Shortcuts and macros and Newby questions

mister_z

Hi everyone, I'm pretty new to spine, I started about three months ago and I really love the software! I'm coming from after effects and motion graphics so there are couple of things that I wish someone could explain or point me to the right direction.

Are there a keyboard shortcuts to rotate, scale, change transparency etc.?

I would love to get mini macro keyboard with rotary elements so I could animate faster and be more connected with the spine.

I was wandering if I could for example program macro keyboard so I have a row with basic tools like transform, scale, rotate and skew, than another row with timeline controls like start of animation, previous frame, play/pause, next frame, end of animation.
And another row with frequently used commands like mark mesh, edit mesh and click new (all in one press of a button) than create a bone, create a constrain, bind mesh.
And a final row for open, import, export, save change animation / setup mode, open preview panel etc.
And a few rotary switches mainly for rotation, scale and transparency.

If that's possible I would love to setup a project with naming everything and than jump on a macro keyboard to animate.

I know I could setup macros for each keyboard shortcut thats already present but I'm unaware of shortcuts for rotation, scale and transparency like I had in AE.

Oh and scale drives me nuts. Is there a way to link both dimensions (x and y) to be the same? And how to enter the values into fields? I tried to enter x and tab to y but it forget the x as soon as I press tab. When I press enter I have to click on y and write so I can't find easy way to just type 0 for x and 0 for y.

Thanks for reading this long post and for your comments!

Happy animating!

Misaki

mister_z If any bone is selected, you can change the translate/rotate/scale values with the Up/Down/Right/Left keys on the keyboard according to the currently selected transform tool. For example, if the Rotate tool is selected, pressing the Up or Left key will add 10 to the rotation value. If you want to make fine adjustments, you can hold down the shift key to change the rotation value by 1.

As for the transform values which is separated for X and Y axes, such as translate, scale, and shear, the X-axis value can be changed with Right/Left and the Y-axis value can be changed with Up/Down. Although simultaneous input is not allowed, the amount of change is the same for Left/Right and Up/Down, so for example, if you select the Scale tool and press the Right and Up keys respectively, you can increase the scale value of the selected bone(s) uniformly on the X and Y axes. Note that you may need to select the Local axis if you want to make changes with uniform values for multiple bone scales.

Unfortunately, there is no hotkey to change the alpha of the slot color. If you need to frequently change the alpha value of slots during animations, you may want to use the Slot Color view:
http://esotericsoftware.com/spine-slot-color#Slot-Color-view

Oh and scale drives me nuts. Is there a way to link both dimensions (x and y) to be the same?

There is no feature to link X and Y axis values for numerical entry. If you want to scale uniformly, you can do so by selecting the scale tool and then click-and-dragging in the empty space of the viewport, or moving the X and Y scale keys up or down in the Graph view.

And how to enter the values into fields? I tried to enter x and tab to y but it forget the x as soon as I press tab. When I press enter I have to click on y and write so I can't find easy way to just type 0 for x and 0 for y.

Pressing the Tab key after entering a numeric value should not cause the entered value to disappear. Also, even if you pressed the enter key once, you should be able to select in the numeric entry field again by pressing the Tab key again. Please try it again, and if it still doesn't work, could you tell us what version of Spine editor you are using?

Nate

Misaki Pressing the Tab key after entering a numeric value should not cause the entered value to disappear.

There is one little exception to this: if you try to set the scale to zero, you need to press enter. This is because zero scale create a mathematical singularity and can mess with some constraints. It is still allowed in animate mode, you just need to be sure it's what you want. Zero scale isn't allowed in setup scale, as you'd never be able to set the scale to anything else (scale is multiplied by the value set in animate mode).