once did.
So now here I am, eager to start working in Harmony. I’ve got a few ideas for things I’m wanting to do, but am trying to decide whether I want to use hinged joints for everything, or bone deformers. I think it’s more a matter of preference as to which to choose, but I’m curious about others preferences. I’m also curious as to why there’s so little information or tutorials for using IK in Harmony. I assume it’s not available with bone deformers, which honestly makes no sense, but is with hinged joints, right? Either few people use it, or there’s just nobody doing tutorials for it…