Do you know Flash/TV Paint and Harmony?

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JaMike
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Do you know Flash/TV Paint and Harmony?

Post by JaMike »

If you have experience in Flash or TV Paint and you know Harmony as well, Toon Boom will pay you to do an "unbiased" comparison. I'd do it myself but my unbiased comparison of TV Paint and Harmony would definitely NOT be something they'd want to pay for. :D

Here's the link: https://twitter.com/ToonBoom/status/940953725753053184 - go make some cash.

At first, I was kind of annoyed that they didn't want anyone to do a comparison of Moho and Harmony, but since previous Toon Boom influencers have switched to Moho ( see http://blog.smithmicro.com/8-tips-trick ... hould-know and http://blog.smithmicro.com/10-feature-c ... 14-premium ) I guess they don't want to go there! :lol:

Actually maybe we should tweet them and tell them to do a comparison with Moho... :twisted:
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Greenlaw
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Re: Do you know Flash/TV Paint and Harmony?

Post by Greenlaw »

I use Moho and Harmony at work, and Moho and TVPaint at home. I don't use Flash/Animate but slowly learning it because it's another program we use at work.

I think I can understand why Toon Boom isn't looking for unbiased comparisons of Moho and Harmony. In many ways, the two programs are very different, and Moho is generally used for a different type of animation. It makes more sense to compare Harmony against TVPaint and Flash because Harmony's strength is FBF, and that's what people mainly use Animate and TVPaint for.

Moho's strength is puppet rigging and animation. In this area, Moho has proven far more capable for us compared to Harmony. Harmony is just getting around to adding controls and it has a long way to go to catch up to Moho's Smart Bones, Smart Bone Dials, and Smart Warp.

For most FBF tasks, however, we prefer Harmony for FBF. Moho's FBF tools are okay for simpler tasks but needs a lot more work to compete directly with other FBF programs. At this time, I mainly use Moho's FBF for simple fx animations like splashes and fire, but will switch to Harmony for character FBF elements.

The two programs actually work well together. Sometimes I need FBF to bridge the motions between two different rigs, so I'll rough out something using Moho's FBF. Then I'll export that as an image sequence to use as reference layer in Harmony. Then, in Harmony, I'll animate a refined version of the FBF on top of the Moho rough. When I have that completed, I'll render the sequence from Harmony, and import it to a Image Sequence layer in Moho. Finally, I insert layer between the two rig animations. That probably sounds complicated but it's really not bad once you've done it a few times.

(At home, I'm using TV Paint the same way. Actually, at work, I've used Moho and Photoshop's FBF tools this way too. With Moho's Image Sequence layer, it really works well with any FBF program that imports/exports PNG.)
JaMike
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Re: Do you know Flash/TV Paint and Harmony?

Post by JaMike »

You know I'm not paying you for a comparison, it's Toon Boom doing it, right? :D

I think Harmony is feeling Moho snapping at their heels, you only have to look at their Master Controllers feature to see that. And there's more places than ever using Moho. If they're not seeing Moho in their rear-view mirror, they're either blind or arrogant.

As for the comparison, I know a couple of studios that recently switched back to Flash from Harmony, and TV Paint just won that Ub Iwerks award, so maybe Toon Boom aren't feeling like "the most popular animation software in the world" right now (yes, that's what they call Harmony on their website :roll: ).
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Greenlaw
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Re: Do you know Flash/TV Paint and Harmony?

Post by Greenlaw »

JaMike wrote:You know I'm not paying you for a comparison, it's Toon Boom doing it, right? :D
Yeah, but I'm not sure they'd want my unbiased report either. I own and use some of their products and I think I've generally had a good relationship with TB, but in a few personal and email exchanges, I sometimes got the impression that I'm annoying them.

TBH, I probably am annoying, but I feel Moho's developers have been a lot more tolerant of my endless questions and requests, and more responsive too. :)
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justoshow
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Re: Do you know Flash/TV Paint and Harmony?

Post by justoshow »

I've started learning Harmony and I love. Unfortunately, I will probably stick with Moho because I can animate faster. I would say Harmony is definitely more suited for Studios than Hobbyist like myself. If Moho and Harmony had a baby though that would be lovely. Harmony drawing tools and node view with Moho's smart bones and the point tool as an option. Perfection IMO. I think the a option in the time line would be cool too. Wishful Thinking ha ha.
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dueyftw
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Re: Do you know Flash/TV Paint and Harmony?

Post by dueyftw »

justoshow wrote:I've started learning Harmony and I love. Unfortunately, I will probably stick with Moho because I can animate faster. I would say Harmony is definitely more suited for Studios than Hobbyist like myself. If Moho and Harmony had a baby though that would be lovely. Harmony drawing tools and node view with Moho's smart bones and the point tool as an option. Perfection IMO. I think the a option in the time line would be cool too. Wishful Thinking ha ha.
Personally, I would love a animation box. It wouldn't have any tools except a time line. The box could handle both vector and raster. It would send to work out to say Moho. And as you animated in Moho the box would update. Then you could send it out to Toonboom do changes and the updates would be in the box. Rendering could be sent to any program that is on the box. The box would just keep all the different ways of handling lines, shapes and colors of each program straight. Passing the art work bettwen them.

This has been done with 3d programs. Vue extreme and all other major 3d programs or Daz Studio and Bryce.

Dale
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