Spine - 2D Boned Animation Utility

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bigsofty

Cheers,

Ian.

"It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC.  As potential programmers, they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."
(E. W. Dijkstra)

mentalthink

HI bigsofty, I think I will buy the next mont, only 45$, are ver very cheaper, and this it's extremely Usefull, so I can do the same in 3D, in example if I use Poser, make a only render, and I put the boner here, the render will be practically instantly, and I forget to put the weight in the 3D model, this it's a very cost in time job...

Thanks, I think this tool it's very very Usefully for us...

erico

#2
I do have mixed feelings on it.

It seems it is doing similar to moho (that became anime studio way later) long long time ago.
First time I saw moho, I thought "hey! lightwave 2d here! nice!".

But I have always looked into pixel art too, where such soft can only help as a background sketch.
What if the character turns around? nothing of that on the video.
You would have to redraw parts of the bone sprite to assemble that move as just blink flipping is not enough.
Similar if you want to animate a round-house kick like Chuck Norris, how can that be done?

If I´m going to spend time on a new anim package, I would spend on Blender. There you can do all that, it just will take a bit longer but it pays off at the end IMHO. And there is soo many tutorials on that.

So it can help devs in many ways, but as much as I see those features, blender can do the same, and it is free.
I don´t wanna be a let-down here, it can be usefull and price is cool, but there is nothing ´uau´ there for me.

Keyframe animation may bring a fluid result, but animation on a good level is about shrinking frames.
Animating the speed of the animation is really an awesome step. This tool can help this path.

Again, those are just my opinions, don´t want to let people down, I see value on it but nothing ground braking.
My recommendation is to start learning Blender on a 2d level so later you can break those barriages.

Sorry I have to be truthsome and legit to my shared thoughts here :(

PS:. support to dev packages is cool though.

EDIT: heck it just came to my mind that moho could also deform sprites with bones, while this is a straight sprite skeleton tool.

mentalthink

Erico I read a bit your post... When you comment about the character turn himself, you have reason, but if take in 3D and make the Sprites, you solve this problem...

I think for take a 3d Object whitout bones and put here, can be very easy... for me in 3D put bones, and put the weght of vertices it's a lot of work... Here you have the sprite, and put this Bones, forget if something don't blend well or something make extrange things in some articulations...

I look this soft like a complement, more than use from scratch...

PS: I donwload the Mac osx version, and don't works...  :noggin:

bigsofty

I tried the Windows version, it work OK.

I agree with Mentalthink here, its an aditional util that could help under specific situations. Because it specialises in such a narrow area, 2D bones, it's very simple to use and quick if that's all you need. If you require smooth rotation of your sprites, then this will not do, no 2D only util will.

After trying it last night for about 1 hour I had the character performing backflips and dancing all over the screen, for my amateur animator skills, this was a minor miracle, especially considering I was just starting with a new program too! Its looking very promising indeed.
Cheers,

Ian.

"It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC.  As potential programmers, they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."
(E. W. Dijkstra)

erico

Maybe I was too bitter. :-[

QuoteAfter trying it last night for about 1 hour I had the character performing backflips and dancing all over the screen, for my amateur animator skills, this was a minor miracle, especially considering I was just starting with a new program too! Its looking very promising indeed.

^That is really great.
Also, a lot of other 3d and 2d anim packages shares same principle, should you look at them later it will be a lot easier to pick up.

And you can also do monsters for a 2d shotemup, like the dinosaurs from "prestoric island".
Can do "Gladiator" (old arcade) too.
I would not know how to code those and such tool, if able to import into GLB, would make it possible.

Could its libs be used in GLB?

Sorry for the rant, it was a useless one. :-[ :-[


Ian Price

QuoteAfter trying it last night for about 1 hour I had the character performing backflips and dancing all over the screen, for my amateur animator skills, this was a minor miracle, especially considering I was just starting with a new program too! Its looking very promising indeed.
I presume that was within the editor and not using GLB? If it can be incorporated into GLB then it's probably going onto my shopping list.

Wasn't there another program like this started on KickStarter a while back? I'm sure it wasn't this one.
I came. I saw. I played.

bigsofty

The simplest output is a JSON file, more are listed in the KS page. The author is quite open to suggestion for various platforms support though.

Yes Ian, I was just messing with the demo last night. It's just a case of, setting up some key-frames by rotating, translating of joints at its simplest level. The frame by frame interpolation works out all the hard stuff for you.
Cheers,

Ian.

"It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC.  As potential programmers, they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."
(E. W. Dijkstra)

Ian Price

Yeah I know how it works (I did something very similar in PlayBasic years ago, only much less user friendly :P) - I just wondered if you had it GLB covered already.

It's alright loading in data but if you still have to attach the graphics and rotate bits and bobs manually it might just be simpler to create a similar system in GLB from the off.
I came. I saw. I played.

bigsofty

Well, I'll wait till I see some source from another languages 'player' code before I have a bash at a GLBasic one. I find it's the easiest route for me usually, rather than go through the manual scratching my head.   :D
Cheers,

Ian.

"It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC.  As potential programmers, they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."
(E. W. Dijkstra)

Ian Price

If it needs a manual to use it's already a failure in my book :P
I came. I saw. I played.

Wampus

#11
This looks intriguing. The editor works very well. It seems pretty much complete. The interface looks more intuitive than Spriter too. When both are beta versions I'm going to create the same animation in both apps to see which I'd be better off using. One thing isn't clear from the Kickstarter page is how free anyone is to create support libraries for Spine. Will ask the devs about this after I post.

Erico, I know you felt your rant was too much, but are you saying there are already *matured* tools like this that could be used for game animation? I've been waiting for Spriter to reach beta. I'd rather not wait at all, if I can find something that I can use to make the typical 2D animations that Spine is used for.

Quote from: Ian Price on 2013-Feb-05
It's alright loading in data but if you still have to attach the graphics and rotate bits and bobs manually it might just be simpler to create a similar system in GLB from the off.

Oh I doubt it would be simpler! I guess a lot would depend on what features would be required. A basic animation creation tool could be done relatively quickly. However, if you wanted something with as many features as Spine or Spriter it would be considerably faster and a great deal easier to write a GLB support library than create a new system from scratch. (Incidentally, as soon as Spriter is out of alpha development I will finalise my GLB support for it).

EDIT: Found this posted by a Spine dev on their forum: "We do want to help the gaming community develop runtimes on their own, it's just first we want to make sure the official runtimes meet all the needs." So, that's good if you don't mind waiting until after their Unity, Corona, etc. support is finished by them. GLB support would have to include some kind of loading and/or conversion tool to make things as easy as possible, e.g. sprite sheets, JSON converter. Probably Spriter will be in beta before Spine is open to 3rd party dev support.

erico

#12
Quote from: Wampus on 2013-Feb-05
...
Erico, I know you felt your rant was too much, but are you saying there are already *matured* tools like this that could be used for game animation? I've been waiting for Spriter to reach beta. I'd rather not wait at all, if I can find something that I can use to make the typical 2D animations that Spine is used for.


I first thought only about the final output, like sprites or a movie.
I´m not sure there is some skeleton tools out there that we could wrap or import, would have to research.

I was found of MOHO, that later became ANIME STUDIO. Here is the link:
http://www.lostmarble.com/
click on the anime studio link and check it out.

You will notice they are very similar to spine and those 2 you mentioned, but it is more mature.
I´m particularly found of the morph/distortion you can aply with the bones on a single image, IE load a face picture, add bones, animate the face, etc.

Because of this thread, I contacted their team to ask about libs that could be used outside their environment.
This is the answer I got:
QuoteChat Transcript   02/05/2013 09:51 AM
Hi, my name is Matt Ko. I will be assisting you today. You will receive a transcript of this via email at the conclusion of this chat session.
Erico Monteiro: Hi Matt
Matt Ko: Hello Erico.  Anime Studio does not have the ability to export its bones.
Erico Monteiro: ok, it would be a nice feature. We (at GLBasic forums) are currently discussing about such.
Erico Monteiro: There seems to be a lot of programs kickstarting such thing, and I believe anime studio could do better on this front.
Erico Monteiro: Thanks for the time.
Matt Ko: Also, the licensing for Anime Studio states that you can only redistribute the exported renders as still images (JPG, PNG, etc) or movie files (AVI, MOV, SWF), so you wouldn't be able to redistribute any other portions of the program, such as the bones, anyway.  However, I can certainly forward a feature request to the Anime Studio product manager to let him know that there is an interest in this.
Erico Monteiro: ok, feel free to email me if you need more info on this interest.
Matt Ko: I'll make sure to pass along your contact information to the product manager as well.
Matt Ko: Have a nice rest of your day!
Erico Monteiro: thanks Matt, for you too.
'Erico Monteiro' disconnected ('Concluded by Agent').

Question Reference #130205-000110

So, currently, SPINE, SPRITER, (there is another one I forgot the name) seems to be a better option when it comes to using it inside GLB.

EDIT: it seems these kind of programs come and go around very often, I will try researching alternatives, let you guys know if anything cool is lurking around.

Wampus

Thanks for looking into whether Anime studio can export bone animations Erico. I hope they consider it, although I can imagine why they'd want to keep their code/engine to themselves.

It has to come down to this: For an animation tool to be useful for game development it has to include documented code, even if its just pseudo-code, that can be used to exactly replicate what you see in the animation editor. If one of us can take that code and put it into GLB without breaking some license/IP for the product then its good to go.

erico

Maybe that could be done using blender´s API for armature(bone system).

Two problems:

1- I don´t know how their license works out, and how this api could be used on a multiplatform level (altought they support mac/linux/pc).
2- Blender is a bit bitch to learn.