[Unity] Where in the hierarchy do you add scripts to?

Lethn

Since there's so many extra objects involved with my imported skeleton does anyone know how you're supposed to attach scripts in Unity correctly? Now normally if you have one sprite all you do is just attach the script to that but here with the skeleton it's a bit trickier and I haven't been able to find any spine tutorials on it.

Pharan

This is obviously a case by case basis, as with anyone deciding the architecture of their game and their objects.

Simple base rule would be:
If you only have one skeleton, you can add your view logic script right on the same GameObject.
If you have multiple skeletons, or if your skeleton potentially needs to be disabled, you can put your view logic script one level above (in the parent GameObject).

Are you new to Unity?
What do you mean by "so many extra objects involved"? Involved how? (romantically?)

Lethn

LOL! Thanks for the response.

I am sort of new to Unity, I've been learning a hell of a lot though so I have a grasp of the basics, what I mean is. When the skeleton is added into the hierarchy, they appear as several game objects in the hierarchy because of the amount of limbs and attachments. So for example you have the body bone, the body attachment and the body image.

When you deal with a single sprite it's easy because there is only one game object, I'm dealing with a respawn mechanic, so when my character makes contact with something it deletes the sprite and returns it to a checkpoint to do all the physics stuff it also calls up a RigidBody2D object and a collider. I just need to know how to do this properly with a whole skeleton so I don't end up having one limb disappearing and going back and so on.

Do I need to create a collider and a RigidBody for each limb so that they all get respawned at the checkpoint when the character dies or is there a much simpler solution?

Oh! That's ridiculous! I didn't realise that you could just attach a script to an entirely seperate empty and parent the skeleton to that! Woops, okay, respawn mechanic is still pretty buggy because only the head seemed to respawn at the checkpoint while the rest falls off the world.

Pharan

Lethn wrote
When the skeleton is added into the hierarchy, they appear as several game objects in the hierarchy because of the amount of limbs and attachments. So for example you have the body bone, the body attachment and the body image.

The hierarchy in Spine doesn't show up in Unity.
But if you're using SkeletonUtility (to attach colliders and things to certain bones) then parts of your skeleton hierarchy might be reflected as GameObjects you add in Unity's GameObject hierarchy, but it won't involve slots and images.

Have you even tried importing your skeleton yet?

Do you know about prefabs in Unity? Do you know about moving your Transform positions? Why would you need Rigidbody2D and Collider2D to reposition your character? And if they're all in a hierarchy, why would certain parts disappear? Are you using several Rigidbodies? If so, is it because you are ragdolling it?

Mitch

I think a more pointed question is.... Did you use Baking?

Lethn

Well I've been working from this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSf37t2RiYQ - Yes, I've definitely used baking, I don't know whether it's the version I'm using or something else but the limbs etc. do in fact appear on the hieararchy in Unity.

The Unity Runtime provided bakes the skeleton and it creates a prefab for you with all the bits inside, the animation I've done has imported fine but i'm having trouble getting it working with my scripts which interact with stuff in the game world.

Would it help if I threw up a screenshot of my Unity hierarchy for you?

Mitch

Don't bake unless you have to. It's getting to the point where I should remove baking from the main repo or include a checkbox that makes people acknowledge that baking is a last resort and have read the giant warning label that accompanies the baking functions. Not mad at you, just tired of answering these lol - it's our fault for letting it be confusing.

Right click on the Skeleton Data Asset and choose instantiate skeleton animation. This is the way spine works best. See some of the example projects for how to attach scripts and what not.

I really need to make a new unity best practices video..

Lethn

Ahhh! Thanks! And yes! Please do, just make an up to date one, I think part of the problem is all the documentation you have is pretty obscured or out of date but this is a very common problem with new game development software that gets updated a lot, otherwise this is a fantastic piece of programming.

Without this and Unity I would be having to deal with a lot of frustration when making my game, it's great being able to animate everything so smoothly, I want to get the professional edition if I make enough money off my game because then I'll be able to make much smoother loop animations with ghosting.

Edit: HOLY CRAP! It worked! Thank you, instantiate is definitely the way to go and I just realised, I've been looking at Instantiate recently because I've been interested in base building mechanics and so on. This is the stuff you use to spawn in new gameobjects and stuff at certain locations so of course that's going to work better than baking and prefabs, sometimes I really hate how obvious this stuff is only after you've learned about it.

I just need to tweak the way the spawning is working at the moment but after that it should be fine, time to put in my run animations 😃 😃 😃 thanks again for your help, it's working great now.

Pharan

I regret removing the part of my post that asked if you used baking, and said to never use baking.

If you're using baking, DON'T USE BAKING. Just don't.
Especially if you're just beginning to use either Unity or Spine, it's not for you. Just leave those buttons alone or be damned to eternal confusion.

Both Unity and Spine need a bit of getting used to to begin with. Having random things not work, or work but in unusual ways, will not help you.
Baking is a workaround for the Unity asset store. And if it's good for anything else in final products, it's a last step towards really specific and really technical optimizations that you shouldn't be doing when you're just starting to work on your project.

Mitch

I think a lot of the baking issues are coming from that its the latest blog post and everyone's like "Ooo baking!"

Pharan

Guh

Lethn

lmao well you don't need to worry about anything on my part now, I know how to do it all properly.