ISSUE: Skin switching misbehaving at runtime in Unity

NeatWolf

Hi,

Our animator created 2 skins of the same character, on the same skeleton, one with a backpack, and another without it, tweaking all animations and poses accordingly.

I believe the backpack is getting mesh morphed, and it's getting hidden in a skin, and showed in the other.

Apparently it seems to be working fine.when imported in Unity.

BUT

On a closer inspection, the backpack appears/disappears only when a new animation gets played. If I switch skin when the character is playing his idle animation loop, he either keeps showing the backpack or doesn't show it, depending on the skin I have at start. When the character tweens to walking, the backpack gets shown correctly.

We also have other similar situations (a women with an mesh animating bag for instance) with the same issue.

Now, I don't know if this is happening because I should be doing something extra on my side, by calling some "patching" method, or if it's because the animator didn't choose the correct approach to hiding this part, or if it is an issue with the runtimes. Or maybe it's because of the export settings, I don't know.

We're using compatible Spine/Runtimes versions (3.5.x) and Unity 5.4.2f2, using SkeletonAnimators.

Could you please help us in sorting this issue?

Pharan

Is this with SkeletonAnimator? It's really hard to predict what goes on when it's Mecanim.
Have you tried comparing the behavior with SkeletonAnimation?

If there's a mismatch, I'm inclined to think Mecanim is just doing some weird stuff.
In which case, the solution is probably to add the right keys.

Depending on the backpack visibility in setup pose though, you should make sure you have the right keys on the right animations. Any of the animations could be keying it off. Old keyed attachments may linger, but there's otherwise no reason for it to appear/disappear by itself, even with Mecanim.

NeatWolf

Pharan ha scritto
Is this with SkeletonAnimator? It's really hard to predict what goes on when it's Mecanim.
Have you tried comparing the behavior with SkeletonAnimation?

If there's a mismatch, I'm inclined to think Mecanim is just doing some weird stuff.
In which case, the solution is probably to add the right keys.

Depending on the backpack visibility in setup pose though, you should make sure you have the right keys on the right animations. Any of the animations could be keying it off. Old keyed attachments may linger, but there's otherwise no reason for it to appear/disappear by itself, even with Mecanim.

Yes, I'm using SkeletonAnimator. Since I was a bit in a rush when I approached Spine, thought that was the simplest way to go, but as I keep working with that, looks like SkeletonAnimator with Mecanim is just a transition, almost legacy, way to begin working with Spine, while SkeletonAnimation is the real core class.

Anyway, I'm too deep into the project at the moment to switch to SkeletonAnimation, I think. It would be cool if SkeletonAnimation worked with Mecanim as well, but I believe SkeletonAnimator was born to cover this need.

So, if I got this right, I should be asking the animator to add more "visibility" keys at the begin and end of the animation(s). Also maybe for each of the skins and all animations in the other skins... which sounds like a lot of work, also because the backpack is not the only animated part that may need to be hidden at some point among the different skins of the same skeleton. And adding attachments at runtime simply isn't as visually appealing as it is right now (ie: walking animations, sitting poses, etc. are getting tweaked depending on the presence or not of an accessory, which is fully animated and warped in the specific skin).

Thanks for your answer Pharan, please add more suggestions or details if you feel to, I know I still have to learn a lot about using Spine. (yes, I've got the docs, but here I'm talking about something specific you could have some useful tips or suggestions about)

Cheers!

Pharan

Yeah, add visibility keys if they differ from the setup pose or from each other.
If they don't differ from the setup pose, don't key them at all.
This is unfortunately the surest way on SkeletonAnimator.

If they're in skin placeholders, they don't need to be done for each skin.
Just for each animated placeholder. (man, I'm starting to hate that term. They should be called "skin items" or something)