MonsterMaker534 schriebI’m looking closely at the “Mix and Match” example project, and it seems that each image has its own associated mesh. Is that true?
Some meshes are duplicated, some are linked meshes (such as the body of the full girl and full boy, or the feet of the girls).
MonsterMaker534 schriebwould I need to create a new mesh for every body part for every new character that I import?
If they're recolors, you can duplicate the mesh that fits them and replace the path to use the new image, otherwise you may need to create a new mesh.
It goes without saying that creating a new mesh for each image attachment is not mandatory. Sometimes you can also just have plain attachments for new skins. (clarifying in case there was a doubt about it)
MonsterMaker534 schriebWould that work if the heads are slightly different but roughly the same size?
Usually, to successfully reuse a mesh the two images need to have exactly the same size, to the pixel.
Unless you're fine with your images getting distorted.
MonsterMaker534 schriebIs there any documentation on how the Hero example project was created? I’m looking at the project to learn how Hero’s creator chose how to create the mesh/weigh the vertexes. I am also wondering how s/he got the Hero’s head to turn left and right and how the creator made the animations in general.
The example projects that are documented can be found here: Spine: Example Projects
Unfortunately, the person who created the hero project isn't actively collaborating with our team anymore, but I can do my best to explain how the meshes work there.
If you're looking to learn how to create nice meshes, here's a couple articles:
Blog: A taxonomy of meshes
Blog: Mesh creation tips: vertex placement
And a third one is coming out next Monday!
To answer how he achieved that face turn in general, the trick is to create an animation that keys the setup pose, then at half the animation, distort the bones and meshes so that they're as close looking to a front facing pose as possible.
You could use mesh tools for this for example: Mesh Tools - Spine User Guide
On the next frame, flip the face by selecting the bone that holds all the face images, and scaling it to -1, then change the curve to stepped so that there is no interpolation. Graph - Spine User Guide: Curve type
MonsterMaker534 schriebUnfortunately, I do not have Photoshop. I have Gimp and I am able to successfully import from Gimp into a new Spine project. I saw that the Gimp import script does not have the “tag” function that you are discussing. Is there anything I can do in Gimp to make it simpler whenever I import a character into my future mainSkeleton Spine project?
We actively develop the Photoshop to Spine script, while the other scripts are user contributions, unfortunately this means some of the recent additions don't make it into the other versions unless a user is willing to contribute to it. While gimp didn't get much love recently, the Krita one does have a tag system. Krita is another free software you may want to look into: https://github.com/chartinger/krita-unofficial-spine-export
But if you're loyal to Gimp, I'm afraid you'll have to manually populate new skins like the good old days. Fortunately, if a skin is a recolor, Spine has some tools to make this step easier:
Skins - Spine User Guide: Skin
Skins - Spine User Guide: New skin placeholder
MonsterMaker534 schriebI saw that you can tint an image in Spine with a solid color. Can you tint the character (or only part of a character) during an animation?
Yes, by tinting all of its slots during the animation and keying them.
Attachments - Spine User Guide: Tinting
MonsterMaker534 schriebInstead of tinting with a solid color, can you tint with a texture? Or would I need to create character-specific images with that specific texture?
You can tint black: Attachments - Spine User Guide: Tint black which is great for special effects, but tinting with a texture isn't possible.
You could have an image overlaid on top with a blending such as multiply, additive, etc. to get a similar effect.
