• Editor

  • Importing paths as assets?

    anglais

Hi, I'm new to spine and learning as I go, apologies if this has been answered elsewhere. I've been struggling with the path editor, because of what feel like a few serious limitations it has, including:

  • there is no numeric input for vertices or handles, making it hard to line things up.
  • you can't add new points after the end of an existing path, or before the beginning of one.
  • if you have a closed path you can't make it open again (the closed setting is greyed out).
  • the handles on a point can't be removed, for making straight line segments. You have to alt-drag a cusp and get it close enough to a straight line.
  • there are no basic shape constructors, like circles, arcs, spirals, stars, etc.

All of this means I often have to click New and just start from scratch when something goes wrong or needs to be changed, which is a bit frustrating!

While this would be a lot of features to add, it occurs to me that another option could be to import something like a single-path SVG you create in external vector art programs as a path asset, similar to image assets. Then you'd have all of these tools and more for free, including unions and intersections. It wouldn't be perfect, as keying paths in animations and weighting them to meshes wouldn't be possible without a lot of metadata, but for many paths this feels like a better starting point than the builtin path editor. Thoughts?

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    Hi,

    shy there is no numeric input for vertices or handles, making it hard to line things up.

    As for precise numeric input, I've added your +1 to the request here:
    EsotericSoftware/spine-editor77

    shy you can't add new points after the end of an existing path, or before the beginning of one.

    Yes, as per user guide:

    The Create tool allows new knots to be created by clicking between existing knots.

    So you'd have to move the last know where you want the new end to be and add vertices in between.
    http://esotericsoftware.com/spine-paths#Create-tool

    shy if you have a closed path you can't make it open again (the closed setting is greyed out).

    I just double checked this, the checkbox can be checked or unchecked in the path properties as usual, but you have to be in setup mode or it will be greyed out. You cannot change this option mid-animation, if you intended to do so, it may be better to switch to a different path.

    shy the handles on a point can't be removed, for making straight line segments. You have to alt-drag a cusp and get it close enough to a straight line.

    yes they cannot, it is however possible to paste the same vertex transform on each of them to make the handles and knot be exactly in the same spot:
    http://esotericsoftware.com/spine-tools#Copy%2Fpaste
    Here is a skeletember to demonstrate it:

    shy there are no basic shape constructors, like circles, arcs, spirals, stars, etc.

    I've added your +1 here:
    EsotericSoftware/spine-editor741

    shy it occurs to me that another option could be to import something like a single-path SVG you create in external vector art programs as a path asset, similar to image assets

    We do not currently offer this out of the box, however, it is possible to manipulate the json info exported and imported from/into Spine so you may try to look into that.

                Thank you for the suggestions and +1s, copy-pasting into the handles is a great technique! Also I guess I messed up that closed setting, I'll edit my post for that one.

                json parsing and editing is definitely an option, but I think I'm more interested in using the paths in Spine for my animations. I want to be able to assign weights to the paths, key them in animations, etc. I was just curious if importable paths have been considered for future releases, or if there's somewhere to post a feature request like that. Seems like those kinds of suggestions happen on github though, so maybe this isn't the right place.

                  un mois plus tard

                  Misaki Yes, I know that is possible. I think we were talking about modifying the exported JSON data so the paths were perfect in-game, but not a part of the spine file. In that case you would lose the other spine features, unless you modified and then re-imported the JSON... hmm, that could be another option.