Would it be possible to support SVG plugin ?

bali33

Hi,

I was wondering if it would be possible to have the Unity runtime handled SVG using plugins like SVG Importer : http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/svg-importer-vector-graphics-unity-ui-supported-released.323618/

Would it be something to be done by the Spine team or by the SVG plugin author ?

SVG + Spine in Unity would be really great !

Thanks

chrisoshea

Agreed!

I am exploring the use of svg > mesh in Unity instead of using textures and sprites, to help with resolution, loading time etc etc.

I asked the same question here:
https://twitter.com/chrisoshea/status/712636785847898113

"Certainly, you just need a way to render SVG at runtime."

Thats what the svg Importer asset does. It turns svg into a mesh. Spine creates and exports a mesh right?

If there was a way to make this work, that would be fantastic.

Nate

You can use the Spine runtime to know which attachments to draw where. The runtime provides a way to render attachments as images since that is so common, but it isn't mandatory. You can draw the attachments however you like. You could render SVG to a texture and then draw that, or you could draw SVG geometry directly. Either way, you'd use the bone's transform to draw the attachment in the right position with the right rotation and scale.

I'm afraid we have a lot of work to do on Spine and don't have the bandwidth to work on rendering SVG. There is nothing stopping it from working though. I've rendered SVG for skeletal animation in the past, see the Battle Camp mobile game.

bali33

Hi,

I really hope you get time someday :-)

SVG support sounds like a priority for me because we use a lot of Spine animations in our games and low-end devices aren't capable to handle it. Beside that, there is size app limitation like in iOS or tvOS - SVG would help to drastically reduce the app size.

Cheers

Nate

I'm not sure why you think SVG will help? Rendering SVG geometry is quite a bit heavier than rendering images. Rendering SVG to a buffer and then rendering from that provides pixel perfect scaling for each particular device and smaller file sizes, but performs the same as rendering images. You can get close to that by using an appropriately sized texture atlas.

Low end devices shouldn't have a problem running Spine animations. It's most likely you are reaching the fill rate limit for the device, in which case the only solution is to draw less. There are other causes of course, such as an enormous number of timelines in your animations or using a suboptimal toolkit for those devices. I believe you are using Unity, which is fine, but there are toolkits with better performance in general.

bali33

Hi,

I think SVG will help reduce the app size and the memory used by the app - and only that would be a huge help ! About rendering SVG I can't tell how heavy it is compare to image - the Unity plugin I posted in my first post seems to be quite optimised even in mobile. We are currently testing it in our next project, so very soon I will be able to tell if it's really the case or not.

Anyway, I'm not telling SVG is the key solution for everything - and if you, Spine author, think it won't provide any improvements for mobile, so I trust you.

Xelnath

Bali,

In a nutshell SVG is a trade-off between Data Size (smaller) and Runtime Processor usage (higher), in exchange for highly zoomable art.

So you will have to ask if its worthwhile to make a smaller app, but a more costly battery usage. Good luck! 🙂

supersaiyansubtlety

I would find svg's in Spine very useful!

bali33

Hi,

Unity just announced SVG support https://forum.unity.com/threads/vector-graphics-preview-package.529845/#post-3484615

I don't know, maybe this is something that can help to bring SVG support in Spine too ? :-)

foriero

We have already implemented svg scene reconstruction in unity using their latest svgimporter. What we do is simply exporting illustrator file like dissected svg objects and then one click reconstruct them in unity.

Hi, so in our preliminary tests we are able to take svg files and generate on fly Texture2Ds and pack them into atlas. All done on user side ( unity runtime ). So the only part that is missing is to make our new atlases compatible with spine atlases and use them instead.

So the solution for current projects is to have max compressed atlases that are exported from Spine to unity and then in runtime swap them for dynamically generated atlases from svg files. That means the final atlas is in ARGB32. :-)

Does it sound like solution for the community?

Marek.

chiodo80

No, it's not a solution.
You're converting SVGs into textures which fail the first reason to have SGVs, compact sizes.
You're converting textures into meshes to apply them to the skeleton in order to distort the skin.
An SVG is a mesh. I don't understand why is a problem to get that mesh and attach it straight to the bones.
Wouldn't be the same process you're using now?
Is the problem to import SVGs?

Many thanks,

Diego