• Off-topic

  • Suggest about the Shape Key feature

    anglais

Debating whether this should be posted under the 'Editor' tab, it was decided to register it here because I think that area should only contain more urgent issues.

What are your thoughts on Shape Key?

I've explored various tools for handling 2D animation.
Spine is already great since the addition of physics, but with Shape Key, I think it will be a masterpiece.

There are two cases where I felt the need this.

  1. Working about multiple directions, such as "open mouth"... more conveniently!
  2. Additional work for weighted "vertex pies" where everything is already fine-tuned and nothing is empty place!

It seems that Shape Key could be implemented with a bunch of little tweaks and combinations of existing features and a bit of UI addition.
The basic idea involves inserting the animation parameters from 0 to 100.00 (Percent) and 0.00 to 1.00 (Multiplier) into other animations.

By default, user can manually entering numbers for Percent and Multiplier.
To make things more interesting, user could also use constraints to trigger Shape Key based on the specific Bone's Start to End position, angle, or scale.

If there is concern about everything becoming chaotic, this feature could be made visible only in 'Animation Edit' mode, and constraints related to the currently editing animation is disabled.(= No circular references)
Additionally, if there's constraint option to choose whether to use Percent or Time would be nice.

I know what I'm going to hear now: "There's a good API implementation, use it."
Indeed, making use of the runtime API is fascinating.
However, I have a small hope that the day will come when I can do everything inside the editor via Shape Key.

Related Discussions
...

Spine currently does not have a direct feature called "Shape Key" as you might find in 3D animation software, but it does offer similar functionality through its deform keys and mesh manipulation features. Deform keys allow for the manipulation of mesh vertices to create various effects, such as opening a mouth or adjusting the shape of an object, which can be akin to the concept of shape keys or blend shapes in 3D software. The ability to animate these deformations over time provides a powerful tool for creating detailed and dynamic animations.

Regarding the automation or triggering of these deformations based on bone positions, angles, or scales, Spine's constraints and the recently added physics constraints in version 4.2 can be used to create complex interactions between bones and meshes, potentially simulating the effect you're looking for with shape keys. However, the specific implementation of shape keys as you've described—interpolating between different mesh states based on percentages or multipliers and tying these to bone transformations—is not currently a built-in feature in Spine.

Your suggestion for enhancing Spine with a more integrated shape key-like feature, including UI elements for easier manipulation and integration with existing animations, is interesting. While Spine's current toolset allows for a wide range of animation techniques, including those that mimic shape keys through deform keys and constraints, there is always room for improvement and new features. The Spine team continuously evaluates user feedback and feature requests to enhance the software, as evidenced by the introduction of physics constraints and ongoing discussions about features like morph target animation tools.

It's worth noting that while Spine's runtime API does offer extensive capabilities for manipulating animations programmatically, the desire to have more direct control and functionality within the editor itself is understandable. The Spine team values user input and often incorporates it into their development roadmap, so sharing your thoughts and suggestions on the Spine forum or through other channels can help shape future updates.

I agree, we have internally discussed similar features many times.

The first part of this is likely a constraint that can tie bone properties to other bone properties. Then we'll add "sliders and joysticks" which can be tied to bones and attachment changes. Those will be cool features and I think do what you want, but it's a lot of work. Our 4.2 release was quite large, so we want to do a smaller release next.