【Spine Animator】- Boost your animations to insane level without any effort!

So I am currently running into two small issues using spine animator. I am running a project with a lot of spine animators and I am getting spammed by the following Debug.Log.

Code (CSharp):

1. Look rotation viewing vector is zero
2. UnityEngine.Quaternion:LookRotation(Vector3, Vector3)
3. FIMSpace.FSpine.FSpineAnimator:CalculateSpineBehaviourRotation(Int32) (at Assets/FImpossible Games/Spine Animator/FSpineAnimator.cs:1131)
4. FIMSpace.FSpine.FSpineAnimator:CalculateMotion() (at Assets/FImpossible Games/Spine Animator/FSpineAnimator.cs:1002)
5. FIMSpace.FSpine.FSpineAnimator:SpineMotion() (at Assets/FImpossible Games/Spine Animator/FSpineAnimator.cs:710)
6. FIMSpace.FSpine.FSpineAnimator:LateUpdate() (at Assets/FImpossible Games/Spine Animator/FSpineAnimator.cs:568)

Its of course not an error but it seems to slow down thing in the editor. I also assume this is more like a unity things, because of the vector hitting 0. But I wonder if there would be a way to avoid the message spamming in the editor.

The second issue is an actual error. That is probably related to the custom pivot and nested prefabs:

Code (CSharp):

1. Cannot set the parent of the GameObject 'Creature_Walking01' while its new parent 'CreatureWalkinTestDummy (7)' is being destroyed
2. UnityEngine.Transform:SetParent(Transform, Boolean)
3. FIMSpace.FSpine.FSpineAnimator:RestoreBasePivotChildren() (at Assets/FImpossible Games/Spine Animator/FSpineAnimator.cs:1553)
4. FIMSpace.FSpine.FSpineAnimator:OnDestroy() (at Assets/FImpossible Games/Spine Animator/FSpineAnimator.cs:1531)

Im using multiple copies of the CreatureWalkinTestDummy Prefab. This error only appears on load, and does also not stop the game from running in editor. So its seems to be only a minor issue.

 

Yeah "Look rotation viewing vector is zero" is hard to reproduce, sometimes it need only to put "if (targetDirection != Vector3.zero)" but not always saves you.
I will check this cases in next week, in this one I have a bit too many stuff on my head

 

No worries. Its just a small issue. Any idea what the second issue might be?

 

Last weeks I was working on tutorial videos, there will be about 6 more (not including manual videos) I will publish them soon week by week
And there is new manual video explaining essential parameters of Spine Animator with examples:

 

Hey Clagrens, you can check this tutorial, it's not yet officialy published but feel free to check it:

 

Hey Amaltheia, I was checking how it could be done and It seems with spine animator it can be problamatic but possible.
With tail animator it can be easier to get, but anyway it would need some time to make it work.
Anyway I probably will try to add possibility to change length of bone chains in playmode, but not shure when I will finish it.

I think making it not execute when application is quitting can solve it, but not sure, next update will try fix this issues.

 

That's great to hear! Thank you for your helpfulness!

 

There appeared a lot of tutorials for Tail and Spine Animator lately.
Today I uploaded last one for the series:

More at: https://www.youtube.com/c/FImpossibleCreations

 

Hi. Do your assets work well with Emerald AI?
Love the look of the spine and tail animators. I have some good ideas for using these but I use Emerald AI to control my AI in the scene. I assume it will work but want to be sure.

 

Yes, this assets needs only object movement to work

 

@FimpossibleCreations How do I get when my AI's die, they don't float in the air and spin?

 

Your Unity's Animator probably gets disabled after your creature is playing death animation, that's why it is spinning. Best solution would be blending to keyframed animation when death animation is played,
to do this you can use code like this (changing 'Blend to original' from 0 to 1 in given duration)

Code (CSharp):

1.    
2.     // Your code, executing death
3.     void Death()
4.     {
5.         StartCoroutine(FadeOutSpineAnimator(1f)); // Running procedure to blend out spine animator motion (component in which this code is launched must be enabled)
6.     }
7.  
8.     // Blend out procedure
9.     System.Collections.IEnumerator FadeOutSpineAnimator(float duration = 1f)
10.     {
11.         FIMSpace.FSpine.FSpineAnimator spine = GetComponentInChildren<FIMSpace.FSpine.FSpineAnimator>();
12.  
13.         if ( spine)
14.         {
15.             float elapsed = 0f;
16.  
17.             while (elapsed < duration)
18.             {
19.                 elapsed += Time.deltaTime;
20.                 spine.BlendToOriginal = Mathf.Min(1f, elapsed / duration);
21.                 yield return null;
22.             }
23.  
24.             spine.enabled = false;
25.         }
26.  
27.         yield break;
28.     }

 

That worked thanks!

 

I've been loving the Spine Animator so far - easy to use and seems quite performant!

I have one question regarding animals with Spine Animator being parented to moving platforms. I am parenting the animal to a moving platform, so that the animal will move along with the platform. As you can imagine, the Spine Animator seems to respond to the global position of the animal, rather than the local position of the child animal. Any ideas on how Spine Animator can be changed to account for this?

Thanks!

 

Thank you!
I see, it can be hard but have an idea how to fix this.
I will work on that soon.

 

@FimpossibleCreations Appreciate the quick response! Feel free to let me know if I can help test this in any way.

 

If you don't mind, would it be possible that you show how to setup this free whale?

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/characters/animals/humpback-whale-3547

I bought Spine Animator today and had lots of troubles with this. The tail was twisting like crazy and such. In the end it all worked when i started to use the bones from the mid of the whale. It would be sufficient if you just show the proper settings.

By the way, there seems to be a bug. I definitely didn't set the root gameobject there where the red arrow is. It just appeared:


Otherwise, very impressive asset, great work!

 

Right now I can't check but I remember, this model was facing z axis in opposite direction, so you can create empty game object, put inside whale, zero position and scale, but rotate in y axis by 180 degrees.
Add spine animator to this new empty object, but sorry that I can't check it in this moment to confirm

 

Thanks, I did that already, that's why the Spline Animator is in the Whale Controller gameobject. No rush, but if you find the time I'd appreciate if you show how this works. At first it looks fine when I hit play mode, but as soon as I move the whale the tail spins like crazy:



I tried to adjust the smoothing, straighten etc settings, but it just keeps happening.

 

You can make this model work but it's potential is limited, root bone (bone001) is placed above model, if it would be in front of first spine bone whole motion would look better, also I see some weights for bones could be painted a bit better.

 

Hi! Is it possible to use spine animator for create "classic rotate animation" (anim files for unity animator) without runtime scripting?

 

Hi, I have a problem about the collision function. I tried to control the spineAnimator object move forward to the wall, but sometimes it would passing through the wall as shown in the video. How can I solve this problem? And my original idea is to control this object inside a pipe with mesh collider and the spine object should not passing through the pipe. Is it possible to do it?

 

Example movement script in demo assets is not adapted for walking in 360 angles (like on ceiling) I have other package in progress which will offer movement like that, but for now there should be some alternatives on the asset store.

Second thing are segments colliders for bones, to make round capsule collisions inside pipe I would need to implement something like collision from inside geometry instead of collision on surface. I will add it to task list then, but can't give precise date when it will be implemented.

So for now I recommend finding right character movement system for your needs, it would solve most of problems.
When you turn off gravity in creature and would walk over inside of pipe, it wouldn't clip through ground much, you can also experiment by building colliders around pipe for now.

 

Much thanks, I will try

 

Hi! This plugin works really nice! Will it support 2d physic sprite bones added in 2019.3 in the future? I see that it has been able to detect and do effects on 2d bones in some way. Maybe disable the rotation of the XY axis and the displacement of the z axis should do the trick?

 

Spine Animator version 2.0.0 Released!

Big update, refreshing GUI adding new parameters, optimizing performance and making code much more clear for me for further updates.
Please remove old directory and import new one again to avoid some compilation errors.
You can check changelog here:

Spoiler: Changelog

Many variables changed, some of them was replaced by other ones.
If you was using Spine Animator previously, click on objects with Spine Animator to convert them to new version and apply changes.

- Refreshed inspector GUI
- Added language support for inspector GUI headers: English, Polish, Russian (translator - t), Japanese (t), Chinese (t), Korean (t)
- Upgraded scene gizmos to make setting up spine chain easier
- Refactored code, cleaned and optimized (Now Spine Animator works faster and without garbage collector peaks)
- Removed many anchoring parameters, now they're not needed anymore everything now is detected automatically
- No more option for positions and rotations not animated, it's replaced by "Detect Zero Keyframes"
- Now update rate can be defined for more stable motion / optimization in high/low FPS
- Added many new small parameters

New inspector GUI with language support:


Better Scene Gizmos for easier setup:


Possibility for backward follow behaviour (controls will be improved in next versions):


Motion influence possibility for moving platforms:
https://imgur.com/A77SXDm

And other small changes.

Thanks for suggestions, I will look at this after achieving my current tasks (refactoring tail animator and optimizers)

 

@FimpossibleCreations Thanks so much for implementing a solution for this! The Motion Influence parameter seems to work well enough for my use cases.

v2 looks great overall! Easiest decision for me to leave a positive review on the Asset Store.

 

@FimpossibleCreations I noticed that with v2, I had to set my Go Back Speed value to 0.03 instead of 0.3. I had no issues achieving my desired spine result but was curious if this was something you experienced/intended.

 

Hi there, and thanks for using our assets to demonstrate the power of your tool.
I'm currently using spine animator in a project. I have to say that what it can achieve is absolutely breath taking.
That being said I'm having an issue with a character that needs to have its spine and tail animated. I managed to set that up without too much trouble. Though I got confused because of the older videos which don't show the exact same UI etc...
My issue is pretty weird. My dev set up a prefab of a rideable creature that you can manipulate at run time via key input. For some reason only the tail animates with the spine animator the spine and neck just don't.
I tried to set up a new prefab with a very bare controller and animator controller. And this time it was reacting exactly as expected. Tail, neck and spine were moving naturally with spine animator...
So my question is, is there some sort of input that prevent spine animator from working? I set up the 2 prefabs the exact same. The only difference were the input / script to handle them. Another difference is that the prefab that doesn't work correctly doesn't habe the actual script attached to it. At run time, the parent game object that has the input script unchild the actual animated model. Would that be the issue??
Thanks again for your time and hard work on that stunning asset!!

 

Also thank you for creating so cool models!
Would love to test my packages on all of them

You can switch to old UI with this button, but many variables can be removed or name changed (I left this option for working with old tutorial videos):

There is input stopping Spine Animator work (only for editor) and it's "~" key but I think it's not causing your issue.

I am not sure if that's the problem, I think I would need short mp4 clip of the issue but...
When you use multiple Spine Animators the execution order is important.
When you animate creature's spine bones on keyframe-animated model, transforms are resetting positions and rotations to keyframe animation pose on beginning of every frame. (that us how unity animator works)

For example when Spine Animator animating tail bones executes before Spine Animator which is animating spine bones then it's motion is dependent on just keyframe animation without spine bends done by other spine animator.

To avoid that, you enable "Update as last" in Spine Animator which is animating tail bones.

The "Base Transform" variable must be set to last parent object which is rotating and moving whole game object.

 

Hello,

Spine asset is broken on 2019.4.9f1 (Built-in).

When I try to look at demo scenes, the inspector is glitched (see below) and I get an error message. The same happens when I try to attach the Spine Animator component to one of my characters.



And:



This happens with all prefabs, and with all demo scenes.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

Strange, it is not occurring on my side, but I fixed line with error, please try with this mini update

 

Hi, I'm running into issues with hitboxes on a model animated by spine animator not updating location. I've got a worm/snake creature with a box collider attached to each bone.

Collision events seem to work properly (trigger projectile object colliding with non-trigger hitbox object), but raycasts (done every frame) and physical collision (so I can't run through the object) doesn't. Instead, the colliders act like the skeleton isn't being touched by spine animator. If I pause the scene, all the hitboxes look like they're in the right place:

But what actually happens is that they act like the creature is in its un-modified straight pose.So instead of colliding with where you see the boxes, the player collides with the area where I drew red lines.

I've tried changing several options on the Spine Animator 2 component, but nothing seems to really affect this. Any idea what could be going wrong?

 

Procedural Animation needs to be updated in LateUpdate(), it's not visible but during Update() model is in default animator pose. You would need to do your raycasts in LateUpdate() after Spine Animator motion, then I suggest adding [DefaultExecutionOrder(100)] over class name where you perform raycasts. So rename Update() to LateUpdate() and add execution order.
Hopes that will help!

 

That worked, thanks.

 

Just a heads up. When switching over to Unity's new input system, an exception is thrown at Assets/FImpossibleCreations/FSpineAnimator.cs:233. Following code just updates that line.

// Old input

// if (Input.GetKey(KeyCode.BackQuote)) { updateSpineAnimator = false; return; }



// New input

if (UnityEngine.InputSystem.Keyboard.current.backquoteKey.isPressed) { updateSpineAnimator = false; return; }

 

Hi, is there any tutorial or video combining spine animator with navmesh agents? thanks

 

Video is now live!

I hope everyone enjoys it!
Music by Teresa Silverthorn

Thanks to all the Great Devs whose Assets used in this creation:

Editor
Unity 2018
Hierarchy PRO by emx
Playmaker by Hutong Games LLC
Inspector Gadgets Pro by Kybernetik
Easy Scatter by Hedgehog Team

Camera and animal control
Pegasus by Procedural Worlds

Terrain
Landscape Builder 2 by SCSM
Vegetation

Vegetations Studio Pro by Awesome Technologies
Meadow Environment by NatureManufacture
Forest Environment by NatureManufacture
Real Ivy by 3Dynamite

Environment
Aura 2 by Raphael Ernaelsten
Enviro - Sky and Weather by Hendrik Haupt
R.A.M by NatureManufacture
MegaSplat by Jason Booth

AI
Emerald AI 2.0 by Black Horizon Studios
Crux by Black Horizon Studios

Lifeforms
ANIMALS FULL PACK by PROTOFACTOR, INC
Bird Flock Bundle by Unluck Software
Animal pack deluxe v2 by janpec
Horse Animset Pro by Malbers Animations
Animal pack deluxe by janpec
Insect Firefly by Unluck Software
WoodLand Animals Pack by VintageSoft
Flying insects by GTox models

FX
1000+ Fast Post Processing 1K Styles Mobile and PC + LUT Export by emx
Next-Gen Soft-Shadows by Psychose Interactive Inc.
Look Animator by FImpossible Creations
Tail Animator by FImpossible Creations
Spine Animator by FImpossible Creations
CTAA by Lavinda Labs

Props
Magic Mirror Lite by Digital Ruby (Jeff Johnson)
Flooded Grounds by Sandro T

Recorder
Unity Recorder by Unity Technologies

 

I'm currently getting good performance in the editor, but not so good in a build. I'm using Unity 2018.4.

When profiling my game in a build, I noticed the Spine animator is creating 6.1 kb of GC every frame. Is there anything I can do to make sure that doesn't happen?

 

Thanks for raport, I will take closer look at it, it shouldn't happen :O

Edit: Can you please check if now gc alloc is gone in your case? (attached hotfix)
I found it but on build as well as in editor.

 

ill go ahead and try it and let you know

 

That seemed to fix it...thanks.

 

Hello, i get a NullReferenceException at "SpineAnimator.Logic.Core.cs:281". "headBone" variable is null. I tried to skip that part with null check but it caused more errors.

 

When it's happening? You have the newest version from the store? Line 281 is for sure different than in newest version.

 

Hello, i updated the asset and it is Line 291 now

 

Can you tell when it's happening or what you did?
This error should never appear since this 'head' variable is always filled when component is initializing.

 

If i Instantiate the object at OnEnable from other script, this error occurs. I avoided it by waiting fixedupdate.

 

Hi,
Everytime i put an offset on the 'Main Pivot Offset' (-1 on the Z axis)
the animations stops playing the animations from the blend Tree I use in my Animator.

When I reset the offset to 0 they start playing again.

Does anyone know a fix for this problem?

thanks

 

Connection of unity Animator with model's bones might be broken.
Can you try put your model in additional parent game object?
So GameObject with Spine Animator -> GameObjects with mesh, animator, bones etc.

 

New Video coming tomorrow. "Apollo's Dream II" Using tons of assets, as usual. The music is always an original composition.

Hope everyone enjoys it, the scene and music has been in the works for a long time. We are glad we are finally coming to a final product.

Keep an eye on our YouTube for the new video.
https://www.youtube.com/user/silverthorndavid/videos
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