What software to choose?

Hi, i’m new here, but not quite new in animation. Lately i have been wondering what program from these:

  • Harmony essentials
  • Harmony advanced
  • Harmony premium
  • StoryBoardPro
    choose.

I’m interested in both 3D and 2D animation. My question is in what level Harmony can support 3D? Is it possible to model 3D characters who are able to be animated in Harmony? I’ve seen on this tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvhHtGJfHb4
that it’s possible to create prisms. But is it possible to create more spherical figures possible to animate?

And is the StoryBoardPro needed to create a movie itself? Or has it only an assisting role?

Harmony is a 2d software, you can import some 3d props and vehicles but, is a 2d software,

if you like 3d, go with Autodeks Maya, or Blender 3d,

2d animation, Harmony is the best :wink:

As long as I know, from Harmony premium you can import 3D objects made in other software, and animate them in 3D coordinates, but you can’t have a skinned model like a human rig, for example.

If you are interested in 3D I recommend you maya, 3ds max, blender or another software like those.

Harmony is used to make 2D animations, and it’s awesome in that, simply the best (some would argue that TV Paint is better). The different versions (essentials, advanced and premium) contain more or less tools, depending on what you’re paying for. Premium has all the tools you need to make animations in a professional fashion, but you can get very good results with essentials or advanced. A good idea would be to try the 21 trial days for each in this order: essentials, advanced and premium.

Storyboard Pro helps you to make storyboards for animations and it works very well with toon boom. As long as I know, StoryBoard Pro by itself is not a good choice for doing animations, it’s better when accompanied by other packages, 2D or 3D.

Thanks for help. I already purchased Harmony Premium and i keep learning :slight_smile: . The thing is that i want some elements like characters’ heads to be in 3D. Is it possible to animate it outside Harmony? Like i’m creating few different heads with different face expressions in some Maya-like editor and then i’m importing them to the Harmony? Would it be handy to switch between those expressions in Harmony? Are there some freeware editors that i could use for model 3D characters?

Awesome, I’m enjoying a lot my premium’s license.

As far as I know, it’s not possible, you can’t switch between objects or expressions or do blending between shapes, I guess you can try to parent both objects to the same peg and hide one and show the other one, I’m just guessing, I don’t have real experience in using 3D objects inside harmony.

What I understand about the 3D objects in harmony is that they are static, but you can move, rotate and scale them. So you can animate a ship’s door closing and opening as long as it’s a separate object from the rest of the ship.

Some people use prerendered images. Another option could be animating the 2D parts in harmony and load them in the 3D package as a series of transparent png.

An excellent free option is Blender. If you are interested in quick 3d characters, consider the completely free character laboratory add-on (which installs in Blender) from Manuel Bastioni. It includes both realistic and manga characters. Any facial expression can be created. All parameters can be animated.

https://www.blender.org/
http://www.manuelbastioni.com/manuellab.php

Or use MakeHuman, and import the rigged models in Blender.
http://www.makehuman.org/

It sounds like a lot of frame by frame work if i want to make a fluid animation.
I think about making whole 3D animation in Blender, as hvanderwegen said, and then exporting it as 2D images to the Harmony.

Yes, i’ve been testing it by creating 3D buildings or rooms. Very cool feature, however i think it’s impossible to make more curved objects like heads.