[UE4] Suggestions and improvements.

Maxwell_n11

Hello there,
I came up with some suggestions about Spine plugin for UE4.

SpineBoneDrive component and SpineBoneFollower component

Properties UsePosition/UseRotation/UseScale are not used in the cpp code.
Target property should be "EditInstanceOnly" because you cannot set an instance through the blueprint editor.
I made a test with the anim "aim" and set the "Target" property with the bone "crosshair"
the result is not good as you can see. https://ibb.co/qNbSFVr

Editor

The render in editor seems broken, but work perfectly in PIE.
https://ibb.co/QFGMXYP

Improvements and features

Spine Gameplay Debugger category with animation state, number of tracks and their indexes.
https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Gameplay/Tools/GameplayDebugger/index.html
Integration of spine in the sequencer (manipulate bones, animations, etc...) https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Engine/Sequencer/Overview/index.html
Better blending when removing track (I made a gif comparison between UE and Unity, Unity is way better)
(Unreal https://ibb.co/1K2w4Jj vs Unity https://ibb.co/P5dV7mw)

I tested the Unity version and is definitely more polish than UE.

We cannot set the rotation of a bone (in blueprint).
Most of the example maps doesn't works.
"Mix data" and "default mix" properties in "Spine Skeleton Data Asset" are not working.

The 2D solution looks fantastic, but need a little bit of more stability and functionality.
Because of a non maintained built-in Paper2D plugin by Epic, Unreal community really looking for a functional 2D solution.
Anyway thank you for your work.

Mario

Thanks for taking the time to note down improvement suggestions.

SpineBoneDriver and SpineBoneFollower component: could you send me the scene where the crosshair isn't following the driver properly? Or at least show the hierarchy view?

Mix data & default mix not working: I'll look into it.

Editor & most examples don't work: I can not reproduce this at all. What UE4 version are you using? What OS and GPU are you running this on?

Gameplay debugger, sequencer support, bone rotation in blueprints: good suggestions, we'll look into them!

Blending: that's a matter of setting the mix duration between animation switches and not a bug. Is that a scene you created yourself?

Maxwell_n11

Thanks for the answers.

So, about the BoneDriver and BoneFollower component I found the problem.
The scale of my skeleton actor was (X : 0.5 ; Y : 0.333 ; Z : 0.5) and because of the value 0.333 the location of the crosshair wasn't good.
I don't know if it's a bug or normal behavior when the scale values are uniform.

most examples don't work
When I said they're not working, I mean the behavior of the examples maps not working,
especially the behavior of the maps 03-multiple-tracks-and-events and 05-driving-bones.

Here is my project https://filebin.net/q0kqwc4fbsiunox3/spine-ue4.rar?t=xlhei710 with a map called "MAP_Test".

I fixed the "03-multiple-tracks-and-events" and "05-driving-bones" maps if you want to compare with your github repository project.
Also the blueprints have some comments about the reason why they are not working.

Blending: that's a matter of setting the mix duration between animation switches and not a bug. Is that a scene you created yourself?
Is it related to the default mix array in the skeleton data asset ? If so I tried with this array entry

From => "idle"
To => "aim"
Mix => 0.5

If it's not that, how can I change the setting of the mix duration ?

Editor
The bad render gone when I cleaned the project, so for now it's working and I'll tell you if the error occurs again.

Additional Infos
Unreal version: 4.22
Spine2D plugin version: 3.8

Mario

Thanks for the information!

For the BoneDriver/BoneFollower component I've created an issue here: https://github.com/EsotericSoftware/spine-runtimes/issues/1512

For the example maps that are not working I'll check out your changes. Issue here: [ue4] Some example maps misbehave · #1513

For the animation blending issue: the mix durations are specified in the Skeleton Data Asset, as described here: spine-ue4 Runtime Documentation: Skeleton Data Asset. Setting "idle" -> "aim" to 0.5 won't have an effect on the animation you showed in https://ibb.co/1K2w4Jj, as the "idle" animation is not involved. Since you are removing a track entry, you want to specify the "default mix" in the skeleton data asset. Alternatively, when setting an animation on a track, you get a TrackEntry back which you can further manipulate, including the mix duration, see spine-ue4 Runtime Documentation: Track Entries

Maxwell_n11

Hello,

So I tried with the right animations for the skeleton asset mixing data but still not working. 🙁
I tried with the TrackEntry and it didn't worked too.

But I noticed when I release the left mouse button the AddEmptyAnimation node with a custom mixduration worked.

My blueprint : https://ibb.co/6vJNh5d
My skeleton asset : https://ibb.co/W0FTybx
The render : https://ibb.co/PF3mYs9

Other bugs I noticed :

When the engine is launch the render component looks blurry and I need to zoom in the component to remove the blurry artifact.
https://ibb.co/VCqgbmy
If the "Target" pin is empty on the "AddEmptyAnimation" node and I compile the blueprint then the editor crash.
That probably happen on others "Add/Set Animation" nodes.
https://gifyu.com/image/kEi4

Mario

The blurry-ness is a UE4 setting you can modify. It has to do with texture streaming settings. Disable texture streaming and things will work as they should: https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Engine/Content/Types/Textures/Streaming/index.html#streamingtype

The crash is a bug, I've opened an issue here: https://github.com/EsotericSoftware/spine-runtimes/issues/1517

I'll take a look at the mix duration issue.