Animate to Harmony: The Independent Animator's Guide to Toon Boom

Pros:I am so appreciative of this book. I have waited quite a while for this to be made available. I have owned Toonboom Harmony for a year now and for the most part I have had to rely on the application User Guide and video tutorials. But this book has more of a personal feel to it. He goes over practical things that an artist would use everyday. The book is not high on tech speak which is good. Just teaching you how to work the application.If you ever visit the author's site he is very humorous and the book is no different. Just a relaxing read where you are getting things done. I enjoy specialized books such as this that teach me how to become more efficient with my software. Teaching you techniques where the application functions become just another extension of yourself. Very natural.Cons:Unfortunately before the release of this book Harmony moved from 10.3 to 11 which has more features. But the base knowledge to get one going is still very prevalent.The next Con is the 3D capability. I simply CANNOT find solid tutorial material on the hybrid functionality of 2D/3D in Harmony. The manual and video tutorials provided by the company are very sterile. Not interesting at all. I had hoped to find that in this book, but no. The hybrid functionality seems to be highly sought after and Harmony is one of the few apps on the market that offers that feature. But, you cannot find anyone that is an expert that teaches it.Other than those issues this book is more than work purchasing. Such a needed source for Toonboom customers.

Best introduction to Toonboom Pro for me. I was terrified switching from Studio to Pro and had no idea where all my beloved features went to, or how to activate the new features that interested me in Pro. I do not feel this went into enough details on the effects ToonBoom Pro has to offer using the Network, or how to set up riggings beyond the simple overall body(would have loved to learn about setting up a face rig and storing library templates for different facial pieces, but maybe next book ;) ). On the other hand though, I really loved this book. I would suggest it for anyone who is just getting animate, pro, or harmony from an upgrade or switching from flash or tvpaint to toonboom. It is an excellent resource,a monster when it comes to how much tips and tricks is crammed in, and holds you by the hand with wit and humor, guiding the path for first starters to teach Toonboom features fast. This book is not a complete "how to" for animation unfortunately. There are many theories still missing from it, and more indepth rigging like the rigging for more complex features, filters, and for many other special effects. I can understand though why it wouldn't be in this book(it is already a big book already). Though, If another book were to come out for these topics in Toonboom, I would buy it in a heart beat.

Aunque las últimas versiones de Harmony han cambiado algunas cosas (En Harmony 14 Advanced, por ejemplo, ya no se puede usar la cámara 3D ni los Inverse Kinematics), el conocimiento que se puede adquirir de este libro es invaluable para poder aprender a usar el programa. Incluso muchos tutoriales en video, o los pocos cursos en línea que hay, se quedan cortos en comparación con el nivel de información que provee este manual.Even though the last versions of Harmony have changed a lot of stuff (There is no 3D camera or IK in Harmony 14 Advanced, for instance) the knowledge you can still get from this book is invaluable. It's even more useful than video tutorials or the few courses you can get online.

Most importantly, this is a book you WILL use. Ok, at first, honestly I was a bit disappointed when I got this book--I didn't get it. My expectation was a juicier version of the software manual because let's face it Toon Boom's manuals are a dry read. But as I started animating in Harmony, I kept grabbing the book. This book is not a manual, rather the author takes a pragmatic approach to teaching the software by walking you step by step through various projects. Want to get comfortable with the drawing tools? Ok, let's do an illustration project. Want to know more about the particle Fx modules? Ok, let's tweak the settings in one of the modules to get the effect we want. To sum it all up, you learn by doing but it's also a valuable reference as well.

Although the book is generally good, I found some inaccuracies in it. For one thing it gives a website address for focalpress.com which is non-existent. In his book on page 43 he demonstrates flattening images for the brush tool and tells you to activate the auto-flatten button, and gives an illustration of that button. In my Toon Boom Harmony program that button doesn't exist. Apparently this book is behind on the latest updaes and anyone buying it to learn the program should be aware of these problems.

This book is incredible! If you have any interest in learning or advancing you skillsets in Toon Boom, this is THE book. I have been trying to learn Toon Boom for a proof of concept cartoon due to the dying use of Flash animation. Tried to just jump into it because of knowing Flash and it was a massive learning curve. Like, Toon Boom slapped me upside the head so I tried learning from their tutorials and YouTube videos which still flicked me in the head. Then I bought this on a whim and it has been perfect. This book is so well structured that it walks you through the entirety of what can be done in Toon Boom. Simply brilliant.

I bought this for my son who was trying to learn Harmony software. So glad I bought this for him! He went from being discouraged to encouraged and is using the software without problem.

Seriously had searched up and down for tutorials on youtube and the net for toon boom... they were all very hard to follow and jumped over steps. This book helps you step by step to learn how to use the software. If you are trying to learn to animate without any help, this is seriously mandatory to have in my opinion.

Product arrived as expected and as described. The book seems to provide a good introduction to Harmony for those who haven't spent a lot of time on computer animation but are familiar with traditional techniques. I plan to spend a lot of time with this book!

Libro recibido un dia antes de lo estipulado. En buenas condiciones. Muchas gracias por su atención, ¡Dios los bendiga! Buen dia.

Well written book. Really helped improve my knowledge of this software. There aren't a lot of books out there for Toon Boom Harmony but thankfully this one is solid.

I looked forward to this book for some time. It fills the gaaaaap in the toon boom source material. Great examples, and well written. Worth the purchase price easily.

I almost don't want to write this, purely because it's been a gateway for me into the world of digital animation and it's one of those 'too good to share' kinda things. I'm in the early learning process of the fundamentals of animation, throughout this book there's a number of little excercises that seem to trick you into learning these fundamentals whilst constantly reminding you of what you did before. The structure of the workflow allows you to repeat and reuse techniques without the boredom or feeling of being entirely lost. Which in a software such as ToonBoom is highly possible, especially for beginners such as myself.Highly recommend this book to all beginners, speaking from experience, and for the purposes of self teaching. If you're willing to commit to animating in some form and 2D animation is your platform, then this is a must have book to add to ones collection.