Toon Boom
Harmony22
Release Notes

TOON BOOM ANIMATION INC.

+1 514 278 8666

4200 St.Laurent Blvd, Suite 1020
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
H2W 2R2

contact@toonboom.com
toonboom.com

Toon Boom Harmony 22.0.1 Release Notes

Legal Notices
Toon Boom Animation Inc.
4200 Saint-Laurent, Suite 1020
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
H2W 2R2
Tel: +1 514 278 8666
Fax: +1 514 278 2666
toonboom.com

Disclaimer
The content of this document is the property of Toon Boom Animation Inc. and is copyrighted. Any reproduction in whole orin part is strictly prohibited.
The content of this document is covered by a specific limited warranty and exclusions and limit of liability under theapplicable License Agreement as supplemented by the special terms and conditions for Adobe®Flash® File Format (SWF).
For details, refer to the License Agreement and to those special terms and conditions.

Trademarks
Toon Boom® is a registered trademark. Harmony™ and the Toon Boom logo are trademarks of Toon Boom Animation Inc.
All other trademarks of the property of their respective owners.

Publication Date
03-01-2023
Copyright © 2023 Toon Boom Animation Inc., a Corus Entertainment Inc. company. All rights reserved.

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Toon Boom Harmony 22.0.1 Release Notes

Table of Contents
Table of Contents

2

Harmony 22.0.1 Release Notes

3

Harmony 22 Release Notes

72

Toon Boom Harmony 22.0.1 Release Notes

Harmony 22.0.1 Release Notes
Harmony 22.0.1 build 22.0.1.19339 (2023-03-01)

Fixes
The following issues are fixed in this release of Harmony and later.

Drawing Toolsl

Using the Close Gap tool while drawing with a tablet may cause a crash. HAR-8828

l

The Paste Drawing Object in Place option doesn’t work when the focus is in the Timeline or Xsheet. HAR-8606

Animation Toolsl

The Shift and Trace tool doesn’t display the drawing as it’s being repositioned. HAR-8458l

Peg holes and cross hairs for the previous drawing disappear after moving the drawing using the Shift and Trace tool.
HAR-8038

Timeline and PlaybacklCreate Cycle messes up the layer’s timing and is not undoable. HAR-3867

l

Frame Markers are not reversed when using the Paste Reverse command. HAR-7385l

A layer set to Outline Mode in the Timeline always displays black in the Camera view. HAR-8573

l[Windows] Playback can get stuck when Loop and Sound are enabled. HAR-8808

Effectsl

A vector drawing connected to a Planer Region node that is defined to use Vector Drawing, connected to a Sprite
Emitter may cause a crash. HAR-8763

lCertain shading effects may show inconsistent results between 16 bit and 32 bit renderings. HAR-8721

lShine effect produces artifacts when alpha attributes are not set to default values and scene is set to render in 32
bits. HAR-8752

lBokeh effect shimmers when there is slow camera movement. HAR-8803

lBokeh and blur effects render with artifacts when Enable Graphic Card Acceleration is enabled in the Preferences.
HAR-8802

CameralShow Snapshot in the Camera view doesn't display certain effects correctly. HAR-8735l

The camera far clipping plane limit cannot be raised over 1000 units. HAR-8805

l

3D models and 2D layers disappear when rotating the Perspective view 90 degrees. HAR-8758

3D

3

Toon Boom Harmony 22.0.1 Release Notes

DeformerslMinimum and Maximum Distance circles displayed for weighted deformers are not the proper size on a Retina/HiDPI
displays. HAR-8610

l

Minimum and Maximum Distance circles displayed for weighted deformers do not scale with the drawing. HAR-8609

lUsing the Transform tool with Control Selection Mode enabled does not work on a newly created deformation chain.
HAR-4650

Nodes and Node Viewl

Crash when entering text in Node View search field. HAR-8850l

A Channel Swap node directly connected to a Display doesn't render correctly. HAR-8728

lCrash after enabling Publish Attribute Mode and the Drawing attribute in the Transformation Switch node. HAR-8848

lTiming Columns options in the Transformation Switch node don’t work correctly. HAR-7796

lRendering is incorrect when an art layer selector node is set to flatten and used in combination with the Animate
Pencil Texture node. HAR-8809

lReducing the alpha channel using a Matte-Resize node doesn’t work if the source image doesn’t have antialiasing.
HAR-8582

Import / ExportlImporting images from scanner locks up after previewing the images. HAR-8818

l

PSD files from Adobe Photoshop 2021 and later are blank in Harmony. HAR-8819

lImages and 3D models disappear from the scene if the file name ends with a v and three digits (-v001). HAR-7118

l[Windows] Pasting an image copied from a web browser does not work. HAR-8796

lPrecision loss and colour banding when writing 8 bit images in JPG, TGA, TIF and SGI if there is a colour spaceconversion. HAR-8826

ScriptinglToon Boom Python API cannot be loaded unless a license with database is available. HAR-8832

l

Add Python Interface Documentation to Help menu. HAR-8769

l

A drawing created using Python script is not flagged as existing on the file system, and cannot be immediately loaded
and rendered. HAR-8856

l

TB_ExportCamera script inverts the camera when some axes are rotated 180 degrees. HAR-8647

l[Linux] Plugins/Scripting packages are not loaded on startup. HAR-8812

l

TB_GameExportWindow.js is not packaged in Harmony 22. HAR-8811l

Add a scripting method, setNumberOf to SCR_FrameInterface, which sets the scene length (moves the end red
handle) without deleting the drawing or keyframe. HAR-7358l

Add missing functions to the ColorOverride class to add and remove colours. HAR-6671

lHarmony crashes when rendering a 3d model via the python scripting interface. HAR-8750

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Toon Boom Harmony 22.0.1 Release Notes

Performancel[macOS] Harmony sometimes crashes when waking from sleep mode. HAR-8359

l[macOS] When running in Japanese the Licence Wizard may crash when installing the licensing service. HAR-8694

l

The Save Scene Automatically preference does not work correctly when Harmony is left to idle. HAR-6564

l

Top and Side views take a long time to refresh while thumbnails are being rendered. HAR-8760

Devicesl[Windows] Wacom tablet touch gestures for zoom, pan and rotate are not working. HAR-8739

l[Windows] When sizing the Preferences window it may disappear offscreen if display scaling is not 100%. HAR-8566

UI

Database / Control Centerl

The Update Database Scene error reporting is uninformative and sometimes wrong. HAR-8843

lScene lock information is not displayed correctly in Control Center. HAR-8049

l[macOS] After closing a scene in database mode, Open, Palette Operations and other commands may stop
responding. HAR-8766

Rendering and Pipeline IntegrationlPalettes and palette lists are potentially locked during normal batch rendering. HAR-8667

lHarmony does not work with the LucidLink cloud NAS file system on macOS. HAR-8806

l

Workstations that do not have a GPU may not have the OpenCL libraries installed and will fail loading the plugins for
OpenCL effects such as Blur. HAR-8693

lHarmony is in "Not Responding" state for a long time before generating and uploading a snapshot preview from
Producer. HAR-8817

ltbprocess/queue dependencies between rendering jobs are not correct. HAR-8816

Other
l

Deleting a column in the Xsheet then undoing, may cause a crash. HAR-8795l

The Metadata Editor is not applying Scene Metadata values correctly. HAR-8748

lScene takes 20 times more time to save on Windows than on macOS. HAR-9049

Known IssueslWhen there’s not enough space to display all buttons in a toolbar, the extension that is opened to access the buttons
will be hidden under views that use OpenGL. HAR-8186

lWhen using Harmony on macOS Big Sur, Harmony may crash when saving a colour in macOS’s native colour
picker. HAR-8032

lDatabase scenes that have a custom path cannot be copied using Control Center. HAR-6386

lStroke remains in place after removing the last point of a branch with the centreline editor. HAR-5994

5

Toon Boom Harmony 22.0.1 Release Notesl

When using an iPad Pro in Sidecar mode with Harmony, every second click registers as a double-click. HAR-8801

lUpdating the operating system to macOS Ventura may help fix this issue.

lOn macOS Mojave, GateKeeper prevents launching Harmony unless the quarantine extended attribute is removed
from the application bundle. HAR-7775

The quarantine extended attribute can be removed using the following command in the Terminal:$ sudo xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Toon Boom Harmony 22 Premium"6

Toon Boom Harmony 22.0.1 Release Notes

Harmony 22 Release Notes
Here is the list of changes in Harmony 22, build 22.0.0.18839 (2022-09-26):

New Features
Drawing Workflow
FeatureDescription

The Reference view (formerly known as the Model view) can now be used toimport and display bitmap images that can be used as inspiration or as
references while drawing.

Updated Model view, now renamed
Reference View
Imported images are automatically saved in the scene's models folder. These
reference images can then be loaded on demand in subsequent sessions using
the Load Default References command.
The new Delete Current command has been added to the view to allow deleting
images from the scene's models folder, without having to manually delete themusing the file browser.
You can now import images and drawings into the Reference View using dragand-drop from a file browser or by pasting images from the clipboard.

Live Preview When Drawing with a Textured
PencilThe Pencil tool now displays the pencil texture as well as the thickness stencil
assigned to the selected pencil preset as the line is being drawn, providing a live
and accurate preview of the final line.

Paste in Place

A new command named Paste Drawing Object in Place is now available in the
Edit menu. Unlike the Paste Drawing Object command, which pastes a copied
drawing object with a slight offset, the new Paste Drawing Object in Place
command always pastes the copied drawing object in the same position as theoriginal. The new command can be accessed from the Edit menu and has theCtrl+Shift+V (Command+Shift+V on macOS) shortcut assigned.

Frame Drawing Selection shortcut

A new shortcut command named Frame Drawing Selection has been added toHarmony. Using this command when a drawing tool is active will centre theCamera or Drawing view on the selected drawing. The default shortcut for thiscommand is Shift+F.

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Toon Boom Harmony 22.0.1 Release Notes

Rendering
FeatureDescription

Internal render operations in Harmony can now be performed using 32 bits perchannel floating point values. This provides more precision and adds support forcolour values below 0 and above 1 for high dynamic range rendering and colour
accuracy.
The bit depth used for internal processing can be changed between 16 bits or 32
bits per channel from the Colour Space tab of the Scene Settings window.

32 Bits Per Channel Rendering Processing

When 16 bits per channel is selected, scenes render as they did with previous
versions of Harmony. When 32 bits per channel (float) is selected, all internal
processing operations are performed with 32-bit floating point precision and does
not clip colour values to 1. This allows Harmony to preserve colour values evenwhen an effect raises the values of colours beyond white, which allows
subsequent effects to recover those colours when lowering the values.
New scenes created in Harmony 22 are set to use 32 bits per channel render
processing by default. Scenes from previous versions are set to 16 bits perchannel for backwards compatibility.

Support for 32-bit floating-point EXR images

EXR Images saved with 32-bit floating-point colour depth containing values
above 1 can now be read and their values preserved throughout the rendering
process.
Harmony now also has the ability to write EXR images in 32-bit floating-point
colour depth.

The Camera view status bar now displays the colour values of the pixel that isunder the mouse when the Camera view is in Render View mode. Values are
expressed as integers between 0 and 32767 when the scene is set to render in
16-bit per channel and as float values when the scene is set to render in 32-bit perchannel.
Displaying Colour Values

8Toon Boom Harmony 22.0.1 Release Notes

Effects and Compositing
FeatureDescription

The new Bokeh Blur effect in Harmony simulates how a camera lens blurs out-offocus elements based on the shape of its iris.

Bokeh Blur EffectTo simulate depth of field, an alpha matte can be used with this effect to control
the amount of blur applied to different areas of the image. Opaque areas in thealpha matte will fully apply the effect while transparent areas in the alpha mattewill not apply the effect. The Bokeh Blur node is available in the Node Library in
the Filter > Blur category.

The new Animate Pencil Texture effect node works similarly to the Shake nodebut instead of shaking drawings or the camera in the scene, it applies randomtransformations to pencil line textures. This can be used to add life to drawings bysimulating line boiling that occurs in hand-drawn animation where a new line isdrawn for every frame.
The Animate Pencil Texture node can automatically detect when there is atransformation or a drawing change from its input and apply the effect to thetexture. There is no need to manually time the effect and maintain the timing
manually.
Animate Pencil Texture EffectImproved Blending modes

The Animate Pencil Texture node is available in the Filter category of the NodeLibrary.

The blending modes available in the Blending and Composite-Generic nodes
have been updated to support rendering in scenes set to use 32 bits per channel

9Toon Boom Harmony 22.0.1 Release Notes

FeatureDescription

processing as well as provide closer results to blend modes from third party
applications.
The list of blending modes was simplified to remove beta and legacy blending
modes. However, to provide backward compatibility, Blending and CompositeGeneric nodes in scenes from previous versions of Harmony will have the full listof legacy and beta blending modes. New instances of these nodes will only list
the update list.
Some blend modes require values higher than 1 to be clamped in order to provide
the same result as third party softwares. However, clamping limits the use of
those blend modes in the context of an HDR pipeline. A new Clamping Mode
attribute has been introduced to the Blending and Composite-Generic nodes tocontrol whether values should be clamped or not.

The Colour Curve node has been improved and extended to fully support scene
set to render using 32 bits per channel processing.

Improvements to the Colour Curve effect
node

l

l

The new Clamp Output Values attribute can be used to control whether
values should be clamped to the values specified in the Minimum andMaximum fields. This attribute is not available in 16 bit per channel
processing.
The new Extrapolate Curve Bounds attribute will extrapolate the curves
beyond their first and last points. This attribute is not available in 16 bit perchannel processing.

10

Toon Boom Harmony 22.0.1 Release Notes

FeatureDescriptionl

A Zoom slider was added to allow zooming out the graph view andmanipulate points beyond the 0 and 1 range.

Animation
FeatureDescription

Four new weighted deformation nodes are now available in Harmony. These canbe used to create different types of weighted deformation systems andindividually control their influence on the overall deformation. Multiple types ofweighted deformer nodes can be used in the same deformation system for more
flexibility.
The following new nodes are available:l

New Weighted Deformer Nodes

l

l

l

Weighted Point: The Weighted Point node uses the pivot of each peg tocreate the deformation system. Add them to existing Weighted Deformer
systems to apply different influence weights to individual groups of pegs.
Weighted Curve: Used to define a curve that influences the deformation
system. Three types of curves are available and are built using pegs
connected to the node.
Weighted Line: Creates a straight line defined by the attached pegs. The
resulting line is used to influence the deformation.
Weighted Drawing: Uses a single drawing as an input that is used toinfluence the deformation system. The drawing defines the shape of theinfluence and can be transformed with a peg in order to deform the overallsystem.

The new weighted deformation nodes are available in the Node Library under the
Deformation >Weighted category.

The new OGL Controller node provides a pickable controller that can be used as ahandle to select a drawing or a peg anywhere in the scene and that would beotherwise difficult to select. OGL Controllers are not visible in software renders
and are only visible in OpenGL.

OGL Controller Node

The node provides basic shapes that can be used as the graphic representation of
the handle. A drawing node can also be connected to use as a custom shaped
handle.
This new node is available in the Node Library under the Controller category.

Transform and Translate Tool Pivot
Improvements

The following improvements were done to the graphical representation andmanipulation of pivots when using the Translate and Transform tools:

11Toon Boom Harmony 22.0.1 Release Notes

FeatureDescription

l

l

l

A new preference named Use a Donut-Style pivot in the Transform Tool,
located on the Advanced tab in the Preferences, changes the circular pivotof the Transform to a donut, which allows selecting anchors located under
the pivot through its central hole. This preference is disabled by default.
A new preference named Allow Temporary-Pivot dragging in camera
view, located on the Advanced tab of the Preferences, disables theinteractive manipulation of the Transform Tool pivot when unchecked.
This preference is enabled by default.
New shortcuts were added to move the position of the temporary
Transform Tool pivot as well as the Translate tool pivot without having toclick and grab it.
lllMove Element or Peg Pivot to Cursor: Moves the selected
Element or the Peg’s pivot to the mouse position while theTranslate Tool is active. The Tab key is assigned as the default
shortcut.
Move Temporary Pivot to Cursor: Moves the Transform Tool’s
temporary pivot to the mouse's current position in the camera
view. The Tab key is assigned as the default shortcut.
Move Temporary Pivot to Default: Resets the Transform Tool’s
temporary pivot to its default position. Default shortcut: Ctrl+Tab
on Windows and Option+Tab on macOS

ScriptingFeatureDescription

Harmony's Python Document Object Model provides a Python representation ofHarmony and its loaded project. This allows for the creation of custom tools andautomation tasks that can be run from within Harmony using the new Python
Script Console, or externally to Harmony from a Python Interpreter.
The Harmony Python module is compatible with Python 3.9 or later. If the module
is imported from Harmony's Python Script Console view, Python 3.9.x is required.
The Python Script Console will only be available when Harmony is launched in anenvironment that provides the Python libraries. The Python libraries path can be
specified using the preference PYTHON_LIB_PATH or by making the python
executable available from the PATH environment variable.
Python Scripting and Python Script Console

For more information please refer to the Main Page in the Python Interface
documentation. The documentation is available by opening the index.html file in
the Harmony application Documentation folder:
Windows:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Toon Boom Animation\Toon Boom Harmony 22
Premium\help\python\
macOS:/Applications/Toon Boom Harmony 22 Premium/Harmony 22
Premium.app/Contents/Documentation/python/

12

Toon Boom Harmony 22.0.1 Release Notes

FeatureDescription

Updates to Qt Classes

Since updating to Qt 6 for Harmony 21.1 some Qt classes that were part of the
QtScriptBinding packaged in previous versions of Harmony were either
deprecated, replaced or were not included in Harmony 21.1.
All the missing Qt classes are now packaged with Harmony 22.

Fixes
Generall

Focus on Mouse Enter does not always work when the mouse is quickly moved to an OpenGL view. HAR-8218

lTransform tool BBox is at the wrong position when using bitmap drawings with weighted and freeform deformers.
HAR-7787lTransform tool BBox is at the wrong position when a Deformer is used with an Element node that has an offset. HAR8464

l

Poor performance when a Channel-Swap node is used under a pass through composite. HAR-8340

l

OpenGL compositing order is wrong when an Apply-Peg-Transformationa node is used within a 3D scene. HAR8518

l

Vertex colours from alembic files are missing. HAR-8304

l

The preference Element Node “Animate Using Animation Tools” Default Value is ignored when importing a multilayer PSD. HAR-6845

lHigh Discretizer Spacing values can cause the Envelope Creator to crash. HAR-7396

lLines are not Anti-aliased during playback. HAR-8262

lHarmony may crash when opening a second scene if the node cache is active. HAR-8348

lDisconnecting a cable from a Weighted Deform node sometimes disconnects the wrong cable. HAR-8535

lScan application crashes when attempting to import an image using the Load From File command. HAR-8350l

H.264/MP4 is not available as an export format when running Harmony on an Apple Silicon system. HAR-8188

Drawingl

Thumbnails are not properly refreshed in the Drawing Substitutions view. HAR-7493

l

The Stroke tool's Draw Stroke as Straight Lines and Connect Line Ends options don’t work. HAR-8416

lVectors are not offset when pasting them multiple times to another art layer. HAR-8436

l

The drawing view does not refresh immediately when changing the Drawing Desk's shift and trace options. HAR8487

l

Tiny gaps at colour junctions after using the Stencil brush in Repaint mode. HAR-8417

13

Toon Boom Harmony 22.0.1 Release Notes

Reference ViewlLayers cannot be dragged from the Timeline to Reference (Model) View. HAR-8323

lDragging and dropping a template from the Library to the Reference (Model) View does not work. HAR-8547

l

The Reference View uses the forward delete key rather than delete key to unload drawings. HAR-8539

RenderinglTurbulent Noise shifts when a blur effect is added below. HAR-7789

l

EXR images from “Multi Layer Write” nodes have multiple frames stacked on each other. HAR-8228l

The Alignment Rule attribute has no effect in software renders with certain JPEG files. HAR-7335

Master ControllerslMaster Controller rig state stops being parsed when a small or high value is met. HAR-8412

lAdding or deleting rows and columns does not work from the Master Controller Grid Wizard. HAR-8564

Scriptingl

SCR_DrawingKey always returns null when a drawing key is provided in scripting. HAR-8407

l

Control Center’s scripting interface always renders the “Default” camera if no camera is specified. HAR-8403

lQByteArray cannot be constructed with a string as its constructor's argument. HAR-8497

lInvisible plus (+) and minus (-) buttons in TB_ExportToEaselJS, TB_ExportToSpriteSheets and TB_SelectionPreset.
HAR-8500

Databasel

Link Server does not run on Linux if there is no X-Windows server. HAR-8563

lLocks can be taken on the root folder, preventing locks to any other folders in the database. HAR-8556

lPalettes are locked when batch rendering scenes if colours are recovered. HAR-8536

lImporting scenes in batch mode crashes Control Center if the scene already exists. HAR-8503

Known IssueslWhen there’s not enough room for all the buttons in a toolbar, the extension that can be opened to access the buttons
is hidden when it opens over an OpenGL view. HAR-8186

lTouch Gestures to zoom, pan and rotate don't work on Windows. HAR-8739

lWhen using Harmony on Big Sur, Harmony may crash when saving a colour in macOS’s native colour picker. HAR8032

l

Database scenes that have a custom path cannot be copied using Control Center. HAR-6386

lStroke remains in place after removing the last point of a branch with the centreline editor. HAR-5994l

On macOS Mojave, GateKeeper prevents launching Harmony unless the quarantine extended attribute is removed
from the application bundle. The quarantine extended attribute can be removed using the following command in the14

Toon Boom Harmony 22.0.1 Release Notes

Terminal:$ sudo xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Toon Boom Harmony 21.1
Premium"

15