Character Setup in 8 Directions - Help

DoobyDude

Just bought Spine and have watched all the videos and am excited to get started, however I need a nudge in the right direction in terms of setting up.

I have a character who I need to animate walking in 8 directions (compass points), as well as turning between the different directions as needed.

Do I set-up each direction as a whole new skeleton and swap them at runtime?
Is there any limit performance wise (mobile devices) if this is the recommended method?

Is there some way I can set-up all directions as different animations within the same Spine Object?
(I don't think so due to needing multiple skeletons, 1 per view, but thought I would ask anyway.)

I also have seen information about FlipX/FlipY which means I only have to do 5 directions and I can flip those animations in code - is this functionality in the editor yet?

I have searched the forums but most examples seem to be left / right only, so any pointers on how to go about a full 8 direction character would be really appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Nate

Separate skeletons is good when the perspectives are very different from each other. Using a single skeleton will get messy fast. If the setup pose is not the same for each perspective, separate skeletons will let you change the setup pose at runtime for procedural animation. Separate skeletons doesn't affect performance, just takes a little more memory.

If you use a single skeleton, you could have all animations in the same skeleton. But you will have to key all bones on the first frame since the different perspectives won't share the same setup pose.

Flipping currently only happens at runtime. It isn't needed in the editor unless you are doing cutscenes.

Pharan

I wish there was an easy way to change the rig within an animation though. But that's a totally different concern of mine. xD

But yes, using a single skeleton can get really messy really fast if you're trying to get a character to face different directions (in the 8-direction sense, or to a lesser extent, just in the facing-camera/facing-away-from-camera/profile sense)

I expect that I'll need to do an 8-direction thing in the coming months. I'll probaby rig, animate and render a 3D scaffold animation in Blender so I can just align the Spine skeleton with it by using the exported blender animation frames in a 2nd skeleton in the same project and using it as an "underlay".

Anyway, the diagonal directions will be especially tricky business in a 2D skeleton animation system so— Good luck to you! XD

DoobyDude

Thanks for the info Nate, I am going to attempt to having 1 skeleton per view and hiding/showing them at runtime as needed.

Pharan - I managed to do an 8 way character in Spriter, so I'm hoping in Spine it will be even better, although the actual rig setup is different which is what I needed help with as a new user.

I think I am on the right right road now, and thanks for the pointers. 🙂