Skins: I've put your +1 on it! Allow multiple skins to be active at once · #17 · EsotericSoftware/spine-editor

AbbeyAdriaan wrote

If I'm correct, you can keyframe a lot of the properties of a skeleton with ctrl+L, except for visibility of skinplaceholders. (Correct me if I'm wrong).

Skin placeholders, as well as attachments, won't be keyed by pressing Ctrl+L because they aren't transforms, if you want to literally key everything, try Ctrl+Shift+L instead. More shortcuts here: Spine: Cheat Sheet

AbbeyAdriaan wrote

While we've been using ctrl+L to key the frames, it didn't look like the visibility of the slots was keyed, as some parts seemed to appear and disappear again.

I'm unsure if your doubt is also about slot visibility, in which case it would be only normal to be unable to key the visibility of a slot, since it is only meant as a container of other things, but making a slot invisible has effects only in the editor to reduce clutter while organizing things, but not when you export an animation.

AbbeyAdriaan wrote

One feature that would help as well is being able to "hide all children" in the hierarchy explorer. right now you have to manually hide/show all children of a bone or slot.

You can select all children with Shift or Ctrl and then press H to hide them all at once, but if you could give your thoughts to this conversation it would be nice: ctrl+shift+arrow_down to select all children instead of just the first · #226 · EsotericSoftware/spine-editor

AbbeyAdriaan wrote

Dockable windows for for example images, slots, or IK's would be nice too. We find ourselves scrolling from images to bones quite a bit, since using the P shortcut doesn't place images in skinplaceholders, and we only use that.

You can filter the tree for this purpose: Tree - Spine User Guide: Filters

AbbeyAdriaan wrote

But the feature we would really love to see the most is having a way to change the playback speed in the animation! Especially since tweening can have some unforeseen effects, it would be nice to see how things are going wrong.

Do you mean in a way different than the one the Playback view already offers? Playback - Spine User Guide

AbbeyAdriaan wrote

Right now, you have to go to setup, put the character in that pose, do the above....and put everything back since all animations are relative to the setup.

You can also keep the Preview view open from setup mode, so you can see the final result while editing the skeleton. But we'd like to improve this part of the workflow to make it easier as well.

Nice to see you on board!

I also added this topic to the Type-to-filter in the tree feature: Type-to-filter for tree · #5 · EsotericSoftware/spine-editor it seems like it could be helpful without havng to detach parts that you'd have to scroll anyway.

When selecting multiple attachments (either in the same slots or in different ones), I can't tick boxes such as 'Export' on or off - I have to select them all, one by one, manually. How to do this for multiple items at once?

by hand for now, but here's another enhancement we have on the list: Multi select for mesh properties · #137 · EsotericSoftware/spine-editor

Second, today we accidentally gave a keyframe to a 'sketchy' attachment, which had 'Export' disabled. The export prompt gave us a nice message that this was the case, but exported the slot + attachment anyway. So we spend the last hour of the day looking for our naughty keyframe. Is there a way to improve this? For us it would be ok if there was an export option that just ignores 'Export'-disabled slots entirely, but a quick way to find keyframes of a certain slot through multiple animations could also work.

Yes, I must agree on this too, I added the topic to this issue as well: [Find and Replace] Find and remove unused attachments · #200 · EsotericSoftware/spine-editor

Don't scale the root in the editor because it won't take effect at runtime.
You can leave everything as it is, and instead scale it in the Atlas settings of the Json export:

More on the topic: Texture Packing - Spine User Guide Export - Spine User Guide

Most of the team (except silly old me ) is currently on vaccation. I'll let them know to get back on this when they come back.

I'd like to +1 both of the topics mentioned in this thread. The ability to select Multiple Meshes and edit their properties as well as the ability to view Multiple skins at one time in the editor.

While I am posting this... and if it's not too much to ask, I would also like to outline my current workflow process for some professional feedback. I am new to Spine and wonder if I might be 'doing things the hard way' and could simplify my workflow a bit.

In the project I'm working on there is a general 'underbody' skin for characters that rests underneath different sets of clothing and or armor. Each of the 4 different character body types or 'underbodies', sets of clothing, or sets of armor are in their own skin. Because I am unable to view multiple skins at one time in the setup editor, I start by creating duplicate' dummy' underbody set, not in a skin set. The dummy underbody can then remain constantly visible in order to act as a reference for the placement of imported clothing and armor assets. These additional clothing and armor sets are exported from Photoshop as JSON data which by default creates an additional skeleton when I import it into my existing project file.
I then make visible the imported attachments and position them over the top of the current character skeleton and dummy underbody reference. I then create a new skin layer in the main project to house the newly imported clothing assets. In the main project, I have already created slots and placeholders within the bones for the base skin(underbody), clothing, and armor pieces. Next, I go through and re-parent the imported clothing attachments to the main projects bones and existing slots/placeholders for this new skin. After reparenting is complete, I can then delete the temp skeleton that was generated on the import of the JSON data.
In the home stretch now, I go through and individually edit the alpha of the imported assets to make them semi-transparent in order to fine-tune their placement over the top of the character underbody (having the ability to select multiple attachments/meshes and edit their alpha at one time would be sooo super sweet!) - [In 'Animation mode' we have access to the 'Ghosting tools panel' which enables the abilty to sihlouette and 'X-ray' the different assets in order to see more specifically how they align with each other, however in 'Setup mode' the 'Ghosting tools panel' is not available].
Next, I create meshes for the clothing parts and weight them to the various main skeleton bones and free-floating bone influences that I use in for animation. After this is all complete, I can test out the various animations and make whatever final adjustments are required. I can adjust mesh deformation with either the mesh weights, influence bone positions or individual mesh vertices via 'soft selection' (OMG TY for this!) or individual manual tweaks.

With the current way that I am working, the ability to have multiple skins active at one time in Setup would be a huge time saver for me. Also, the ability to select and edit the options of multiple attachment/meshes at one time would also be a really really great.

Lastly, in thinking about UI suggestions... I wonder if anyone has considered the ability to split the window of the Tree panel? An example of this would be how Maya's 'outliner' hierarchy panel can be split vertically in order to view things at the top of a long list and things at the bottom of that same long list, at the same time (screenshot of this attached). A split window like that + filtering would be most useful for quickly navigating the Tree to work with skeletons and the parenting of assets.

In case it hasn't been said enough... Thanks to you all at EsotericSoftware for your hard work and the great product that is Spine!

@[deleted]

I've added your +1 to these github issue!
Multi select for mesh properties · #137 · EsotericSoftware/spine-editor
Allow multiple skins to be active at once · #17 · EsotericSoftware/spine-editor
Allow to separate and/or reorder the nodes in hierarchy view · #322 · EsotericSoftware/spine-editor

How do you use the ghosting panel to change the view of a single frame so that it suits your needs? mind posting a picture?

Besides this, your workflow sounds logical and good, I agree the features you mentioned would speed up things a great deal. (:

@[deleted]

I'm afraid we have to follow the roadmap, it would definitely be nice to squeeze these features in, and your offer to contribute is also very nice, but due to Spine's nature it might take longer to make external users contribution possible than to do it ourselves afaik.

Thanks for replying Erikari!

Great tips and trick tutorial with the Windmill BTW, it was awesome.

A think there might have been a little confusion. When I said..

[In 'Animation mode' we have access to the 'Ghosting tools panel' which enables the ability to silhouette and 'X-ray' the different assets in order to see more specifically how they align with each other

I was not trying to imply that you could isolate out a single asset attachment - only that you can engage the 'X-ray' feature in order to see the outline of attachments and how they overlap one another, which makes alignment and adjustments during animation so much easier. (please see the attached image example of the X-ray feature that I was referring to - both on and off while in animation mode).

During the setup of a character, I find that I end up having to manually adjust the alpha opacity of individual image assets a lot. I do this to ensure correct placement and alignment of the attachments e.g. a bicep that overlaps the connecting forearm. Adjusting the attachments alpha opacity also comes in handy in order to isolate attachments while creating or adjusting a mesh. While you can uncheck the 'deformed' option in the mesh editor in order to isolate for mesh creation, it's not always the best option. This is especially true if there are any translates on the current mesh you are working with. When creating meshes, I have found on several occasions that it was difficult to see the full boundary of the image attachment e.g. Attachment A (bicep) is laying over top of attachment B (forearm) and both are the same color. When entering the mesh editor, the border of the attachment you are creating a mesh for is not highlighted in any way so it can be a challenge as to accurately adjust the mesh vertices around the image. I just make a habit of filtering the attachments and setting the alpha transparency to 70-80% from the start of the import of the JSON data. That way I can work with the attachments while having their overlapping boundaries clearly defined. I just have to make sure and go back through them all and adjust the alpha transparency back to 100%.

Cheers!

@[deleted]

Thank you for the feedback
I find your workflow interesting, I also like that you still managed to use very little bones (at least from the preview screenshot you sent) and keep everything overall clean. Thank you for sharing what you meant!

Hi,
I would like to +1 the "view multiple skins at once, in editor" feature request. I am currently working on game with a high level of customization for facial features, clothing, hair... basically everything, so we have a long, growing list of skins. It's great to combine them at runtime

but it would help tremendously to be able to select multiple skins in the editor, and see how they perform animations. As of now, we either need to watch a pair of pants (or whatever) animate in isolation, or go through the painstaking task of duplicating individual skin pieces, and dragging them into a new "test" skin, to see them operate together.
Thanks!
-Aden

Bumping and +1'ing this!

The multiple skins editor feature is very much needed in customization heavy games! Can we please have an ETA?

Thanks,