To start, information about the software and equipment that individuals will need for their studies and projects is at:
- ECU > Life at ECU > Campus Services > IT Services
The link is here.
There, you can find details about:
- Choosing and using your laptop for your studies at ECU
- Self-serve printing
- Information about the Digital Output Centre
- The Media Resources Centre
- How to access ECU’s on-Campus Computer Labs
- About getting Adobe Creative Cloud
- How to get Microsoft 365 at ECU
In the 2D & Experimental Animation program, 2nd-year students will utilize specific software to produce their projects. For instance, you will typically employ Toon Boom Harmony to create two-dimensional drawn animation, and Adobe After Effects, Premiere, and Audition to composite the various layers, edit movie files, and design corresponding soundscapes.
Toon Boom Harmony
Harmony is specific 2D animation software that we utilize at Emily Carr, for paperless techniques. As courses evolve, from semester to semester, you will learn specific methodologies and pipelines. From 2nd year on, you are sure to refine ways of making animation, utilizing both Harmony and Adobe products, all the way to 4th year. Additionally, Toon Boom Harmony is commonly used in the creative industries. Both as a student and as an emerging practitioner, it’s likely that you will use the software for many years to come.
Many of you might already be accustomed to digital drawing, painting, and even animation, with programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Animate, Clip Studio, Krita, Procreate, and so on. This is fine. There is nothing wrong with these programs. But, the purpose of Harmony will be to create “line animation”, following an already established tradition, where you will make iterative rough drafts, review work-in progress, and then do revisions. These are all steps towards refining and polishing movement. Once you have “tied down” the line animation, you will then shift to production, with clean-up, line art, colour art, background design, and so on. It’s a useful approach and Harmony does well at organizing the procedures.
It will be possible, and likely, to use software like Photoshop, Clip Studio, Krita, and Procreate in conjunction with Harmony for animation production. For instance, you might choose to use such programs to create background artwork. People have favourite brushes too. In 2nd year courses, we will cover ways to integrate line animation that you have developed with Harmony and artwork that you have created with Photoshop, Clip Studio, Krita, and Procreate, and then composite the layers, in After Effects or Harmony.
In the Animation studios at Emily Carr, Harmony Premium is installed on the computers, with Wacom Cintiq screen tablets for drawing. The studio and workstations will be available for you to work at, whenever you want, when the campus is open.
The 2D & Experimental Animation program has several licenses of Harmony Premium to sign out for home use. This will allow you to install the software on your own computer. You can have it until April, or the conclusion of the current academic year.
Details about access to Harmony take-home licenses for 2nd year students are here.
An obvious advantage of using the software in this manner is that you will be able to work, conveniently, on your projects at home. You won’t need to commute to school as often.
Note
If you feel that you will not use a licence, please don’t sign one out. There are not enough available to go around for all 2DAN students. For instance, a 3rd or 4th year will be able to use a copy instead.
Supplementary software
Interestingly, there are inexpensive apps available on iPad, Android, and Windows screen tablets, that you can use to create line animation.
It’s possible to export and then import the project to Harmony, for ink-and-paint production later on. We will discuss all of this in more detail in our 2DAN production courses.
Adobe Creative Cloud
As an Animation student at Emily Carr, your tuition covers the licenses of Adobe Creative Cloud software. You will not have to purchase your own individual subscription.
If you have not already done so, please be sure to set up your Creative Cloud account. The steps are explained at “Hardware, Software & Printing”, here, and “Learn About Adobe Access & Grant Access”, here.
If your account has already been activated, like in Foundation, it will continue to function now. You won’t have to set it more than once.
For typical 2D Animation courses, you will need to download:
- Premiere Pro
- After Effects
- Photoshop
- Audition
- Animate
- Media Encoder
At the first class of 2DAN production courses, we will check to see if there are any problems with activating Creative Cloud. On a case-by-case, individual-by-individual basis, we can then ask the Animation technicians and IT Services to help figure out solutions.