Animated GIF export size

foriero

Hi,

our animation source is 4k. When we export animated gif we are regretfully unable to scale export size. So to export an animation of such a size first takes ages and second the final gif is huge.

Is it hard to give us scale factor for animated gifs export?

Thanks, Marek.

Nate

The easy way is to scale the root bone down, export the GIF, and then scale it back or just don't save the project.

foriero

I see. Would it be possible to use this technique behind the scene and just provide us scale factor when exporting?

One more issue not sure if feasible behind the scene. Let say we want export many projects and all of their animations and targeting specific resolution. So if you provide scalefactor it is nice but in order to calculate exact width or height of the final gif would take manual intervention. So question is how we can export multiple spine projects with multiple animations into gifs where each gif is for example 300px in width? To do it manually in our case would take us like 3 days of work compared to 5 minutes when it is properly implemented in Spine.

Is it possible to get proper CL implementation?

Either with Scale Factor like for atlases or by specifying exact width or height of resulted gif animations?

Nate

What is a "CL implementation"?

To export many GIFs with all the same size, the simplest way is to put a transparent image in your project that is large enough that your largest animation doesn't exceed the transparent image bounds. Then when you export, the transparent image ensures all your animations have the same size and positioning.

We could add a scale textbox for export (and maaany other similar minor features), but we have so many things we are working on and have planned that if something has a simple workaround, it generally gets deprioritized. However, the ability to specify viewport bounds has many uses and is something we will be doing.

foriero

CL implementation = Command Line implementation.

Anyway I understand that you have a loooooot things to do. But try to imagine that we have around 300 animations and we need to export them all. I would personally love to help with those small things that you deprioritize since I feel those little things make software pro and are needed parallel to those big ones.

As far as I see we at least need that scale factor textbox. ( savable since I notice that some export values are not saved so I need to set them again and again. )

Nate

I agree that little things are still important, but we also have to be careful to stay focused. If there is no workaround at all, that's a different story.

Can you set the root bone scale, save a copy of the project, then do all your exports from the command line using that project?

Which export values are not saved?

foriero

Seems like there is some weird issue with saving export settings. Actually none of the values are saved. And moreover when I press save it is stored into file like /volumes/myvolue/project/nameovproject.spine.json I mean this whole is file name not path. Anyway if I rename it to namveofproject.spine.json it does not help either.

The issue with current GIF export implementation is that I'm not able to export all animations at once. ( in editor ) How can I export ALL gif animations from the whole spine project via CL? Is it even possible? Current implementation is a little bit obscure. When I'm in Animation mode I understand you export current animation but when I'm in Setup mode I'm not sure what animation will be exported. Which pose another question regarding CL : What animation will be exported? I would suggests that for CL you export all animations with following name convention : skeletonname_nameofanimation.gif

The same option should be available when exporting from editor.

Saving a copy and then export it via CL is not an option since we have scattered spine projects all over our company's dropbox.

We simply need to present our animations on the web so that customers know what they are buying and with current implementation we spent more time resizing and manually exporting gifs than is reasonable feasible.

http://studio.foriero.com
http://studio.foriero.com/index.php/gallery/animations ( it would take me ages to manually in editor export by hand all animations we have created compared to CL export )

Moreover we will use the same technique when selling animations on asset store or similar stores. So we need serious update of this GIF export pipeline.

Nate, next year I go to UNITE to present our 2D Integrator Tool where I will be heavily talking how we integrated your Spine into the production workflow. So I would like to humbly ask to to at least let us export via CL all animations with above mentioned naming conventions with scaling factor we specify in the JSON as usual for normal unity atlas export. I dont care too much about editor since we do all automatically from our tool. ( sure to have option in editor for scale factor and what animation I export or if ALL animations would be good for users )

Nate

foriero ha scritto
Seems like there is some weird issue with saving export settings. Actually none of the values are saved. And moreover when I press save it is stored into file like /volumes/myvolue/project/nameovproject.spine.json I mean this whole is file name not path. Anyway if I rename it to namveofproject.spine.json it does not help either.

I'm not able to make sense of this. What values saved where? That is a full path to a file, file names can't have a slash in them. Renaming it doesn't help what?

When I'm in Animation mode I understand you export current animation but when I'm in Setup mode I'm not sure what animation will be exported. Which pose another question regarding CL : What animation will be exported?

The current animation for a skeleton is the one that is visible. This is true no matter if you are in animate mode, setup mode, or the command line.

I would like to humbly ask to to at least let us export via CL all animations with above mentioned naming conventions with scaling factor we specify in the JSON as usual for normal unity atlas export.

I agree those would be good features. I've added it to our new issue tracking system, which we'll be revealing soon.

foriero

Hi Nate, here is a small video regarding slashes in file name. :-) <removed>

As you can see it is possible. :-) and all values are simply not stored.

Nate

Thanks. I removed your video link, since it showed your email address.

Most settings on the export dialog are not saved between Spine runs, only the file and directory paths. When you save settings to JSON, the JSON file is intended to be used for command line export. It is not loaded by the editor again (though being able to load settings from a JSON file to the export dialog would be a good feature).

Interesting about the path with slashes. That isn't possible on Windows. 🙂 What version of OS X are you using? Can you post your spine.log so I can see your launcher and Spine version? With 3.2.01, when I click browse for the GIF path, the Save as field in the file browser is blank. Typing slash into the field opens up a "Go to folder window". It's really strange you would get a full path with slashes in the Save as field.

foriero

Hi Nate, thank you for removing my video.
OSX version 10.11.4
Spine 3.2.01. Launcher
Spine Launcher 3.0.13
Mac OS X x86_64 10.11.4
Java 1.7.0_51 Esoteric Software
64-bit Server VM
Up to date: Spine 3.2.01
Spine 3.2.01 Professional

Nate

Great, thanks. We managed to track it down. The dialog showing a path for the filename is fixed in 3.3.00. Cheers! :beer:

foriero

Great, thank you. How about that scaled CL gif export of all animations? We need it so much so that we can create portfolio on web and asset store and other stores. Please, please, please.