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Hi Esoteric Team,

I am rigging a tail animation and I wanted to understand how the previous bones rotation is compared to the current bones rotation via the current axis selection.

Local
Parent
World

I almost always have the AXES set to world so I always know the exact amount of rotation that I am dealing with but If I could see the difference in rotation from the parent to the child that would also be helpful. I believe that is what parent and local do for me but how exactly do they differ?

Tim

Hello Tim,

How rotation works in relation to the different axes is explained in the related user guide page and video:
Tools - Spine User Guide: Rotate tool

Regarding your question, in this specific case, they don't differ as both are relative to the parent rotation.

Local or Parent: The value is the counterclockwise rotation relative to the item's parent, where 0 is pointing the same direction as the parent's X axis.

If you want to have an exact amount applied to your bones, don't forget you can use numeric entry to input a relative value and have Spine apply it for you:
Tools - Spine User Guide: Numeric entry