Toon Boom Harmony vs TVPaint: Which is Better?

Have you ever wondered about what to chose between Toon Boom Harmony vs TVPaint? When diving into the animation world, choosing which software to use can be a hard task since most software offer advanced functions and capabilities. And what makes it even harder is the high similarity between the tools and features.

However, there are many reasons to prefer a software over another, such as adequacy to a specific task or the overall workflow.

Is Toon Boom Harmony vs TVPaint even a valid comparison?

You’re more that likely to be asking yourself this question if you’ve ever took a look at Toon Boom Harmony’s main website. Sure, the first thing that strikes your attention is the :”WOW! it’s so beautiful”, but you’ll quickly notice something else: the PRICE tag! Looking at things from TVPaint‘s side now, well… surprise! it has a price tag too. Knowing that none of them gives the “free” advantage (like Krita or Opentoonz), the face-off relies entirely on the value that they can provide.

We’ve talked about what you can do with Toon Boom Harmony before, and we included TVPaint on our ultimate list of the best Anime software for beginners. In this post however, we will compare and review each one of them to help you choose the one that suits you best.

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1. Toon Boom Harmony Overview

Toon Boom Harmony is a professional and versatile 2D software that has been developed by Toon Boom Company and has active users all over the world. Not to mention that it operates on Windows, Mac and Linux for more flexibility and efficiency.

Harmony is a vector-based tool with bitmap support as well. It ranks among the top animation software due to its various and advanced features. One of its biggest strengths is the fact that it provides you with export and import options besides the cross-platform integration support, especially when it comes to game engines. In other words, it’s a powerful drawing and animation software that delivers high quality results while giving you an excellent animation process experience.

2. TVPaint Overview

TVPaint is a powerful software for 2D animation and painting developed by the French Company TVPaint Development. It’s an advanced drawing tool usually dedicated to creating animated movies and complete film projects from start to finish. It has all the needed tools and features for that matter with high levels of reliability and performance. The main objective of the developers launching this tool is to enhance the traditional paper-based 2D creation process and deliver the best digital experience out of.

It offers you a huge freedom within the workspace by allowing you to fully customize your workflow, bouncing between the paper and digital animation and getting the best of both mediums. Besides the desktop package, the company released a free Android version to make your sketching phase quicker and easier. In addition to pushing the boundaries of teamwork further by allowing you to share your ideas with a few clicks from the palm of your hand.

3. Learning Curve

At this level, we’re addressing these tools from a professional point of view. Therefore, if you’re a beginner your learning journey might take longer to get a grip of the basics first.

• Toon Boom Harmony: it’s not the easiest software out there but it still has a fine learning curve. It’s not about being hard to get familiar with, but more of a time-consuming process since it has a wide range of tools. If you want to be an advanced Harmony animator, your biggest challenge will be grasping the variety of this toolset and using it to your advantage. Besides the rigging features and the compositing system, the UI isn’t the most intuitive either so it might require an additional effort to handle it properly.
• TVPaint: things don’t get any easier with this one either, because you can easily describe it as very different. So if you’re coming from another software you probably won’t feel at home: as a complete beginner, you might need some guidance to get familiar with the interface and the overall workflow.

4. Industries that adopted the software

Animation can find its way nearly in all industries, and picking up the targeted one for these tools is totally up to the animator. However, some software can end up being favored in some industries over the others. TVPaint can be used for:

• creating animation videos for corporate presentation
• workshops
• education purposes
• short movies creation…, etc.

On the other hand, Toon Boom Harmony proved itself to be extremely versatile and fits for all kinds of animation fields. Nevertheless, it’s even more popular for the large-scale production such as animated movies and TV shows.

5. Drawing Tools

TVPaint

TVPaint provides you with all the necessary drawing tools such as brushes, line-art support, color palettes, textures and more. You can use it with a graphic tablet and you can also customize the tools like the brushes using the brushes system or animate them using the brush-cutting system. Not to mention that you have full control over the parameters like opacity, angle, size, and so on. In addition to the possibility of customizing the strokes.

It has a powerful painting engine that allows you to do sketching, backgrounds painting and illustrations with high levels of reliability and in real-time. Furthermore, it has a Color and Texture Generator, providing you with enhanced coloring capabilities even if the lines were unclosed. Depending on your needs, the Color and Texture Generator makes you able to color image sequences besides the ability to apply texture tracking on elements. There are more coloring tools such as the Paint Bucket, the Auto Pick Color, Color Replacer and Tint Replacer.

TVPaint supports the animate on paper with many functions to make the paper drawing and computer drawing very integrated and complementary. It optimizes this process thanks to features like the compatibility with DV Camcorders and webcams that line-test the animation. In addition to that, the software has a Scan Cleaner that deletes the white space while preserving the line-art. Moreover, it has the Peg Holes Registration that automatically aligns the sheets from the peg bar.

You can also customize the paper-based digital work to simulate the classic one, resulting in a natural appearance as if you’re using watercolor, crayons or chalk. Not to mention that it comes with a shortcut system, allowing you to quickly access to the drawing sheets. As you can see, TVPaint is equipped with various drawing tools since its purpose is based on classic hand drawing frame-by-frame animation.

Toon Boom Harmony

Toon Boom Harmony stands as a powerful competitor since it also comes with many tools and features for a fantastic drawing process. Harmony has a wide range of brushes, painting and pencil tools for effective drawing whether it be using a tablet or a mouse. The color within Harmony comes in fabulous pallets and it also supports hand-drawn and scanned bases. It allows you to create vector art with high quality, which is perfect for screen animation videos. Besides that, it has bitmap support allowing you make natural and highly immersive artworks.

6. Animation Tools

TVPaint is a complete frame-by-frame animation software that has all the necessary tools with a handy images and layers management system. It comes with a smart image library that works on easing the process by storing references for later: such as model-sheets, guidelines and vanishing points. Navigate images in your timeline with ease by using bookmarks, image marks or even keyframe marks. In addition to animation features that include rough, clean-up and key frames. The system is bitmap based, which allows you to do the 2D animation in a more natural and realistic way. And even animating the traditional art appearance such as oil painting and watercolor, resulting in smooth and natural renderings.

The software also comes with filters and special effects for quick application and instant results to enhance your workflow. You won’t need to use other programs since TVPaint has the ability to use keys and parameters to animate effects. You can also combine as many effects as you want to come up with the most creative artwork, alongside using Smear Source to apply crayoned or painted effects to your sequence of frames. 

TVPaint is highly reliable: with the layer system you can animate each element separately for a better precision and a lower risk of making mistakes. You can also add effects on a separate layer and render them to avoid distractions. At the end, you can export the project files to an MP4 file.

Compared to TVPaint, Harmony is also a frame-by-frame animation software that stands the competition with amazing and efficient tools. It comes with beautiful effects that add a special vibe and appearance to your work. Not to mention that it supports hybrid production, where it merges the 2D with 3D animation.

7. Compositing Tools

TVPaint comes with fantastic compositing features where you can easily import files like videos or images in multiple formats such as AVI, MPEG, and so on. Not to mention that the process is as easy as a drag-and-drop into the workspace.

Adding sound effects is also simple and effective with TVPaint: the software comes with two tracks besides the timeline. One for notes and the other for sound. The sound space allows you to composite audios and soundtracks in addition to managing them by tweaking various parameters, like volumes or fades. With these amazing functions, the lip-syncing comes in simple and smooth.

However, compositing with TVPaint can be seen as somewhat limited from many angles. Not to mention that the process isn’t the most intuitive and it can be a bit hard to figure out in the early stages.

On the other hand, Toon Boom Harmony comes with robust compositing tools and a Node System that allows you to use a virtual camera or to add special visual effects.

8. Pricing plans

When it comes to Harmony, you can benefit from the free trial for one month just to test the waters. When you feel comfortable about having it, you can choose one of the 3 options available:

• Essentials: it’s for $17 per month billed annually or $405 for the lifetime package. It’s very suitable if you’re just getting started with Harmony.
• Advanced: it’s for around $40 per month billed annually or around a $1000 for the lifetime package.
• Premium: this version is for around $70 per month also billed annually, or around $2000 for the lifetime package. This one obviously unlocks the full potential of the software.

On the other hand, TVPaint is only available for a lifetime purchase and as a DVD. It comes in two versions:

1. The Standard version for around $600
2. The Professional version for around $1500.

Conclusion

You now reached the climax of the Toon Boom Harmony vs TVPaint ultimate fece-off! To sum up, when it comes to the drawing and animation tools, TVPaint is the winner. While for the learning curve, rigging and compositing tools, Toon Boom Harmony takes it over.

Each software has its own features and tools, but comparing them, one can provide advantage over the other. For example, if you’re an artist who focuses more on the hand-drawn base, TVPaint is probably the best for you. However, if you need more animation options then Harmony is the one to go for. In other words, your choice depends on your own needs as an animator.