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  • My comments after 3 months of using Spine

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Hello
I just finished my first project fully animated in Spine for a serious game.
It was hard ( front view characters acting /speaking, not actions in side view...), but the result is great (according to my client).
I used to animate in Flash/AnimateCC for long years and the Spine's workflow (and quality of the result 🙂 ) is very different. A very new approach of animation for me.

As I went along, I noted the (ideal) possible options that would improve the workflow, OMHO.

I'll try to be as clear as possible despite my average English:

  • The ability to display the preview view on another screen.

  • the ability to scale the whole root ignoring the inherit scale option unchecked to avoid this kind of result :lol

    Could be very handy when a character grows in perspective (walking toward us)

  • Add markers above the dopesheet
    it seems essential to me to get your bearings, especially when an animation serves as a bank of poses.

-Separate top/down and right/left for the transform constraints.
E.g for the vertical move of a face, the face controller's influence (e.g for the chin) shoud be different if the character looks up or down.

-Check/uncheck the visibility of a whole bone (with child bones and attachments) instead of check/uncheck each attachment visibility one by one.

-Copy/paste mesh binding values from a mesh to another

-Nested animations ( like moviecClips in Flash). E.g to switch between different animated face expressions on the same body.

-Add an "empty key" option in the dopesheet. which would prevent unintentionally creating a default interpolation when clicking on the "keys all of the shown timeline" button at the end of the animation. And it would simplify the way to reverse a part of ananimation.

-The IK still hard to use when a limb bends in positive + negative direction.The transition has to be done when the limb is straight to avoid a frame jump. Maybe having the choice to keep the bones positions when the Ik mix is at 0 would simplify the thing? Or, even better, the ability to key the positive/negative direction of an IK.

-The possibility of locking (or/and collapse) the skeletons that you don't want to animate in the dopesheet

-Transform constraints : a move or rotate... constraint influences an other constraint (scale...)

-Ability to key the order of skeletons (e.g when a character is hiding by an BG object-on a different skel- then stand in front of this object)

(I didn't use the skins)

Well it seems a lot :grinteeth:
Spine is a great soft, it revolutionized my way of doing animation but I think with these "ideal" options, the work would be easier (for me). Does it make sense ...or not?

Thanks for reading, and thanks for your great work.

PS: the script PhotoshopToSpine is the 8th wonder of the world 😉

Great observations

I agree with those

Tomateche wrote

-Check/uncheck the visibility of a whole bone (with child bones and attachments) instead of check/uncheck each attachment visibility one by one.

  • Add markers above the dopesheet
    it seems essential to me to get your bearings, especially when an animation serves as a bank of poses.

-
We have this, right click on the bone dot.

[quote="Tomateche"]Check/uncheck the visibility of a whole bone (with child bones and attachments) instead of check/uncheck each attachment visibility one by one.[/quote]

How? what if vertex count is different. have you tried to use linked mesh, binding is copied for all linked meshes.

Copy/paste mesh binding values from a mesh to another

We have this, right click on the bone dot.

Tomateche a écrit:
Check/uncheck the visibility of a whole bone (with child bones and attachments) instead of check/uncheck each attachment visibility one by one.

Right, but the attachment still in the final animation (preview).

How? what if vertex count is different. have you tried to use linked mesh, binding is copied for all linked meshes.

I meaned : copy the value of one "weight camembert" (I'm french 😉 ) to an other mesh vertice.
Or select several superimposed vectors belonging to different meshes ,and apply the same weight to them

Thank you for all your feedback! We are happy to hear you like Spine 😃

You gave us many suggestions, but many of which are already on our roadmap, so I will go ahead and introduce the relevant issue tickets for them:

- The ability to display the preview view on another screen.

My comments after 3 months of using Spine

- Add markers above the dopesheet

https://github.com/EsotericSoftware/spine-editor/issues/531

-Nested animations ( like movieClips in Flash). E.g to switch between different animated face expressions on the same body.

At runtime, it is possible to combine multiple animations to create variations, but as you say, it is not possible to place animations as clips in the editor. In this regard, we have an idea to add such functions to the Preview view.
https://github.com/EsotericSoftware/spine-editor/issues/371

-The possibility of locking (or/and collapse) the skeletons that you don't want to animate in the dopesheet

https://github.com/EsotericSoftware/spine-editor/issues/436

-Transform constraints : a move or rotate... constraint influences an other constraint (scale...)

https://github.com/EsotericSoftware/spine-editor/issues/121

-Ability to key the order of skeletons (e.g when a character is hiding by an BG object-on a different skel- then stand in front of this object)

I know this is a somewhat different idea from your opinion, but I just think that if this were possible, it would solve your issue:
https://github.com/EsotericSoftware/spine-editor/issues/8

====================================================

New issues have been created for the following proposal:

- The ability to scale the whole root ignoring the inherit scale option unchecked

Indeed, I have had the experience that I want to scale without regard to the setting of the scale inheritance. I have created an issue ticket here:
https://github.com/EsotericSoftware/spine-editor/issues/657

-Separate top/down and right/left for the transform constraints.

This seemed to make a lot of sense, so I created an issue ticket here:
https://github.com/EsotericSoftware/spine-editor/issues/658

====================================================

-Check/uncheck the visibility of a whole bone (with child bones and attachments) instead of check/uncheck each attachment visibility one by one.

From your reply, am I correct in assuming that the current functionality of switching the visibility of bones is sufficient?
Also, hiding all attachments is easily done by using the tree filter to visible only attachments and selecting them, is there any inconvenience in that?

-Copy/paste mesh binding values from a mesh to another

Indeed, I thought it might be useful when you need to set similar weights to many parts, such as when creating 2.5D facial movements. However, since 4.1.16-beta has a weight lock function, it might be faster to lock all weights except those you want to edit and then add them with Add mode. I think the process of selecting the target vertices for copy/paste is going to be tedious in itself. What do you think about this?

-Add an "empty key" option in the dopesheet. which would prevent unintentionally creating a default interpolation when clicking on the "keys all of the shown timeline" button at the end of the animation. And it would simplify the way to reverse a part of an animation.

-The IK still hard to use when a limb bends in positive + negative direction.The transition has to be done when the limb is straight to avoid a frame jump. Maybe having the choice to keep the bones positions when the Ik mix is at 0 would simplify the thing? Or, even better, the ability to key the positive/negative direction of an IK.

I personally am not sure the usefulness of these yet. Could you be a little more specific about how exactly this would be a problem with animation?

You gave us many suggestions, but many of which are already on our roadmap, so I will go ahead and introduce the relevant issue tickets for them:

Proves that my suggestions are not insane...phew ! 😉

-Check/uncheck the visibility of a whole bone (with child bones and attachments) instead of check/uncheck each attachment visibility one by one.

From your reply, am I correct in assuming that the current functionality of switching the visibility of bones is sufficient?
Also, hiding all attachments is easily done by using the tree filter to visible only attachments and selecting them, is there any inconvenience in that?

I wasn't clear enough, sorry. I meant that it would be easier to be able to uncheck the visibility of all the attachments (or slots) of a bone and its childs during the animation. Concrete example : a character handles a complex animated object composed of several bones and attachments. At frame N, I want this object to explode. I have to manually uncheck the visibility of all attachments of this object and check the visibility of the attachments included in the "explode-bones".
Currently, making the bones invisible is only used to clean up the work area but does not affect the rendering of the animation.

Am I clearer?

-Add an "empty key" option in the dopesheet. which would prevent unintentionally creating a default interpolation when clicking on the "keys all of the shown timeline" button at the end of the animation. And it would simplify the way to reverse a part of an animation.

-The IK still hard to use when a limb bends in positive + negative direction.The transition has to be done when the limb is straight to avoid a frame jump. Maybe having the choice to keep the bones positions when the Ik mix is at 0 would simplify the thing? Or, even better, the ability to key the positive/negative direction of an IK.

I personally am not sure the usefulness of these yet. Could you be a little more specific about how exactly this would be a problem with animation?

About the first point (the empty key) : Indeed, it's not necessary... in place simply have the possibility to choose "stepped curve" before adding a new key after the current key. Currently it's not possible, and it creates default interpolations which are not desired.

What about keying and interpolate the IK direction (positive/negative)?

I wasn't clear enough, sorry. I meant that it would be easier to be able to uncheck the visibility of all the attachments (or slots) of a bone and its childs during the animation. Concrete example : a character handles a complex animated object composed of several bones and attachments. At frame N, I want this object to explode. I have to manually uncheck the visibility of all attachments of this object and check the visibility of the attachments included in the "explode-bones".
Currently, making the bones invisible is only used to clean up the work area but does not affect the rendering of the animation.

Now I understand what you are looking for! Thank you for explaining it in detail. I guess what you are hoping to do would be solved if this idea of a selections panel is realized:
https://github.com/EsotericSoftware/spine-editor/issues/409

Switching the visibility of attachments below a bone may indeed be convenient, but it may still require a lot of clicking depending on the setup. Therefore, I think it would be better to have a function that allows us to group together all the things you want to manage in one place.
It has been already possible to make selection groups of attachments that need to be shown or hidden frequently, but since only up to 10 groups can be stored, it is not enough for complex skeletons. If you do not know how to create selection groups, please see this page of the user guide:
Tools - Spine User Guide: Selection groups

About the first point (the empty key) : Indeed, it's not necessary... in place simply have the possibility to choose "stepped curve" before adding a new key after the current key. Currently it's not possible, and it creates default interpolations which are not desired.

It’s possible! We have added the “Default curve" setting in 4.1, it allows you to key with a stepped curve from the beginning.

What about keying and interpolate the IK direction (positive/negative)?

As for this, I couldn't imagine switching the IK between positive and negative so often, and even if I did, I think it would be sufficient to use a stepped curve to switch between the two.
Personally, I don't use IK on arms or other parts of the body that require more than 180 degrees of rotation. In my case, I use IK almost exclusively on the legs or temporarily when I need to fix a part of the body, such as in pose with hands on its hip, so I almost never switch the IK positive in animations. Of course, I know that my experience alone is not enough to know what to expect, so I would like to know specifically what kind of animation you are having trouble with. Could you show us some examples?

Example of IK on elbows, wrist and rotation more than 180°

I think it would be sufficient to use a stepped curve to switch between the two.

Unless the two limbs (arms+forearms) are straight aligned, this creates an image jump.

Thank you for sharing that specific animation! Perhaps I understand the feature you are hoping for. Actually, you can create rotation keys of the constrained bones before setting the IK Mix to 0 so that the bones will not be straight (I just learned this from Nate!). As shown in the video below, you can keep the smooth motion connection even after switching to FK.

Wouldn't this solve your issue? If you still have any concerns, please let us know!