Re: eraser and brush
Posted: 26 Jan 2021, 16:16
I do not like using Harmony for hand drawn animation (rigged puppet animation is another thing entirely) , I much prefer TVPaint, but I think a nice import script for importing TVPaint to Harmony, keeping all the exposures and layering intact would be useful. (similar to the existing TVPaint to After Effects JSON script). The script would automatically import and vectorize the line art when it is brought into Harmony. This would allow animators who prefer to animate in TVPaint to continue doing their animation in TVPaint , but deliver their scenes as Harmony files if that is what the production requires. (Usually this is because colouring work is being shipped to one of the big ink & paint service studios in the Philippines , Korea, or Taiwan who are set up to use a mass production ink & paint pipeline in Harmony.)
We TVPaint users can shout from the rooftops about how TVPaint is better than Harmony for doing traditional style hand drawn animation, but ToonBoom (like Adobe) is not going to go away. Better to have a peaceful co-existence than extinction , in my opinion. As a long-time TVPaint "evangelist" perhaps some will think I have succumbed to heresy and departed from the true faith by suggesting such a thing, but I think it just provides more options for independent/freelance animators who would prefer to continue using TVPaint, but must deal with the reality that Harmony is the predominant 2D animation software of the animation industry in the United States, Canada, South America, Korea, Philippines, etc.
I think such a script is not impossible. For example: Rough Animator (a software written and sold by one person, Jacob Kafka) has scripts available to import Rough Animator scenes to Adobe Animate (Flash) , or to After Effects, or to Toonboom Harmony. The script imports all drawings with the timing (exposures) and layering intact , from Rough Animator to Harmony .