The root is where your Spine animation would be anchored within the Spine world space, and when you import your sprite into GameMaker Studio 2, this will be translated as the x/y origin for the sprite resource, and this is not editable for this kind of sprite in the GMS2 sprite editor. You will also want to pay attention to where the root is in your animation. We recommend that you try and keep any names memorable, short and consistent. The first of these is that you need to name your bones and a few other things, and that these names will be what you use as your "handle" into the animations when working with them in GMS2.
Please see the YoYo Games helpdesk article on Required SDKs for GameMaker Studio 2 to find out the current runtime required.īefore getting into GameMaker Studio 2 side of things, it's worth going over a few key concepts when using Spine. NOTE: GameMaker Studio 2 requires a specific runtime version of Spine to correctly import and use the skeletal animation sprites that it creates.
#SPINE 2D ANIMATION FULL#
NOTE: You can find the full documentation for all Spine features here: Spine Documentation You can give your sprites attachments to change their look further by permitting them to wield different itemsĪll these things (and more!) are available to use in GameMaker Studio 2 too when importing JSON sprites. Having multiple skins for your sprite, so that a single skeleton can be skinned differently to create multiple characters (all with the same movements, of course) in a single sprite resource Some of the most basic features of skeletal animations are:īeing able to have a single sprite and create multiple animations for it - for example a walking, running and jumping animation set If you are simply exporting a bitmap sprite, then you can stop reading here, as there really isn't much more to say since the method for creating and using "normal" sprites is well known, however if you export the animation using the Spine JSON format export, it permits you to do far more things with your Spine animation than a simple sprite strip. This animation can then be exported either as a bitmap sprite strip, or as a Spine JSON file for adding into your game in the GameMaker Studio 2 sprite editor. The skeleton is composed of bones, which can be attached and moved in relation to one another over a set time-frame, and the final animation can be skinned with character graphics for the final animation.
#SPINE 2D ANIMATION TRIAL#
NOTE: Spine has a Trial version available for download here: Īs mentioned in the introduction, Spine works by having you create a skeleton and then pose it to create animations.
Note that Spine is a very powerful program with lots of possibilities and there is not nearly enough room in one short article to explain how it all works! We will however give a brief overview of some key points that are related to the way that GameMaker Studio 2 implements skeletal animation sprites. GameMaker Studio 2 supports this type of animated sprite, as it can import files created using the program Spine, which is a fantastic tool for creating skeletal animations (you can find out more about Spine here). This animation can then be skinned (ie: given a texture) and drawn to the screen like a sprite. These poses can then be turned into animation key-frames, and in turn you interpolate the bone positions between each key-frame to create a smooth and very natural looking animation. The idea behind this is that you create a base skeleton and then move the bones to create poses. In this article, we're going to introduce you to a very powerful tool for creating naturalistic sprites using skeletal animation.