Skip to main content

Review: Toon Boom Harmony 14 - What I learned in 21 Days

Toon Boom Harmony is widely considered the industry standard for primarily 2D animation. You don't get to be that if your software isn't exceptional.

However, industry standard and exceptional usually translates to steep learning curve and probably contains more features than I'll ever use. So, in reviewing the latest version, Harmony 14, I'm setting out to answer two questions; How easy is it to learn the basics and is it software an independent artist/animator, like myself, should seriously consider as their go to, 2D animation studio of choice?


Toon Boom were kind enough to give me a 90 day Harmony Premium license for this review (Harmony is also available in Essentials and Advanced versions) but I thought, since they offer a free 21 day trial, I'll give myself that to write this review. Will it be enough to answer my two previous questions and is a 21 day trial enough for you to make a decision as well?

Let's find out...

To be clear, I'm not setting out to review features and compare them to other animation software I've used because Harmony is quite a complex animation studio. With virtually no prior knowledge of Harmony, how much could I seriously learn within 21 days to be able to say this is the tool for you?

Watch Toon Boom's promotional video below. If it inspires you to know more then this review will tell you what's in store when it comes to trialing the product for yourself.




Time is not on your side...


The first hurdle is, who has 21 days to learn anything? It's more likely you'll get maybe five to seven non consecutive days to learn as much as you can before your trial expires. I think I managed about five or six full, non-consecutive days, before writing this review. I should say I wasn't expecting to learn everything but I was hoping to get an insight into the Harmony features that would make a compelling argument for me to adopt the software as my preferred 2D animation studio.

Unfortunately I was barely able to scratch the surface of what Harmony has to offer in the time I was able to devote to learning the basics. It's likely that will be your experience too. In 21 days it's hoped you'll get a feel for what Harmony has to offer and be inspired to purchase a subscription.

I did learn enough to see Harmony is definitely a formidable tool but at the same time, it can be completely overwhelming if you don't get the right introduction and pathway into the learning process.


These are not the tutorials you're looking for...


Although, at first glance, Harmony looks difficult to learn, with it's User Interface covered in icons for all manor of things, the basics can be learned very quickly.

My first character drawing in Harmony. This Monkey
helped me learn some of the drawing tools.
Being a visual person I gravitated towards Harmony's video tutorials. Specifically the ones linked from the software's welcome screen. This lead me to a bunch of video tutorials originally released for Harmony 12 but still very relevant to Harmony 14.

If you need to learn Harmony fast, I cannot recommend these tutorials based on my own experience.

I spent three days following the tutorial videos in order,watching 62 individual videos with a running time of 3 and a half hours before I decided I needed to look elsewhere. There were still more videos to watch but, after 62 videos, I still hadn't really learned the basics of putting together a scene, animating it and then exporting it to a video file.


Learn Toon Boom Harmony in 30 minutes - Even if you've never animated before!


The video by Jesse J. Jones, below, is the tutorial you need if you're trialing Harmony. I learnt so much from this in just under 30 minutes, covering more ground than those previous 62 videos did in 3 and a half hours.




Jesse's video is a bare bones walk through of Harmony's core function, animating scenes. It's by no means comprehensive but, for a first look, you definitely feel like you're prepared to move on to more advanced concepts.

After watching this I went back to the previous tutorial videos and followed through the one on Character Creation and Rigging with much more confidence than I had the first time.

I created a character from scratch, using Harmony's drawing tools, and then rigged it without any difficulty at all after having followed the character rigging tutorial.


My very first original character drawn and rigged in Harmony.

Harmony Kick Start Tutorials.


Once you've done the above 30 minute tutorial a good next step is the Learn Toon Boom page of their website. Don't scroll the front page at all. Click on the start learning now link. Then click Harmony tutorial, followed by clicking on the version of Harmony you have. Finally click on the course its self and you'll be taken through a detailed project from start to finish, complete with videos, and the same course materials used by the instructor.

If you follow along, and actually try out the things you're being taught, you'll need at least a couple of days to complete it (depending on how fast you work).

At the time of writing this review I was part way through the Premium tutorials, attempting to construct my own scene with my own characters based on what the tutorial was demonstrating. You can see my efforts thus far in the screen shot below.

Rigging my original character design based on
Rey from Star Wars Episode VII.

How Much Did I Learn in 21 Days?


The short answer is 'not enough'. Perhaps I would've gone further if Toon Boom's learning pathway from within Harmony its self was better targeted. The current video tutorial link is a complete miss for trial users and is better suited to beginners who have already bought a subscription.

Despite that I did learn and experience quite a lot of Harmony's capabilities including;

  • A basic understanding of the drawing and painting tools and that each frame has its own series of sub Art layers (Underlay, Color, Line art, Overlay) but the relationship between these from frame to frame and even layer to layer isn't quite clear to me.
     
  • Harmony's old-school xsheet mark-up capabilities, making it great for traditional hand drawn animation if that's your thing.
     
  • Rigging a character for cut-out or puppet animation including how to swap out body parts in character rigs for even more versatile characters.
     
  • A basic understanding of the timeline and how exposure works in this software (why everything can't just be 'exposed' by default unless you manually turn it off (or un-expose it) is a mystery to me?
     
  • The different types of layers on the Timeline including Bone, peg, sound and camera layers.
     
  • Basic frame by frame and key frame animation with automatic tweening.
     
  • Libraries and how to create custom palettes.
     
  • I got a kind of introduction to the node editor, that's only available in the Premium version of Harmony. A kind of flow chart composite of your scene, it looked really powerful but the point at which I did the detailed, video tutorial on it was way too premature for me to put anything into practice.


Overall I learned enough to animate a basic scene as well as I can in any other software, albeit with a little bit of revision over various tutorials to make sure I was doing things right.

Below is my finished Star Wars, Scene which I completed, mostly without having to go back and re-watch tutorials. Though there was a few times I needed to revise on where to find various tools.




As you can see I've got a brief camera pan and parallax effect. A rigged puppet character with robes blowing in the wind using deformations to animate them. If you look really closely you can see a slight deformation of the head and face at the beginning to give the impression the character is turning her head toward the camera. All the animation has been done with key frames and tweens. There's no 'hand drawn' animation at all.

In the end I didn't really learn anything that would convince me hands down this is the software I should be using for 2D animation. I didn't learn any of the really great features you see in the Harmony demonstration videos. I mostly learned the way Harmony handles the same basic animation techniques I'm already familiar with in other animation software.


To Answer My Questions...


Is Harmony easy to learn the basics?

I actually think it is. Jesse J. Jones's 30 minute tutorial is proof of that. He teaches enough to give you a quick overview in a time that any software company should be pleased about.

From that foundation you can then start to look around for tutorials that are specific to what you need Harmony to do for you (for me that was character rigging and from there I'd be going on to lip syncing). I'd probably start picking up more and more of the intricacies of the software as my confidence with it grew.

I feel Toon Boom needs to create a learning path where you can learn the basics in an hour or less and then move on to individual tutorials that show how to do some of the more impressive things demonstrated in Harmony's promotional videos.

For example, I would have liked to have added the light shading feature to my character animation but have yet to come across any kind of tutorial to show me how to do this.


Is Toon Boom's Harmony something an independent artist/animator, like myself, should seriously consider as their go to animation studio of choice?

Harmony is definitely a worthwhile investment if being a 2D animator is something you aspire to, either as a hobby or profession. Toon Boom has a full range of subscription licenses making it affordable even on a modest budget.

If being 'industry standard' matters to you then I'd definitely recommend Harmony for all your 2D animation. It's clearly capable and suited to most 2D animation styles and you'll always be prepared with options should you decide to freelance for studios or seek more permanent employment with an animation company.

Since I'm the least 'Industry Standard' visual artist professional I know, that's not a concern for me.

At heart, I'm more of an illustrator who likes to animate than a straight up animator. As much as I was starting to enjoy Harmony's drawing tools, I much prefer to draw in software dedicated to illustration. (My illustration software also can handle hand drawn animation too – so there's that).

I don't doubt Harmony 14 Premium is really capable software. For me it just feels like too much for my needs. That may be reason to consider either Harmony Essentials or Advanced but I'm an 'all or nothing' kind of person. I prefer using the full versions of software rather than their 'light' versions.

For me, Harmony isn't an essential tool, it's more of a luxury item. I would definitely use it but, based on my brief time with it, I can't say I've seen enough to be convinced my production schedule would be greatly improved over the software I currently use.


To Conclude...


I do believe Toon Boom Harmony 14 is truly capable of being able to handle most 2D animation techniques. Based on the demonstration videos it's easy to see why some animators swear by it and why it has become industry standard.

Whilst Toon Boom have created several different learning pathways into Harmony for beginners, I feel, of the ones I experienced, they don't get you up and running with the basics quick enough.

Personally I did not find the learning curve particularly difficult. The biggest hurdle for me was actually time. People often stay with the software they know because learning something new takes time. To me that's the issue with Harmony. The learning curve is only steep because there's so much to learn, not because the concepts themselves are hard.

If Toon Boom were to take up my suggestions for how to implement their video tutorials, so anyone trialing the software could get to the impressive features quicker, I think they'd give people a very compelling reason to buy a subscription license.

Popular posts from this blog

Make Disney/Pixar Style Characters with Reallusion's Character Creator and Toon Figure Bases

The Extraordinary Tourist Classic Coat outfit created using Reallusion's Toon Designer for CC3. I've talked before how I've wanted to get into 3D Disney/Pixar style character animation since I first saw the animated cutscenes for the very first Tomb Raider game back in 1996. It's why I initially bought Reallusion's iClone 3D studio app as soon as I could afford a computer that would run it. But then Reallusion released their 3D Character Creator (CC) for iClone and I wanted to create my characters with that (and I did try with Bat Storm ). But the focus of CC was realism, even with ToKoMotion's stylised body morphs . Now with Reallusion's Cartoon Designer bundle for CC3 which features two packs, Toon Figures , and Toon Hair , designing Disney/Pixar style 3D characters just got a whole lot quicker. The two packs are the bare essentials for creating Toon style characters. Five body morphs (2 male, 2 female, and one adolescent body morph that w

Can You Learn Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5 for Free Using Their 137 Official YouTube Video Tutorials Sorted Into a Logical Learning Order?

Or you could just buy The Lazy Animator Beginner's Guide to Cartoon Animator . While Reallusion's Cartoon Animator is one of the easiest 2D animation studios to get up and running with quickly, learning it from all of the official, free, video tutorials can be more overwhelming than helpful. With more than 137 videos totaling more than 28 and a half hours of tutorials, spread across three generations of the software (Cartoon Animator 3 through 5) it's hard to know if what you're learning is a current or legacy feature that you either need to know or can be skipped. Many of the official tutorials only teach specific features of the software and don't relate at all to previous or later tutorials. As a result there are many features either not mentioned or are hard to find. To make your learning easier, on this page, I've collected together all of the essential, official, free video tutorials and sorted them into a learning order that makes sense. Simply start at

Artbreeder - Using AI created Character and Background Content in your Animations

A selection of User/AI generated images from Artbreeder. If you're looking for an endless supply of 2D character and background images for your animations then Artbreeder , an online Artificial Intelligence (AI) that generates image mash-ups you can tweak as much as you like, could be the ultimate content library. What is Artbreeder? Artbreeder is free to use though there are various paid plans, that give you additional features, such as higher resolution download images or more settings to play with. All images created on the site are Public Domain (CC0 License) and can be used in commercial projects. Using Artbreeder's online app you can generate head shot portraits, full body characters, landscapes, and other scenes simply by choosing two or more existing images to mash together then, using a series of sliders, to select which traits from each image you wish to lean toward in the final image. Photo Comparison - Top is my original uploaded photo. Bottom is Artbreeder's ap

Inochi2D - Free Open Source 2D VTuber Avatar Rigging and Puppeteering Software (Part 1)

Inochi2D Creator - Free Open Source VTuber Software. If you've been looking for a way to live perform as a 2D cartoon avatar on camera, whether it be for a live stream or for pre-recorded content like educational videos, then VTuber software is a low cost (or even no cost) option worth looking into. In my previous post, How to Become a VTuber - 2D and 3D Software for Creating and Controlling Your Avatar , I took a brief look at the relatively new but completely free and open source Inochi2D  which I thought showed great potential for my own needs of creating a live performance character rig for my own TET Avatar that I use for all my promotional materials. While it is possible to live perform my character using Cartoon Animator itself, Reallusion's MotionLive2D capture system isn't great - with lip sync in particular. More importantly though, I can't exactly teach people how to use Cartoon Animator if I'm using Cartoon Animator to control my Avatar. What is Inochi2D

Using Avatar Maker with Cartoon Animator - Free Vector Cartoon Avatar Creator with Four Art Styles

I'm always on the lookout for cartoon avatar makers of any kind, whether it be ones that 'cartoonify' your photo, or ones that let you build a cartoon likeness from a library of individual features.  Free Avatar Maker  falls into the latter category and can be used for making head and shoulder cartoon avatars. While it doesn't have an extensive library of character features (you may struggle to get a good likeness), uniquely it will make your avatar in four different art styles concurrently, allowing you to save the one you like most, or even all four.  I wasn't overly impressed how my TET avatar looked in the first two styles, but style three is quite possibly the coolest looking version of my avatar I've ever seen in a third party avatar creator. It's a very contemporary style. Style four, line art, is also not too bad. Avatar Maker's User Interface. Switch between the four different art styles shown across the top at any time. I particularly like the

AE Juice - Animation Presets, Motion Graphics, Templates, Transitions for After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Other Video Applications

Level up you video edits and animations with AE Juice's motion graphics and templates. Some days you just don't have the time to create flashy motion graphics for your latest video or animation. For some of us it's more a question of our own artistic abilities being a little less than the awesome we'd like them to be. Whatever reason a resource like AE Juice's animation presets, motion graphics, templates, and transitions packs for After Effects , Premiere Pro , and other video applications can really make your work stand out very quickly. AE Juice gives you access to an instant library of free, premade content elements and sound effects, which you can add to with additional purchases of various themed packs from their store. There are three ways to manage their content, all of which can be used in commercial projects . The AE Juice Standalone Package Manager makes it easy to browse previews of all your pack contents and to download and find just the elements yo

Moho 14 Released - Still the Best 2D Animation Software for Indy Animators on a Budget

Moho 14 Released. Regular readers know I am a Reallusion, Cartoon Animator advocate through and through. Hands down I would recommend Cartoon Animator 5 first over Lost Marble's Moho 14 to anyone who is just starting in 2D animation, is a team of one, or just needs to animate as quickly as possible. However, feature for feature, Moho is, arguably, the best 2D animation software for the rest of us who can't justify a Toon Boom Harmony , or Adobe Creative Cloud subscription (and even with their applications Moho is very competitive on features). You can get started with Moho Debut for just USD$59.99 which is a cut down version of Moho Pro but it still has the most essential features needed for 2D animation. While Moho Pro is a whopping USD$399.99 (Cartoon Animator, which only has one version, is just USD$149.00) upgrades to new version numbers come down to a quarter of the price at USD$99.00. Even though Reallusion just released features like Motion Pilot Puppet Animation and