How to do character running multiple animations?

Zimbres · 21 mar 2019

Hi there!

I'm thinking on using Spine for a 3/4 view shooter I'm working on.

It uses a character, where it's legs move independently from the torso.
The torso aims a weapon at 360 angles (but I'm fine with 180, and mirror)
- First problem, the head image may change, depending on where the player is aiming.
- Second problem, the weapon will be animated when shooting (also, the wep image may change)
- Third problem, the head animation will change, independently of EVERYTHING, to allow talking animations, etc

So, there will be head looking at angle 1,2 and 3.
For every one of them, there will be: mouth open, mouth closed, mouth screeming (not just images for each, but animations)

Everything, plus, skins.

It's possible? I'm reading the User Guide, the Skins feature looks useful, but I'm a little lost on how the animations works and if my proposition is possible (also, possible on ESS?)

Zimbres · 21 mar 2019

Erika · 21 mar 2019

Hello Zimbres!
I guess changing the head depending on the position of the target will need to be done via code at runtime.

For legs that move independently than the torso, just create a walking animation and place on a higher track the aiming animation.
Same goes for shooting, create an animation where the weapon fires and nothing else moves. Then at runtime you can decide to play it when the player shoots, layered on top of an idle/walking/jumping/anything animation.
You can as well have animations where the head changes to talk.

You can preview how the animations look when layered one on top of the other using the Preview view. Preview - Spine User Guide

For aiming, using IK and Transform constraints is very convenient, and they are only available in PRO, but you can probably go past the problem programmatically.
Gunman would be a good example for what you want to achieve: Spine: Asset Packs
Spineboy has an aiming setup as well: Spineboy example: Aiming

Zimbres · 22 mar 2019

Hello Erikari!

The Spineboy example is gorgeous. The Gunman is great too!
I've not visited the Preview Userguide before... that solved a lot of questions!

May I ask a last thing? I dont know if I'm lazy or afraid of getting wet on the rain...

I'm attaching an character of mine.
She have a face, and this face have 3 main frames: looking down, looking forward, and looking up (this last one does not shows, the hair blocks everything).
How could I change the faces, and also, have a independent animation of her talking?

Another scenario that poses the same problem:
She uses an backpack. This packpack frame changes, depending of where she's aiming.
This backpack will be animated too. It will get bigger and bigger (I'm thinking on drawing some frames for the different backpack sizes). So... again, 2 animations, and also, frame based animations:
The main one: the backpack is at side, or behind (2 frames)
The secondary one: the backpack is empty, half full, totally full, almost blowing off of so much full it is (4 frames)

I will have to draw 8 different backpacks by hand, but... how do I structure this on Spine?

Very very very thanks for reaching out, I dont know if my case sounds exotic or not.

Erika · 25 mar 2019

You could have an animation where the correct face is activated, and turn it on through code. then I guess the talking animation will vary based on the angle of the face, so you'll need to do one for each direction of the face to activate on need.

You could consider scaling up the backpack bone to make it look bigger. Otherwise, you could do this with skins, where each skin features a version from all the needed angles of your backpack. Skins - Spine User Guide

Zimbres · 26 mar 2019

Thanks Erikari. Your points are helping me a lot. I'm thinking on doing an animation control by code, where each frame is a skin. And an animation control that takes images (I think it's called Nodes on Spine, right?), to also change.

Hum... I'm talking too much and doing nothing. I will come back soon if I get something good.