Some animations won't play in self-compiled Godot 4.2.2 editor

jakecard

I just got Godot 4.2.2 compiling with the spine_godot module from the 4.2 branch off GitHub. It works great, except when I'm running the game (from the editor), some of our animations don't play, while others do.

All animations play as expected when I use Spine's pre-built version of Godot, so I'm assuming I've done something wrong with my compilation. Any ideas what the issue could be? I'm on Windows 11, and I have C# support enabled.

Spinebot

It sounds like the issue might be related to the specific build process or configuration you used when compiling Godot 4.2.2 with the spine-godot module. Here are a few steps you can take to troubleshoot and potentially resolve the issue:

Verify Compilation Steps: Ensure you followed the correct steps for compiling the Godot editor with C# support. Based on the documentation, the commands should look something like this:

    cd spine-godot
    ./build/setup.sh 4.2.2-stable false true
    ./build/build-v4.sh true

Make sure the setup.sh and build-v4.sh scripts are executed with the correct arguments.

Check Dependencies: Ensure all necessary dependencies for C# support are installed as per the Godot documentation.
Compare with Pre-built Version: Since the animations work with the pre-built version of Godot provided by Spine, compare the configuration and settings of your compiled version with the pre-built version. Look for any differences in the project settings, export templates, or runtime configurations.
Review Exported Files: Ensure that the exported skeleton and animation data files (.spine-json or .skel, .atlas, and .png files) are correctly imported into your project. Verify that the file paths and names are consistent and correctly referenced in your project.
Check for Errors: Look for any error messages or warnings in the Godot editor's output console when running the game. These messages might provide clues about what is going wrong with the animations.
Update to Latest Spine Runtimes: Make sure you are using the latest version of the spine-godot module from the 4.2 branch on GitHub. There might have been updates or bug fixes that could resolve your issue.

If the issue persists after following these steps, it might be helpful to recompile the editor and export templates from scratch, ensuring that all steps are followed precisely.

jakecard

I appreciate the bot response, but it's pretty rudimentary. Hoping a human being has some instinct about what could be going on here.

Misaki

jakecard Sorry if Spinebot's answer was not helpful. Mario, who is responsible for spine-godot, is currently unable to answer questions due to illness. It may take some time to get a response and we appreciate your patience.

jakecard

Misaki Thank you! Not a huge rush, hope Mario feels better soon. Also, I think Spinebot in general is great in general for helping with questions, this is just a specific enough question that it probably goes beyond its capabilities.

jakecard

Hey, just wanted to bump this! If Mario's feeling better, I'd love to get his eyes on it. Otherwise, I'll check in again later.

Mario

Sorry for the delay in response. I'm afraid just based on the information you gave, it's hard to say what might be the issue, especially since our pre-built binaries work as intended.

Can you describe what modifications you made to the build? Are you sure you are pulling in the same spine-cpp sources as our pre-built binaries? Does "not playing" mean you get an error loading the skeleton data, or that it simply won't display anything?

jakecard

Mario Hey Mario! Thanks for the reply, hope you're feeling better. Sorry for the lack of detail in my post, let me clarify:

Can you describe what modifications you made to the build?

I've made no modifications to the build. This happens when using the build scripts exactly as described in the building Godot 4.X with C# support section of the spine-godot Runtime Documentation.

Are you sure you are pulling in the same spine-cpp sources as our pre-built binaries?

I'm running git clone -b 4.2 --depth 1 https://github.com/EsotericSoftware/spine-runtimes.git to pull the source, then running ./build/setup.sh 4.1-stable false true and ./build/build-v4.sh true to compile, copying the newly-generated .nukpg/.snukpg files into my project's godot-nuget dir, and finally running dotnet nuget locals all --clear to clear my NuGet cache.

Does "not playing" mean you get an error loading the skeleton data, or that it simply won't display anything?

There is no error, and the first frame of the animation does display, but it appears to be paused or frozen or something. This is only true in some of our Spine animations; others play just fine.

One possible trail to follow: I believe the frozen animations are children of Controls, while the working animations are children of Node2Ds. I'm not sure this is 100% consistent across the project, but it's true in the ones I've been able to check.

My project has some private stuff that I can't talk about in a public forum, but if you're open to debugging synchronously for a bit, let me know your Discord username and I'll message you and give more detail there!

Misaki

jakecard If you need to send confidential information, please send it to our email address: contact@esotericsoftware.com
When you send us your project files, please keep them to the bare minimum that will allow us to reproduce the problem. We cannot debug complex projects that contain elements unrelated to the problem, so we would appreciate it if you could provide us with a project that demonstrates only the problem.
Please include the URL of this forum thread in the email so we know the context. Then we can take a look at what's wrong.

Mario

Sorry, I can not offer synchronous debugging sessions. I can however try to debug a boiled down project you send locally to figure things out.

It's very strange that you'd see different results between your build and ours without having modified the build at all.

I suggest you create a simple scene that simulates your real setup, that fails with your build and works with our build. I can then try to reproduce this on my end.

jakecard

Mario Understood, I'll try to make a boiled down project that reproduces the error. I'll let you know when I've got something to send!

jakecard

Mario Hi Mario! I've tried the project in Godot 4.3 and I'm still seeing the issue, now even in the stable Godot build from your site. I've just sent an email to contact@esotericsoftware.com with a simple project that reproduces the issue and an explanation of what's going on. Please let me know when you receive it!

Misaki

I am writing here to clarify that this issue has already been resolved in our email correspondence: the cause of the problem was the use of preview animations/skins to define the animations that would play at runtime. This was possible in older versions, but when the animations/skins were set in both the preview and the code, the content set for the preview caused the problem of overwriting the content set by the code, so it was fixed in the following commit:
EsotericSoftware/spine-runtimes25d5585

The solution is simply to set the animation and skin from the code.