Spine for video animation - Are there any classic on-top animation controls?

MMenrix_AUT · 15 Th09 2023

Hi, I'm an animator and illustrator and do a lot of animation for TV and commercials (for about 28 years).

I'm quite new to Spine, I usually do my 2D and 2.5D animations for video output using After Effects with vector-based characters, where I fake the 3D look with morphs and tweens and really cool on top controls like "joysticks & sliders" (in AE this tool speeded up my workflow by 80%) .... but for pixel-based characters, I'd love to use Spine because AE isn't able to handle simple controls over pixel mesh deformations (and Puppet tool is like that..aawwwrk).

I love how Spine uses bones and meshes to simulate that 2.5D look with pixel-based imagery.
I'm well aware that Spine is mainly for game engines and "short loop-animations" and has game performance in focus, but how it handles pixel character animation is just amazing and I would love to implement it in my workflow. For me the only thing that is a bit frustrating is the lack of options to control the character's setup on top....(I'm used to to that in my character-setups to faster and easier animate my characters).

I'd like to see some ways to do for example "blendshapes" or other similar controls on top of a setup, like J&S does it in AE for easier and faster animation .... Eg: so I can control all the mouth shapes with a singel slider that I key instead of keying multible properties of different bones... and that again for every reoccurring expression within that animaton.

Spine seems to be the only tool to animate pixel animations with that cool mesh deformation feature and weight painting (except 3D programs like Blender, but those are too complex and overkill for me).

In all my classic animation setups I do quite complicated rigs, and on top of that I create simpler controls that I animate and key (in AE for example with this J&S plugin).... So that I can animate - With a dedicated sliders - all the shapes of the eyes (open cloesd, scared, smile,..), the headturn (with scaling and repositioning of the corresponding face parst), brows, mouthshapes.... that means complicated rig, but fewer keys in my dopesheet for the animation.

Are there any tipps and experience on that topic for a "not-game-engine-animator" ?

best regards
Stefan

Erika · 15 Th09 2023

Hello!
As I don't personally use the features you mentioned in your comment, visual examples could help understand precisely what you mean.

Spine doesn't have blend shapes, but you can easily copy and paste keys from one animation to another, I know it's not the same, but it may still help.
What I like to do is to create a library of poses as a folder in my animation list where each animation is a pose, so I just select it, copy the top key which copies all the ones below, and paste in the target animation.

As for having controls on top of your character, you have bones overlapping them and you can organize your structure to have one control bone controlling multiple features of your character with the use of weights and constraints. Much could be said so it really depends on the specific examples you'd like to know more about.
If you can post screenshots of what blocks you, I'm happy to suggest solutions!