Hello, Please share your expertise in advising me here! I have had spine for years but have only ever been really frustrated in trying to use it. Before I go back into the rabbit hole of learning spine, I thought I would ask if my plan for a project would work and if it could be done in relatively simple way. I make basic 2d vector graphics and cartoons. What I want to do is use spine to animate a character, including having the mouth move to match an audio track, move arms, legs, and then output the animation as a video that can be plopped over a video in davinci resolve. the end result would be the animated character over a video background, say, a character talking and moving overlaid over a dashcam footage of city driving. I have been leaning toward doing this with a physical puppet greenscreen, which would eliminate the need for the complexity of animation. But then I have to travel around with a bunch of puppets and lights and a green screen. I already own spine and vector graphic toons imported as layers psd's are easy to make. Animations not so much. Could spine be used for this for a newbie like me? Your expert opinions would be appreciated.
creating animations to act as greenscreen overlay in davinci resolve?
mixtere Hello, welcome to the Spine Forum!
First of all, I have no doubt that what you want to do can be done with Spine. Of course you will need time to learn, but the advantage of using a digital animation tool is that it is very easy to redo and adjust later. Animating with a physical puppet may be quick and easy at first, but if you want to fix or modify something you did wrong or notice some improvements, it would be harder to redo or adjust the animation. I think it is a very good choice to use an animation tool like Spine, which is easy to redo, to make sure that the work is satisfactory.
Now, for the sake of clarity, I'm going to break down each of the things you want to do and how you can make them happen:
Having the mouth move to match an audio track:
Spine can play audio files within the editor, making it possible to create movements that match the audio. There is also a view where you can see the waveforms as described in the following page of the User's Guide: https://esotericsoftware.com/spine-audio-view
However, there is no lip-sync function in the editor to automatically create animations to match the audio, but instead external tools created by a user can be used:
DanielSWolf/rhubarb-lip-syncblob/master/extras/EsotericSoftwareSpine/README.adocMove arms, legs:
Of course you can do this with Spine. Spine has the advantage of IK constraints, which allow you to fix the legs and arms in specific positions so that they appear to be in perfect contact with the floor or wall. The following Raptor example description page may help you understand how the skeleton can be moved.
https://esotericsoftware.com/spine-examples-raptorOutput the animation as a video:
You can export the animation in AVI, MOV, or WEBM format. Each can be exported including audio.
If you have any questions, you can always ask them in this Spine forum. Basic questions about the editor will be answered within 24 hours in most cases.
I didn’t expect such a quick and thorough reply, thanks Misaki. Every time I have started a spine tutorial, something has not worked as in the tutorial. This has been because of errors and software or associated software/ workflow changes. So I have never been able to successfully animate w spine. Perhaps I will be able to change that. It’s been like linux to me, a powerful tool that is very difficult to harness properly
mixtere I understand very well that you might get stuck in the middle of a tutorial because Spine is updated quite often and it is very common experience when looking at old tutorials that some buttons have been moved to a different location or are no longer there in the newer version and it makes you confused.
If what you were referring to was our official tutorial, we can quickly explain the differences between the latest version and the version used in the tutorial, so it is best to start with the tutorials we provide and ask us if you have any questions. 