Toon Boom Harmony Premium 25 remains the definitive production standard for high-end 2D animation, trusted by major studios worldwide to create television series, feature films, and video game assets. This professional software consolidates the entire animation pipeline into a single environment, allowing artists to handle everything from initial sketching and rigging to final compositing and effects. With its sophisticated vector and bitmap drawing engines, it supports paperless frame-by-frame workflows as well as complex cut-out rigging techniques used in modern series.
Key Features
- Shape Aware Deformers: Manipulate drawings with weighted precision using points, bones, and cages that respect the artwork's original texture and boundaries, preventing unnatural distortion during movement.
- Advanced Brush Engine: Create natural-looking media strokes with dual-tip brushes and randomized texture settings, while the Pencil tool now supports pressure-sensitive opacity for more expressive clean-up work.
- True 3D Integration: Import 3D models with precise "Use File Units" scaling to ensure objects match scene dimensions perfectly, allowing for genuine hybrid 2D/3D interaction within a unified 3D space.
- Symmetry Guides: Accelerate character design and rig construction by drawing with real-time mirroring across horizontal, vertical, or dual axes, instantly doubling drawing efficiency for symmetrical assets.
- Optimized Scene Management: Reduce project bloat using the new Optimize Backup Files tool, which intelligently removes unused data and streamlined file structures to keep production servers responsive.
- Master Controllers: Generate complex specialized rigs that allow animators to manipulate dozens of deformers and properties simultaneously through a single visual widget.
Use Cases
This software is the primary choice for professional animation studios producing episodic television and feature films that require consistent, high-quality output across large teams. Independent freelancers and technical animators also utilize its advanced rigging capabilities to build reusable character assets for web series and game development.
Toon Boom Harmony offers an unmatched depth of control for technical directors and animators who need a reliable, all-in-one ecosystem that scales from simple pencil tests to multi-plane cinematic productions.
Version 25 — June 2025
- Introduced Breakdown Pose Assistant for refining rigged character animations and keyframed objects with improved efficiency
- Added support for importing Photoshop ABR brushes directly into Harmony Advanced and Premium editions, enabling consistency between concept art and animation workflows
- Implemented Pencil Line Retouch Tool allowing artists to adjust opacity and thickness of existing pencil lines by drawing over them
- Introduced Universal Scene Description (USD/USDZ) format compatibility for importing 3D models and exchanging animation data with CGI pipelines in Premium edition
- Added Lock Timeline Ruler command to prevent accidental timing modifications during project playback
- Optimized project file structure resulting in significantly reduced file sizes and faster scene loading times
- Added Store Recovery Textures in Vector Files preference option to dramatically reduce TVG file sizes by excluding embedded texture copies
- Enhanced 3D compositing algorithms with 32-bit floating point rendering support
- Implemented DWAA compression option for EXR file exports
- Added unique file extensions for presets: .tbr for brushes, .tpr for tools, and .tbx for tips and textures
- Improved caching efficiency for multiple Colour Override and Art-Selector nodes with similar content
- Updated Anti-Flicker node to support 32-bit float rendering
- Enhanced B and Shift-B navigation shortcuts to work with 3D bone hierarchies
- Added Timeline::layerEnabled function to scripting API for querying layer enabled status
- Updated TB_MayaToXml.py script for Python 3 compatibility with Maya 2022 and later versions
- Added All RenderBatch Nodes option in Cache Manager for viewing all cache entries simultaneously
- Resolved issue causing significant delays when switching back to Harmony from other applications on Windows
- Fixed Tool Preset import functionality
- Corrected PSD file import issues with single top-level groups
- Resolved Photoshop compatibility issue with alpha mode in exported PSD files
- Fixed crash occurring when dragging and dropping templates on M4 Mac computers
- Addressed rendering cache issues that caused unnecessary frame re-rendering
- Resolved render thread deadlocks on M4 Mac systems
