Additive animation is really great and animation Blending is also very nice.
Are both types of animation interpolation represented in the Preview? Can the Preview Window be enlarged?
I see that an export of something is available in the Spine Menu - but what exactly is included in a .mov or .avi file (or a .png sequence file)?
Thank you,
Greg Smith
Not currently, no. Layered animations currently can't be exported as video.
Yes, the Preview panel/view can be resized like all the other views like the tree and the dopesheet.
Pharan or Others:
Can the Preview show both Blended animations and Additive animations at the same time?
Can the Animation View show both Blended animations and Additive animations at the same time?
If I can only see both of these kinds of Animation through some kind of Runtime - which platform would be simplest to use as a Playback application?
My purpose is to merely present a linear, animated story or cartoon.
Thanks,
Greg Smith
Psmith yazdıCan the Preview show both Blended animations and Additive animations at the same time?
Yes. Each track > 0 can be either additive (added to the pose from animations below) or non-additive (replaces the pose from animations below, but the parts that are keyed).
Psmith yazdıCan the Animation View show both Blended animations and Additive animations at the same time?
You can only edit one animation at a time. You only see how that animation is combined with other animations in the Preview view.
Psmith yazdıIf I can only see both of these kinds of Animation through some kind of Runtime - which platform would be simplest to use as a Playback application?
We are working on a web-based suite of tools that allow easy sharing of skeletons and animation and this can be customized to, eg, show a sequence of animations. That will be the easiest way to get started with using a runtime. We hope to have it ready in a few weeks (right, badlogic? 
). Until then, which game toolkit you use depends on how comfortable you are with programming, which language and tools you prefer, etc. spine-ts can run in your browser and is likely a decent place to start if you don't otherwise have preferences. Likely the Spine widget is a good starting point. It is easy to setup and shows a skeleton on a webpage. You can then use JavaScript to queue up various animations with tracks, mixing, etc.
Psmith yazdıMy purpose is to merely present a linear, animated story or cartoon.
We would LOVE to better support this usage, for cut scenes, cartooning, and more. What you really need is an animation mixer, so you can specify it to play animation X for this long, then Y, etc. Without that, you have to do everything inside one animation or use a runtime. FWIW, Mišo i Robin is a cartoon series for Croatian TV which was done with Spine. They export video from Spine and finish in AE.
Nate:
Where, in your planned release schedule, might we hope to find such an "Animation Mixer" within Spine, itself?
After Effects is such a behemoth of an application for, really, what is a pretty simple task (at least it was in the early nineties). Spine, if it possessed such a mixing feature (with exports to .png sequences and video formats) - would soon become an application of choice for animators and animating storytellers.
I don't know if you guys know it, but Spine is being looked at and used by artists who truly appreciate Spine's straightforward approach to animation, its simple Timeline and its very clean interface which is a joy to look at and use for long periods. (More customization possibilities for the interface would be a welcome addition, however).
In the software industry, generally speaking, every new feature is "just around the corner" - and you simply would not believe me if I told you how many corners I have been around in my long lifetime.
Better soon than late, is what I say.
Thanks,
Greg Smith
Thanks for the kind words. We do really want to support the cartooning/storytelling market.
Psmith yazdıWhere, in your planned release schedule, might we hope to find such an "Animation Mixer" within Spine, itself?
To be honest, unfortunately it's too far out to say. Most important is finishing audio (3.7), then having a proper curve editor (3.8). In the meantime there are hundreds of smaller features that are needed, some of them quite import (eg, a pose system for positioning attachments in setup mode for a pose only used mid-animation, or better tools for mixing frame-by-frame animation with skeletal). We've grown the team as Spine has grown, but there are still a lot of things that slow us down compared to how agile we used to be. There are tons of things we want to get to, but we also have to be careful not to rush ahead too much, which is a leading cause of software disasters. We're trying really hard to get things done well!
