Preference: Hinge vs Bone Deformer

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…

Well if you find any community of talkative Toon Boom users lets us know.

I have been looking and there does not appear to be anywhere with such activity.

When Lilly was with Toon Boom she might produce a video based off a couple of posted comments showing a need for clarification. Yet even then a couple or a few people from the user community might thank her or ask a question but there wasn’t much ongoing activity stimulated as a result. The tutorials were very good and useful. People just did not continue to talk about anything.

Maybe companies send their employees out for training and they only talk among their own and do not venture into the public forums. Seems like freelancers and more often than not struggling artists, hobbyists and outright beginners come here looking for answers. Most people do not come back very often.

Anything coming close to a discussion ends quickly.

IK has been touched upon here and there in a thread or video but it is not really discussed in depth. Maybe you can take from that Bone and Curve Deformers are preferred?

My question wasn’t so much about the preference between IK and Bone Deformers, but Hinged Joints and Bone Deformers. I see pretty much an even amount of tutorials between regular cut-out hinged joints, using pegs (and FK since there’s no IK in the basic peg system), and Bone Deformers. I suppose many preferences would be determined based on the needs of the character and the animation, however I’m finding myself preferring bone deformers, and keeping things like arms and legs in a solid piece instead of breaking them up into upper, lower arms and hands… But I am more interested in the IK, because it can make animating much simpler… Especially if there were target or target bones, which I don’t think TB has…