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too many skins

monstera

hello there!
i'm having few issue animating with skins, and i was wondering whats the best way to deal with my issue...i'll explain:
I'm currently working on a massive spine file that contains only one skeleton but multiple skins (we are talking 40+).
while a third of these skins are pretty straightforward - same bones only different regions- the majority of the skins i'm working on use the shared bones/animations as a base, but then each character/skin is bespoken, with bespoken assets moving independently.
The problem with it is that we are gonna add another 30 bespoken skins to this skeleton, and animating is getting quite slow and problematic: whenever i'm animating a new skins, there are just so many bones ( regions hidden, but still ) that i find quite difficult to select the ones that are part of my current skin and i want to animate.
also, it get quite messy when working on the drawing order, as there are just so many assets.
so my question is: is it better to split the file, so it's more manageable - thats what i'm planning to do, but then if i wanted to add any animation i would have to do it individually for each file ('m using a lot of meshes and i can't copy meshes' animations between different skeletons) - or is there a better way, maybe a way to hide all bones from the skins i'm not working on at that specific moment?
sorry, i hope i've explained myself decently.....any help welcome!

monstera

Erika

Probably the best move to keep your sanity is to group them by archetypes, or things they have in common, and separate them into different files.
I'm a fan of having everything into a single skeleton, but 60+skins in a single file is definitely a great number that would justify dividing them into subcategories.

You can still import animations from one file to the other, as long as they have bones with the same names following the same structure across files.

It's probably a question you already thought about, but did you group the same or similar attachments inside the same slots to try to reduce the number of slots around?

And regarding meshes, are you using direct deformations? Linked meshes? Or are you manipulating them trough bones and not directly? <- this last one also helps reduce the size of your animations.

If you look at the metrics panel, what values do you have? such as number of bones etc. to get an idea of the scope of the project.

monstera

hey erikari,
thanks for the reply!!

Meshes are often deformed with bones, but also often with direct deformation, and thats the issue.

I'm attaching the metrics so you can have a look.

another thing is, we are packing textures with texture packer, and gradually adding characters to the game. the problem is, whenever i have to add a new character to the game, i have to repack all the characters, and that is causing issue: say that in game we have character_03 and character_07, if i add character_04 and re-export, then the properties applied in unity to character_07 shift to character_04, requiring a lot of fixing and checking by the coders. Is there a way to export the new skel, pack just the new skin and update the atlas maybe? sorry, totally new to the built-in texture packer and i'm still trying to figure out how to use it at its best.

it must also be said that i'm not the one that set up the spine file - i might have done it in a more practical way otherwise - and this makes everything a bit more complicated as it is in fact taking over someone else's file mid-project.

thanks again for your help!

Erika

Ok, that's a lot of bones! A good number would be less than 100, especially if you're having many instances of it in the game at the same time.
Would you be able to reduce the number somehow? (e.g. for chains of bones, or I've seen bones for each strand of hair, or maybe grouping them if they do similar things, or also remove the bones that move very little to none)
If you can, this is the moment to convert your direct deformations so that they are all controlled by bones or, if unavoidable, by a linked mesh.

Regarding your second question, here's a small guide (look at the last post): Separated atlas for each skin

monstera

hey erikari,

yeah, thats a crazy amount of bones....i'll split the file, and whatever new animation i'll do i'll make sure meshes are all deformed with bones and no direct deformation occurs, so then copying the animation between a couple of files is not too bad.
oh and thanks a bunch for the link, will try this afternoon!
thanks again for your help, the support devs are given through the forum its just fantastic.