

Skins allow switching between sets of attachments. Skeletons and animations can also be imported from other project files. Spine can import data in its JSON or binary formats, which enables a path to import data from other tools into Spine. Paths make complex movement easy and enable advanced rigging by controlling a large number of bones in an intuitive way. Spine can also export animated GIFs, PNG or JPEG image sequences and AVI or QuickTime video.ĭefine paths using composite Bézier splines, then constrain bones to follow them. Spine exports animation data in its own, documented JSON and binary formats which are ideal for use with the Spine Runtimes. Posing a character with images that can bend becomes as easy as just positioning the bones.Ĭonstraints can be defined to animate using inverse kinematics (IK) and the Pose tool uses multi-bone IK to quickly pose a skeleton. When the bones move, the vertices move with them and the mesh is deformed automatically. Weights (often called "skinning") allow individual vertices in a mesh to be attached to different bones. For example, run and shoot, swim and shoot, etc. This is crucial for transitions and crossfading between animations, as well as for applying multiple animations concurrently. FFD allows meshes to stretch, squash, bend and bounce in ways that aren't possible using rectangular images.Įdit animations while seeing exactly how they will behave at runtime.

The graph editor defines bezier curves for interpolation between keys, allowing for much more life-like movement.įree-Form Deformation (FFD) allows you to move individual mesh vertices to deform the image. This improves the fill rate because pixels outside the polygon won't be drawn, which is especially important for mobile game.

Instead of drawing rectangles, meshes allow you to specify a polygon inside your image. It provides a detailed view of all the timelines that make up an animation and allows fine adjustments to be made to the animation's timing. The dopesheet is at the heart of animating. Spine aims to have an efficient, streamlined workflow, both for creating animations using the editor and for making use of those animations in games using the Spine Runtimes. Spine is an animation tool that focuses specifically on 2D animation for games.
