Workflow Tips/ Rigging Advice (Affinity -> Spine -> Godot)

mlourens.erasmus

Hey guys!
Anyone here who can share some workflow tips? Maybe you run something similar?

I'm using Spine Pro and I sometimes find my rigging or skin creation process a bit tedious and this is likely cause I don't know any shortcuts yet.

My typical workflow ->

Create character layers in affinity designer which I then export including the spine.json preset
Import the config into spine and a new character is rigged, usually it places it off-centre to the top right so I manually reposition it so the character's feet are at 0,0
I then proceed to create bones and I cntrl click to map the attachment to the bone
After the rigging, I would then export more layers for a different character into a subfolder under images
I then create a skin and on each slot I add a skin placeholder(manually)
I proceed to create an additional skin by duplicating the existing one
This skin already has all the existing attachments under the skin placeholders so I proceed to update the image path of each of them to point to the new folder where I exported the additional character layers.

Is there a better way to do this and create variations of my character by quickly mapping to the /variation-1 folder?

Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks 🙂

Spinebot

It seems you're looking for ways to streamline the process of creating and managing multiple character variations in Spine. Here are some tips and insights that might help:

Bulk Importing Art Assets: When adding new art assets for a different character variation, consider using scripts to automate the import process. Spine provides scripts for various software (e.g., Photoshop, GIMP) that can help with importing assets in bulk. While you're using Affinity Designer, the principle remains the same: organize your assets in a way that makes it easy to import them into Spine. Check out the spine-scripts repository for examples.
Repositioning Characters: If your characters often import off-center, consider adjusting your export settings in Affinity Designer to ensure that the origin point (0,0) is where you expect it to be relative to your character. This might save you the step of manually repositioning characters in Spine.
Skin Placeholder and Attachments: When creating skins and skin placeholders, you can streamline the process by duplicating an existing skin and then updating the image paths for the new skin. Since version 3.8, Spine introduced improved skin management features, allowing for easier swapping and management of attachments across skins. More details can be found in the Spine User Guide on Skins.
Organizing Assets for Variations: For managing variations, ensure your folder structure is well-organized. Having a clear naming convention and structure for your variations (e.g., /character_base, /variation-1, /variation-2, etc.) can make it easier to update paths and manage assets within Spine.
Automating Repetitive Tasks: For tasks that you find repetitive, such as creating skin placeholders or updating image paths, consider if any part of your process can be automated with scripts. While Spine's scripting API is primarily focused on runtime manipulation, some users create external scripts to modify JSON files or automate other tasks outside of Spine.
Utilizing Spine's Latest Features: Stay updated with the latest Spine features and tutorials. New versions often include tools and features that can simplify previously complex tasks. The official Spine blog and YouTube channel are great resources.

Remember, every workflow has unique aspects, and what works best can depend on the specifics of your project. Experimenting with different approaches and utilizing Spine's community resources can lead to finding more efficient methods tailored to your needs.

Nate

I agree that if you identify tedious it's important to see what you can do to streamline things.

In 4.2 you can import a PSD file directly:
http://esotericsoftware.com/blog/Import-PSDs-directly-no-Photoshop-scripts-needed

Affinity can save a PSD, so this workflow allows you to use all the tags from the PhotoshopToSpine script:
EsotericSoftware/spine-scriptstree/master/photoshop

That can save you a lot of time! The tags are very powerful and Spine processes the PSD quickly. We're currently working on new documentation.

Another tip is to use find and replace:
http://esotericsoftware.com/spine-tree#Find-and-replace
You should never need to edit many items in the same way, eg to add a prefix for a path. Instead search for (.*) which matches everything, then replace with eg path/$1 which adds path/ to the beginning.