Spine can import data in its JSON or binary formats, which enables a path to import data from other tools into Spine. They provide organization for attachments and enable animations that change attachments to be reused for different characters. Skins allow switching between sets of attachments. Spine can also export animated GIFs, PNG or JPEG image sequences and AVI or QuickTime video. Spine exports animation data in its own, documented JSON and binary formats which are ideal for use with the Spine Runtimes. Posing a character with images that can bend becomes as easy as just positioning the bones.
When the bones move, the vertices move with them and the mesh is deformed automatically. Weights (often called "skinning") allow individual vertices in a mesh to be attached to different bones. Constraints can be defined to animate using inverse kinematics (IK) and the Pose tool uses multi-bone IK to quickly pose a skeleton. FFD allows meshes to stretch, squash, bend and bounce in ways that aren't possible using rectangular images. Free-Form Deformation (FFD) allows you to move individual mesh vertices to deform the image. The graph editor defines bezier curves for interpolation between keys, allowing for much more life-like movement.
This improves the fill rate because pixels outside the polygon won't be drawn, which is especially important for mobile game. Instead of drawing rectangles, meshes allow you to specify a polygon inside your image. It provides a detailed view of all the timelines that make up an animation and allows fine adjustments to be made to the animation's timing. The dopesheet is at the heart of animating. This is called skeletal or cutout animation and has numerous benefits over traditional, frame-by-frame animation: Spine aims to have an efficient, streamlined workflow, both for creating animations using the editor and for making use of those animations in games using the Spine Runtimes.Īnimation in Spine is done by attaching images to bones, then animating the bones. Spine is an animation tool that focuses specifically on 2D animation for games.