Awesome, thanks for the blog post update! I'm switching to Unity, and the lighting tests get me even more excited about playing around in it (and thanks for the links to the two different normal map generator tools).

Nice job, and I appreciate the hard work!

Hi about the normal maps:

1. Are you using sprite dlight or sprite lamp in the example the video?
2. Author of sprite dlight and me were exchanging emails and he mentioned that the biggest obstacle is having a smooth transition on the joints when normal mapping, is that still an issue?

I need some advice concerning this

Tests were done using sprite dlight. Smooth transitions with normals will always be rough unless you paint them not to be heh.

That being said, I added support for skinned mesh deformation of the normal map by taking the most significant bone for each vertex and passing its rotation to alic's shader as part of a tangent. So in that sense, not really an issue heh

Cool thank you, very awesome to hear that!

What is the workflow for normal maps?
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like we need to take the atlas generated by Spine, use a tool like Sprite DLight to create a normal map for the entire atlas and (likely) tweak it manually.
If we later add an image in Spine, the atlas is regenerated and we'll have to create the normal map again?

It would be great if there was a way to import normal maps into Spine alongside the regular sprites. Either with a file naming scheme, or from a Photoshop file (additional layer group for normal maps or something), and have the export generate a normal map atlas.

Rouven

The issue arises in that tools that generate normals don't do an artistically good job and only serve as a decent base layer. Painting inside an alpha mask can be rough with normals.

So basically I create a second project in Spine where I only import the normal map images, making sure everything is exactly like the images in the real project. And then I use that to only export the normal map atlas. Sounds like a feasible workaround, but it's a pain to maintain long-term.

thanks for this awesome update !

I just realised I can bake to unity's default standards after watching this video which means I can use standard shaders.
This will save a massive amount of time!

[EDIT:]
Ok so I've tried using the standard shaders on a baked character but I'm getting some strange behaviour.

I've baked a lightmap for the goblin using sprite dlight..

But the results I'm getting are strange..

The point light is to the right so the lighting on the shield is correct (although it refuses to light from the top and bottom (only from left or right).
Despite the head being the same orientation in the atlas, it will only light from the left when the point light is on the bottom left.
On the body top and bottom lighting are reversed and side to side lighting doesn't work at all.
The left and right lighting works on the fist but the upper arm seems to have reversed lighting also.

Honestly, I'm at a loss here.
When the image is flipped (negative x scale), the same problems remain.

[EDIT2]
I did a test on the individual parts and normal mapping just to rule out any problems there (they share the exact same material as the goblin character).
As you can see with a point light on the X they are lighting correctly (even when rotated), but the goblin below still has erratic lighting.

Here's an example where I've rotated the planes to show the lighting remains correct.

So the problem with flipped/rotated normals seems to be the way in which spine rotates the objects.
As for the problem with normals only lighting on 1 axis I'm at a loss..

Have you tried packing the texture with rotation off?

Pharan wrote

Have you tried packing the texture with rotation off?

These are the default example models in the spine/unity runtime.
One I tried by baking in unity and one I tried with the default spine mesh and they both have the same issue.

I assumed the examples should at least work without repacking but I can try that..