Serhii a écritBut now I realize that unity-atlases have nothing to do with that in case of spine coz spine just generates needed assets based on unity-atlases and then utilizes that assets.
I think I haven't explained the Unity SpriteAtlas integration behaviour well enough, as what you described might work in the Unity Editor but is expected to fail in the built executable.
The generated atlas texture (named <atlas name>.png
) is used in the Editor, also when entering Play mode. However, when building the game executable and playing the game, this atlas texture is not used. Instead, Unity's internally generated atlas is used (accessed through the Sprite references, which works at runtime). If for example you paint the generated texture red, you will see it used in the Editor, but not after building the game and running the game executable.
Unfortunately the generated atlas texture is necessary for the Editor when outside of Play mode due to the limited Unity API, we would have avoided it if that was possible.
In short: the SpriteAtlas is used in the built game executable, even if it does not look like it in the Editor.