Draw Over · animation review

Getting review notes into → Toon Boom Harmony

Your reviewer draws over your playblast and sends you a .zip. This guide sets up the one-time toolbar button, then shows the weekly click that drops those drawings onto the right frames in your scene.

Do this once

Install the toolbar

Put the importer where Harmony can find it, so an Import Draw Over button lives in your workspace for good.

First time only · ~3 minutes Installation steps
Do this each review

Import the drawings

Click the button, pick the .zip, tell it which Harmony frame is playblast frame 0, and the notes land on your timeline.

Every set of notes · ~20 seconds Import steps
Part 1

Install the toolbar button

You only do this once per machine. It copies the importer into Harmony's scripts folder so the button is always there. Grab DRAWOVER_HARMONY_PACKAGE.zip from your instructor's site first.

  1. Close Harmony

    Quit it completely before copying files in, so it picks them up cleanly on the next launch.

  2. Open your Harmony user scripts folder

    The folder name ends in -scripts and matches your version (for Harmony 22 it's 2200-scripts).

    C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Roaming\Toon Boom Animation\Toon Boom Harmony Premium\<version>-scripts

    Quick way there: paste %APPDATA%\Toon Boom Animation into the File Explorer address bar and drill down from there.

    ~/Library/Preferences/Toon Boom Animation/Toon Boom Harmony Premium/<version>-scripts

    In Finder use Shift+Cmd+G and paste the path to jump straight there.

  3. Extract the zip into that folder

    Unzip DRAWOVER_HARMONY_PACKAGE.zip there, keeping the folder structure. You should end up with a packages/DrawOver/ folder sitting inside …-scripts.

  4. Start Harmony

    Reopen Harmony. What happens next depends on your version.

  5. Find your button

    An Import Draw Over button appears on its own toolbar automatically. If you don't see it, turn it on with Windows → Toolbars → Draw Over.

    One extra step, once: show the Scripting toolbar with Windows → Toolbars → Scripting, click its Manage Scripts button, select DrawOverImport.js in the list, pick the function importDrawOver, and click the right-arrow to add it to the toolbar. You now have a permanent button.

That's the install done. You never repeat Part 1 unless you move to a new machine or upgrade Harmony to a new scripts folder.
Part 2

Import a set of notes into your scene

This is the weekly click. Open the Harmony scene the notes are for, then run the button. The importer builds a single DrawOver overlay layer and exposes each drawing on the frame it belongs to.

  1. Open the right scene

    Open the same shot the playblast came from, so the frames line up. Have the .zip your reviewer sent saved somewhere you can find it.

  2. Click Import Draw Over

    Hit the toolbar button. A file dialog opens. Choose the reviewer's .zip — the importer unzips it for you.

    No button yet? You can also run it from Windows → Script Editor → File → Import Script, choose DrawOverImport.js, and run importDrawOver.

  3. Set the frame offset

    A small dialog shows how many draw-over frames were found and asks: which Harmony frame matches playblast frame 0? Usually that's 1. If your shot's action starts partway into the timeline, enter that start frame instead so the notes land where the motion actually is.

  4. Click Import

    The importer creates a bitmap layer named DrawOver, drops each review drawing onto its correct frame, and wires the layer into your scene's composite so it overlays like a sticky note over the animation.

  5. Work through the notes, then delete the layer

    Scrub the timeline: the drawings appear only on the frames that were annotated. Fix each note as you reach it. When you're done, delete the DrawOver layer like any other layer — it was only ever an overlay.

Keep the notes text handy. The written comments come as a separate .txt file next to the zip, not inside it (Harmony's importer rejects stray files in the package). Open that text file alongside Harmony to read the reviewer's words while you scrub the drawings.
Reference

What the import actually makes

A DrawOver layer

One bitmap drawing layer added to your scene, named DrawOver (or DrawOver_1 if one already exists). It holds every review drawing.

One drawing per annotated frame

Each drawing is exposed on its exact frame, shifted by the offset you set, so notes sit on the same moments the reviewer marked.

A composite connection

The layer is wired into the first composite in your scene and centre-fit, so it overlays the picture without you rigging anything.

Nothing permanent

It's a normal layer. It won't render unless you leave it connected, and deleting it removes the notes cleanly when you're finished.