Draw Order for Skins

CartoonCoffee

Hello everyone. I'm currently struggling to find an elegant solution to solve skins that use the same bone, but require different draw orders.

For example: Boots that go over pants for one skin, and pants that goes over shoes for another.

Has anyone else encountered this problem, and is there a solution for it?

CartoonCoffee

Misaki

Hello,

In that example, you simply need two slots for shoes and boots, one above the pants and one below. Unfortunately, there is no function to change the draw order when the active skin is changed, so the slots must be prepared in advance. It may not be the elegant solution you are looking for, but that is the way it works for now.

CartoonCoffee

Ahh I see. Thanks so much for the response! Hopefully this feature will be in a future update, but I'll use your solution for now 🙂

Spine has been an absolute blast to use, I just wish the skin system was a bit more intuitive / streamlined.

Misaki

Spine has been an absolute blast to use, I just wish the skin system was a bit more intuitive / streamlined.

I agree with you. In fact, various improvement issues regarding Skins are also registered in our roadmap. We will continue to improve them in future updates. If you have any further questions or suggestions, feel free to post them here!

CartoonCoffee

That's great news! And since you asked, there are some other suggestions I do have although I have no idea how realistic they are.

It would be awesome if you could click a button and go into a mode where you could modify the "Mix" values on transform constraints in both set up and animate mode, with the regular Rotate, Translate, Scale, and Shear Tools as if they were like normal bones. It would make setting up and animating skins of different proportions a lot more intuitive.

Repositioning bones with a slider is such a big disconnect for me when looking at how everything else is set up in Spine. And again, I have no idea if this is possible to include, but it would feel so good to not have to use sliders for that.

Thanks for responding to my messages, best of luck to you and the team. I'm looking forward to whatever updates you guys roll out next!

Misaki

Thank you for your suggestion! The idea of adding an edit mode to modify the Mix value of the transform constraint is interesting. Transform constraints have been changed from 4.0.36 to allow setting offset values in animate mode, but the idea of being able to modify the Mix values sounds like a new one. I thought the ability to change offset values made it easier to make adjustments for different proportions, but are there any specific examples that can't be handled without being able to modify the Mix? I would like to ask you for more details because whenever we implement a new feature, we have to consider how it will be useful in a given situation.

CartoonCoffee

I made this video to further explain my last comment.

And it really isn't a "major" issue or anything, but more of a quality of life feature. Spine is already fully capable of accomplishing what I'm asking, but would just like the user experience of it to be a bit more inline with the current spine workflow.

I feel if a change like this was made, beginners would have an easier time with the learning curve when it comes to skins, and everyone would benefit by being able to make animations a bit quicker.

Misaki

Thank you so much for your detailed explanation! The video you showed and your commentary were very clear, and it seemed so reasonable. I was already used to that workflow so I had no doubt, but it would certainly be much easier if the bone positions for each skin can be adjusted by dragging. I think we should consider it, but I'm still a little unsure about whether it is a good idea that add an edit mode to modify Mix values because that in itself seems a little advanced way to me. If the workflow is to be truly beginner-friendly, it might be nice to have something more comprehensive, such as a "skin setup mode". (This is an idea I personally came up with and have not considered in detail at all!) I will discuss this in the Spine team.

CartoonCoffee

Not a problem! And I'm so glad that the explanation in the video was clear.

I may not have presented the most user friendly option, but it's still really encouraging to hear that an alternate workflow for skins is being considered and that this will be discussed with the team!

Thanks a lot for taking the time to hear me out. It was very appreciated 🙂

Misaki

Thanks a lot for taking the time to hear me out. It was very appreciated 🙂

We appreciate that you took the time to offer such a thoughtful suggestion for improvement too!

We discussed this. As for the issue that values of transform constraints require adjustment with the slider, there is a similar topic that has been discussed before and Nate has suggested a workflow for it:
duplicate constraint

However, it requires a lot of clicks, and it is not intuitive, as you pointed out, so I have created an issue ticket: https://github.com/EsotericSoftware/spine-editor/issues/642
We may not be able to start working on this issue in the short term, because we would like to prioritize other improvements that are already under way. But you can subscribe to the issue ticket, then you will receive additional notifications upon any progress. If there's anything you'd like to add, please feel free to add your comments!