Export

Spine can export a single image, sequence of images, video, and JSON or binary data.

To open the Export dialog, press ctrl+E (cmd+E on Mac) or click the Spine logo in the upper left of Spine and choose Export from the menu.

JSON

Spine can export all of the skeleton data as JSON. This data can then be loaded by a Spine runtime and displayed in your applications just as it is in Spine

JSON has some advantages over binary. Most changes to the Spine export format don't invalidate previously exported JSON data. JSON is also human readable and easy for code to parse. The downside is that JSON data is larger and parsing the data is slower.

See JSON Format for detailed information about the JSON data that is exported.

• Output folder A JSON file will be created in this folder for each skeleton in your project. The name of the file will use the name of the skeleton.
• Extension The JSON files will use this file extension.
• Format Spine can optionally write in JSON-like formats that are slightly smaller, easier to read, and easier to edit.
• JSON Standard JSON.
• JavaScript Like JSON, but names are only quoted if necessary. The output is valid JavaScript.
• Minimal Like JSON, but names and values are only quoted if they don't contain rnt or space and don't begin with /{}[]:,". Additionally, names cannot contain : and values cannot contain }],. This format requires a lenient JSON parser, such as the one in libgdx.
• Pretty print When checked, the JSON is formatted nicely so it is more easily ready by humans. This makes the file slightly larger.
• Nonessential data When checked, additional data is included in the JSON that is not needed to rendering the skeletons. This makes the file slightly larger. This data is needed if the JSON will be imported back into Spine. See Import for more information.
• Animation clean up When checked, animation cleaned up is performed before export. This does not modify the project file.
• Warnings When checked, Spine will show any warning messages after exporting.
• Pack When checked, it packs either only the images used by attachments or each skeleton's images folder into a texture atlas. This is convenient but running the texture packer separately provides more control over the packing. See Texture Packing for more information.

Binary

Spine can export all of the skeleton data as binary. This data can then be loaded by a Spine runtime and displayed in your applications just as it is in Spine.

Binary has some advantages over JSON. It is smaller and fast to parse by code, but it is not human readable. The downside is that any changes to the Spine export format will invalidate any previously exported binary data, which then needs to be exported again.

See Binary Format for detailed information about the binary data that is exported.

• Output folder A binary file will be created in this folder for each skeleton in your project. The name of the file will use the name of the skeleton.
• Extension The binary files will use this file extension.
• Nonessential data When checked, additional data is included in the binary data that is not needed to rendering the skeletons. This makes the file slightly larger. This data is needed if the binary data will be imported back into Spine. See Import for more information.
• Animation clean up When checked, animation cleaned up is performed before export. This does not modify the project file.
• Warnings When checked, Spine will show any warning messages after exporting.
• Pack When checked, it packs either only the images used by attachments or each skeleton's images folder into a texture atlas. This is convenient but running the texture packer separately provides more control over the packing. See Texture Packing for more information.

GIF

Spine can export an animated GIF, making it easy to share on the Internet. GIF is an image format with only 256 colors and doesn't support translucency, so some loss of quality may occur.

• Export type The type of export to perform.
  • Animations The current animation, all the animations, or an animation from the dropdown menu are exported as an animated GIF.
  • Current pose The current skeleton pose is exported as a static GIF.
  • Skins The current skin, all the skins, or all plus the version where no skin is active are exported.
• Defaults Resets all the GIF settings to the default ones.
• Preview Opens the preview panel for the export window.
• Output type Either creates a single file or a file per frame.
• Output file The GIF file to write.
• Animation repeat The number of times to play each animation.
• Pause after The number of seconds to pause after playing each animation.
• Bones If checked, skeleton bones will be rendered.
• Images If checked, skeleton images will be rendered.
• Others If checked, other skeleton elements such as paths will be rendered.
• Linear filtering If checked, Linear filtering will be applied to the GIF.
• Multisample AA The depth of multisample anti-aliasing to apply to the GIF.
• Viewport crop If checked, it enables cropping the GIF to a custom dimension. The amount of X and Y offset of the cropping area can be specified in the first two boxes next to it, the size of the area can be specified in pixels in the last two boxes of the row. Enabling this setting also allows resizing the box in the export preview by dragging the red corners.
• Size The type of Resizing to perform.
  • Scale The relative scale of the GIF expressed in percentage compared to the Spine skeleton.
  • Fit When selected, the output GIF will fit within the specified pixel values.
    • Enlarge If checked, and the content is smaller than the expressed values, the content of the gif is proportionally stretched until one of the sides matches the expressed values.
    • Pad If checked, additional space is added to the GIF to match the expressed values.
• Range If checked, the gif will use the specified numbers as the starting and ending frames.
• Colors The maximum number of colors in the GIF.
• Color dither The amount of dither to apply to the GIF colors. Dither disperses the colors to prevent hard edges.
• Alpha threshold Alpha values below this value are treated as 0.
• Alpha dither The amount of dither to apply to the GIF transparency. Dither disperses transparency to prevent hard edges.
• Background The background color to use.
  • Transparent When checked, completely transparent pixels will be transparent instead of the background color. When unchecked, the specified color is used for the background of the GIF.
  • Matte Translucent pixels are made opaque using the matte color.
• Quality Higher quality produces better colors but takes longer to export.
• FPS The number of frames per second for the GIF animation. 50 generally provides the best results.
• Forever When checked, the animation is looped continuously.
• Include last frame When unchecked, the last frame of each animation is omitted. This is especially useful for looping animations that would usually repeat the first and last frame, resulting in the same frame exported twice when the option is unchecked.

PNG

Spine can export PNG images. PNG is a lossless image format that supports transparency, so no loss of quality will occur.

• Export type The type of export to perform.
  • Animations The current animation, all the animations, or an animation from the dropdown menu are exported as a PNG sequence.
  • Current pose The current skeleton pose is exported as a single PNG.
  • Skins The current skin, all the skins, all plus the version where no skin is active, or a skin of choice are exported.
• Defaults Resets all the PNG settings to the default ones.
• Preview Opens the preview panel for the export window.
• Output prefix Either creates a single file or a file per frame.
• Bones If checked, skeleton bones will be rendered.
• Images If checked, skeleton images will be rendered.
• Others If checked, other skeleton elements such as paths will be rendered.
• Linear filtering If checked, Linear filtering will be applied to the PNG.
• Multisample AA The depth of multisample anti-aliasing to apply to the PNG.
• Viewport crop If checked, it enables cropping the PNG to a custom dimension. The amount of X and Y offset of the cropping area can be specified in the first two boxes next to it, the size of the area can be specified in pixels in the last two boxes of the row. Enabling this setting also allows resizing the box in the export preview by dragging the red corners.
• Size The type of Resizing to perform.
  • Scale The relative scale of the PNG expressed in percentage compared to the Spine skeleton.
  • Fit When selected, the output PNG will fit within the specified pixel values.
    • Enlarge If checked, and the content is smaller than the expressed values, the content of the gif is proportionally stretched until one of the sides matches the expressed values.
    • Pad If checked, additional space is added to the PNG to match the expressed values.
• Range If checked, the PNG sequence will use the specified numbers as the starting and ending frames.
• Background The background color to use.
  • Transparent When checked, the background of the PNG is set to transparent.
• Compression Higher compression produces smaller files but takes longer to export.
• FPS The number of frames per second for the PNG sequence.
• Include last frame When unchecked, the last frame of each animation is omitted. This is especially useful for looping animations that would usually repeat the first and last frame, resulting in the same frame exported twice when the option is unchecked.
• Pack When checked, the exported images are packed into a texture atlas. This is convenient but running the texture packer separately provides more control over the packing. See Texture Packing for more information.

APNG

Spine can export APNG images. APNG is a lossless animated image format that supports transparency, so no loss of quality will occur.

• Export type The type of export to perform.
  • Animations The current animation, all the animations, or an animation from the dropdown menu are exported as an APNG sequence.
  • Current pose The current skeleton pose is exported as a single APNG.
  • Skins The current skin, all the skins, or all plus the version where no skin is active are exported.
• Defaults Resets all the APNG settings to the default ones.
• Preview Opens the preview panel for the export window.
• Output file An APNG will be created in this folder.
• Animation repeat The number of times to play each animation.
• Pause after The number of seconds to pause after playing each animation.
• Bones If checked, skeleton bones will be rendered.
• Images If checked, skeleton images will be rendered.
• Others If checked, other skeleton elements such as paths will be rendered.
• Linear filtering If checked, Linear filtering will be applied to the APNG.
• Multisample AA The depth of multisample anti-aliasing to apply to the APNG.
• Viewport crop If checked, it enables cropping the APNG to a custom dimension. The amount of X and Y offset of the cropping area can be specified in the first two boxes next to it, the size of the area can be specified in pixels in the last two boxes of the row. Enabling this setting also allows resizing the box in the export preview by dragging the red corners.
• Size The type of Resizing to perform.
  • Scale The relative scale of the APNG expressed in percentage compared to the Spine skeleton.
  • Fit When selected, the output APNG will fit within the specified pixel values.
    • Enlarge If checked, and the content is smaller than the expressed values, the content of the gif is proportionally stretched until one of the sides matches the expressed values.
    • Pad If checked, additional space is added to the APNG to match the expressed values.
• Range If checked, the APNG will use the specified numbers as the starting and ending frames.
• Background The background color to use.
  • Transparent When checked, the background of the APNG is set to transparent.
• Compression Higher compression produces smaller files but takes longer to export.
• FPS The number of frames per second for the PNG sequence.
• Forever When checked, the animation is looped continuously.
• Include last frame When unchecked, the last frame of each animation is omitted. This is especially useful for looping animations that would usually repeat the first and last frame, resulting in the same frame exported twice when the option is unchecked.

PSD

Spine can export PSD images. A layer for each animation frame will be created inside the PSD file.

• Export type The type of export to perform.
  • Animations The current animation, all the animations, or an animation from the dropdown menu are exported as a PSD sequence.
  • Current pose The current skeleton pose is exported as a single PSD.
    • Layers The current skeleton pose is exported as a PSD with a layer for each visible attachment.
    • Frame The current skeleton pose is exported as a single layer frame.
  • Skins The current skin, all the skins, or all plus the version where no skin is active are exported.
• Defaults Resets all the PSD settings to the default ones.
• Preview Opens the preview panel for the export window.
• Output type Either creates a single file or a file per frame.
• Output file The PSD file to write.
• Bones If checked, skeleton bones will be rendered.
• Images If checked, skeleton images will be rendered.
• Others If checked, other skeleton elements such as paths will be rendered.
• Linear filtering If checked, Linear filtering will be applied to the PSD.
• Multisample AA The depth of multisample anti-aliasing to apply to the PSD.
• Viewport crop If checked, it enables cropping the PSD to a custom dimension. The amount of X and Y offset of the cropping area can be specified in the first two boxes next to it, the size of the area can be specified in pixels in the last two boxes of the row. Enabling this setting also allows resizing the box in the export preview by dragging the red corners.
• Size The type of Resizing to perform.
  • Scale The relative scale of the PSD expressed in percentage compared to the Spine skeleton.
  • Fit When selected, the output PSD will fit within the specified pixel values.
    • Enlarge If checked, and the content is smaller than the expressed values, the content of the gif is proportionally stretched until one of the sides matches the expressed values.
    • Pad If checked, additional space is added to the PNG to match the expressed values.
• Range If checked, the PSD sequence will use the specified numbers as the starting and ending frames.
• Background The background color to use.
  • Transparent When checked, the background of the images within the PSD is set to transparent.
• Encoding The type of compression to use to create the PSD.
  • RAW An uncompressed format. Encoding is fast, but the file created is huge.
  • RLE Encoding is fast, and the created file is small.
  • ZLIB Encoding is slow, and the created PSD is very small.
• FPS The number of frames per second for the PSD images sequence.
• Include last frame When unchecked, the last frame of each animation is omitted. This is especially useful for looping animations that would usually repeat the first and last frame, resulting in the same frame exported twice when the option is unchecked.

JPEG

Spine can export JPEG images. JPEG is a lossy image format that does not support transparency, so some loss of quality may occur.

• Export type The type of export to perform.
  • Animations The current animation, all the animations, or an animation from the dropdown menu are exported as a JPEG sequence.
  • Current pose The current skeleton pose is exported as a single JPEG.
  • Skins The current skin, all the skins, or all plus the version where no skin is active are exported.
• Defaults Resets all the JPEG settings to the default ones.
• Preview Opens the preview panel for the export window.
• Output prefix Either creates a single file or a file per frame.
• Bones If checked, skeleton bones will be rendered.
• Images If checked, skeleton images will be rendered.
• Others If checked, other skeleton elements such as paths will be rendered.
• Linear filtering If checked, Linear filtering will be applied to the JPEG.
• Multisample AA The depth of multisample anti-aliasing to apply to the JPEG.
• Viewport crop If checked, it enables cropping the JPEG to a custom dimension. The amount of X and Y offset of the cropping area can be specified in the first two boxes next to it, the size of the area can be specified in pixels in the last two boxes of the row. Enabling this setting also allows resizing the box in the export preview by dragging the red corners.
• Size The type of Resizing to perform.
  • Scale The relative scale of the JPEG expressed in percentage compared to the Spine skeleton.
  • Fit When selected, the output JPEG will fit within the specified pixel values.
    • Enlarge If checked, and the content is smaller than the expressed values, the content of the gif is proportionally stretched until one of the sides matches the expressed values.
    • Pad If checked, additional space is added to the JPEG to match the expressed values.
• Range If checked, the JPEG sequence will use the specified numbers as the starting and ending frames.
• Background The background color to use.
• Quality Higher quality produces better images but the file sizes are larger.
• FPS The number of frames per second for the JPEG sequence.
• Include last frame When unchecked, the last frame of each animation is omitted. This is especially useful for looping animations that would usually repeat the first and last frame, resulting in the same frame exported twice when the option is unchecked.

AVI

Spine can export an AVI video file of the current animation.

• Export type The type of export to perform.
  • Animations The current animation, all the animations, or an animation from the dropdown menu are exported as an AVI.
  • Current pose The current skeleton pose is exported as an AVI.
  • Skins The current skin, all the skins, or all plus the version where no skin is active are exported.
• Defaults Resets all the AVI settings to the default ones.
• Preview Opens the preview panel for the export window.
• Output file An AVI will be created in this folder.
• Animation repeat The number of times to play each animation.
• Pause after The number of seconds to pause after playing each animation.
• Bones If checked, skeleton bones will be rendered.
• Images If checked, skeleton images will be rendered.
• Others If checked, other skeleton elements such as paths will be rendered.
• Linear filtering If checked, Linear filtering will be applied to the AVI.
• Multisample AA The depth of multisample anti-aliasing to apply to the AVI.
• Viewport crop If checked, it enables cropping the AVI to a custom dimension. The amount of X and Y offset of the cropping area can be specified in the first two boxes next to it, the size of the area can be specified in pixels in the last two boxes of the row. Enabling this setting also allows resizing the box in the export preview by dragging the red corners.
• Size The type of Resizing to perform.
  • Scale The relative scale of the AVI expressed in percentage compared to the Spine skeleton.
  • Fit When selected, the output AVI will fit within the specified pixel values.
    • Enlarge If checked, and the content is smaller than the expressed values, the content of the gif is proportionally stretched until one of the sides matches the expressed values.
    • Pad If checked, additional space is added to the AVI to match the expressed values.
• Range If checked, the AVI will use the specified numbers as the starting and ending frames.
• Encoding The codec to use to encode the AVI video.
• Background The background color to use.
• Compression Higher compression produces smaller files but takes longer to export.
• Quality For the JPEG-based codec, higher quality produces better images but the file sizes are larger.
• FPS The number of frames per second for the AVI video.
• Forever When checked, the animation is looped continuously.
• Include last frame When unchecked, the last frame of each animation is omitted. This is especially useful for looping animations that would usually repeat the first and last frame, resulting in the same frame exported twice when the option is unchecked.

MOV

Spine can export a QuickTime MOV video file of the current animation.

• Export type The type of export to perform.
  • Animations The current animation, all the animations, or an animation from the dropdown menu are exported as a MOV video.
  • Current pose The current skeleton pose is exported as a MOV video.
  • Skins The current skin, all the skins, all plus the version where no skin is active, or a skin of choice are exported.
• Defaults Resets all the MOV video settings to the default ones.
• Preview Opens the preview panel for the export window.
• Output file A MOV video will be created in this folder.
• Animation repeat The number of times to play each animation.
• Pause after The number of seconds to pause after playing each animation.
• Bones If checked, skeleton bones will be rendered.
• Images If checked, skeleton images will be rendered.
• Others If checked, other skeleton elements such as paths will be rendered.
• Linear filtering If checked, Linear filtering will be applied to the MOV video.
• Multisample AA The depth of multisample anti-aliasing to apply to the MOV video.
• Viewport crop If checked, it enables cropping the MOV video to a custom dimension. The amount of X and Y offset of the cropping area can be specified in the first two boxes next to it, the size of the area can be specified in pixels in the last two boxes of the row. Enabling this setting also allows resizing the box in the export preview by dragging the red corners.
• Size The type of Resizing to perform.
  • Scale The relative scale of the MOV video expressed in percentage compared to the Spine skeleton.
  • Fit When selected, the output MOV video will fit within the specified pixel values.
    • Enlarge If checked, and the content is smaller than the expressed values, the content of the gif is proportionally stretched until one of the sides matches the expressed values.
    • Pad If checked, additional space is added to the MOV video to match the expressed values.
• Range If checked, the MOV video will use the specified numbers as the starting and ending frames.
• Encoding The codec to use to encode the MOV video.
• Background The background color to use.
  • Transparent When checked, the background of the MOV video is set to transparent.
• Compression Higher compression produces smaller files but takes longer to export.
• Quality For the JPEG-based codec, higher quality produces better images but the file sizes are larger.
• FPS The number of frames per second for the MOV video.
• Forever When checked, the animation is looped continuously.
• Include last frame When unchecked, the last frame of each animation is omitted. This is especially useful for looping animations that would usually repeat the first and last frame, resulting in the same frame exported twice when the option is unchecked.

Preview panel

The preview panel allows to preview the result of an export. When active, it will reflect the changes made in the export settings.

A white box around shows the border of the rendered animation.

When Crop is enabled, a box with orange corners allows the user to resize the output by clicking on one of the orange corners, or move the box by clicking inside it, then dragging the box.

The dimension expressed in pixels, and estimated size of the export are displayed at the bottom.

The slider and arrows allow to scrub through the render animation frames, while the number indicates the current frame. These frames may not correspond to the ones in the dopesheet, as they depend on the FPS set in the export settings.

Skeleton export

It is possible to choose which assets to include in the export, for example in order to use a skeleton or an attachment as an animation reference.

To exclude a skeleton from the export, select the skeleton in the tree, then uncheck Export in the skeleton properties.

The same procedure works for attachments, unless an attachment is keyed in an animation, which would cause the attachment to be exported even if Export is unchecked.

Command line

Export and texture packing can be run from the command line, for use with scripts and build servers. When run in this way, Spine starts, does one or more exports or texture packings, then exits.

Prerequisites

Both Spine and the Spine launcher must be version 2.1.00 or higher to perform command line export. Also, if some export parameters are not accepted, it could be those parameters were added in a later version. To update the Spine launcher, use the Spine license link which was emailed when Spine was purchased to download and reinstall Spine.

JSON and binary data export, import, texture packing, and texture unpacking can be performed on a headless machine. To export images or video, an OS windowing system and OpenGL are required.

Usage

Command line usage for export and texture packing:

The output folder is created if it does not exist. Multiple export, import, texture packing, etc can be specified, as seen in the examples. If a command fails, Spine returns a non-zero error code.

Project export

For JSON, binary, image, and video export, the input and output paths are optional. If specified, they override the input and/or output paths specified in the export settings JSON file. The input path is a path to a project, JSON, or binary file. The output path may be a file or folder, depending on the export settings. The export settings JSON file is created using Spine by clicking on the Save button at the bottom of the Export dialog.

If the "clean up" parameter is specified, animation cleaned up is performed before export. This does not modify the project file.

Project import

For project import, the input path is a project, JSON, or binary file. Alternatively, it can be a folder containing .spine, .json, or .skel files. The output path is a project file. If a scale is specified, the project's skeletons are scaled before they are imported.

If a project is imported into another project, all skeletons are imported. If a skeleton name is specified and only one skeleton is imported, then the skeleton is renamed. If multiple skeletons are imported, the skeleton name is ignored and the skeletons keep their existing names.

If a JSON or binary file is imported into a project and a skeleton name is specified, then the skeleton is renamed. If a skeleton name is not specified, the skeleton is named using the JSON or binary file name without the extension.

Animation clean up

For animation clean up, the input path is a project file or folder containing .spine files. Animation clean up is performed for every skeleton and animation in the project and the project file is updated.

Texture packing

For texture packing, the input and output paths are folder paths. The --pack or -p parameter is either the texture atlas name to use when writing output files or a path to a pack settings JSON file. The pack settings JSON file is created using Spine by clicking on the Save button at the bottom of the Texture Packer Settings dialog. The name of the JSON file without the file extension is used as the texture atlas name.

When texture packing occurs, the settings from the specified pack settings JSON file are used. If a texture atlas name is specified instead, then the default settings are used. These settings are overridden by settings defined in any pack.json files found in the input folders. See the Spine texture packer JSON Configuration for more information.

One or more project files can be specified using --project or -j. When whitespace stripping is enabled, the texture packer looks in these projects for each image file. Any meshes found to use the image file are taken into account so whitespace stripping will not remove blank pixels used by the meshes. When --project or -j is specified, the currentProject texture packer setting is ignored, as if it were set to true.

Texture unpacking

For texture unpacking, the input path is an atlas file and the output path is a folder where the unpacked images will be written.

Project information

For project information, the input path is a project file or folder containing .spine files. Information is output for each project file. This can useful to know what version of Spine a project was saved with, how many animations are in the project, and other information.

Windows

Spine for Windows comes with two executables: Spine.exe and Spine.com. The EXE file is a GUI application, it starts Spine without a console window and doesn't wait for Spine to exit. The COM file is a command line application, it directs Spine's output to a console window and waits for Spine to exit.

Either executable can be used for command line export, but generally the COM file is preferred. If the Spine installation folder is on the system path or is the current working directory, specifying Spine without an extension will always execute Spine.com. For example:

Mac

Command line export when using Spine for Mac is done by launching the Spine executable file directly rather than opening Spine.app. The executable is found inside Spine.app at Spine.app/Contents/MacOS/Spine. For example:

Linux

Command line export when using Spine for Linux is done by running the Spine.sh script. For example:

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