New Deform Test a video by sloan_man69 on Flickr.
I spent the day getting cozy with my new copy of Toon Boom Harmony 9 Stand Alone and its nifty new features. The one being put to work here is the new "Deformation Tools" which allow you to animate a single vector shape as if it had joints.
Check out his arms legs and torso, each have a deformation module.
Legs: NOODLE LEGS! Do you know how long I've been waiting for NOODLE LEGS? My designs lend themselves to smooth organic motions like this, not the sharp knees and elbows I've had to settle for.
Arms: Check out those bends, use to be, if I wanted to go from straight arms to curved arms I'd have to switch out shapes during the middle of an action. Now I can make slow definite motions and have the arms move fluidly. And check out the folds in the elbow when the arm bends, that was easy peasy to set up, fire and forget seriously.
Torso: GUYS, I can't stress how aggravating it's been whenever I wanted a slight torso bend. Again, I'd have to swap out a whole new drawing and it'd look choppy as hell. But now, now I can lean and bend all I want.
This is a REALLY basic build, It's got some issues, but the arms/legs/torso help to keep it from looking "Flashy" and the entire build is tiny compared to some of my older TB characters.
DUDES, I flew through this animation. I spent most of the time wrapping my head around the tech but now that It's there I've literally cut future anim time in half. And it looks twice as good.
A "No Prize" to anyone who knows the audio.
