Hi, clandestine.

Thanks for the reply, but no, it doesn't appear to behave like this. When I re-export from Spine with new animations and then go back to Unity, the relevant Controller isn't automatically updated, regardless of whether it's in the default "Baked" folder or has been moved elsewhere in the project. It seems the only way to get the new anim to appear is to re-bake it, but of course that creates a brand new Controller that doesn't contain any Mecanim transistions, variables or triggers that have already been created - it just lists each of the states in their default, err, state.

Thanks again for the reply, though.

Hi blinz,

Yeah, that's what I'm hoping to be able to do, and indeed that was exactly what I did when setting up the original Controller. The problem is is that the new animations don't show up in the project window for the original Controller automatically. Only when I use the bake system does it create a new Controller file with all of the new and existing animations shown as children of it in the project window. The original Controller component just retains the original animations as children.

I think I can technically re-bake it to create a new controller (which has none of the previously set up Mecanim functionality but does have all of the animations), and then drag the new animations from the new Controller file onto the Animator window for the original Controller, but this seems like a recipe for confusion to me. Even when I do this, it still doesn't show the new animations as children of the original Controller file in the project window, even though it is shown in the Animator window... (Yep, I've just tested this and can confirm that's true).

So, I can get it to work in a bit of a hacky way, but it seems counter-intuitive to have to do the followings steps:

1) Export from Spine
2) Re-bake animations
3) Find newly-created Controller
4) Drag new animations one-by-one from there to original Controller Animator window (which does not visually update the children of the original Controller)
5) Edit Animator transitions

I just assumed it would make more sense if it went:

1) Export from Spine
2) New animations shown automatically
3) Add new animations to Controller Animator window in any of the usual ways
4) Edit Animator transitions

Perhaps I'm just missing something about the way that is has to work.

And I realise this is probably quite a difficult problem to visualise without being able to see exactly when I mean - it's definitely a tricky one to try to describe!

To be honest, as a relative novice with Unity, I'm not really sure on the difference between baking and not baking. And when I say "I'm not really sure", I mean I have no idea what it means! That's something I plan to research a little later in my learning process.

But, if I right-click the SkeletonData and Instantiate Mecanim, that doesn't refresh the animations either, I'm afraid. That simply spawns a new player and aims its Animator at the original, non-baked Controller (as in, the one that I'm currently using for the Mecanim transitions). It doesn't refresh the list of child animations shown under the controller, so I still have no way of adding the new animations into Mecanim without creating a baked version first and then dragging the animations from that new Controller back into the original one that was created with right-click > Instantiate Mecanim. I have a feeling that may work if I first deleted my original Controller and I would then be able to see all the new animations, but, as you said, I'm assuming that would still delete all the state machines I have in Mecanim and I'd be back at square one anyway!

So, I still haven't found a great work-around this problem for now. Still having to bake a new controller and drag the individual animations around every time I add new animations. It isn't a terrible problem, but it just seems like there must be a more straight-forward and slightly less confusing way to do it.

Thanks very much for the suggestions though, guys. I really appreciate them.

Thanks for that, Blinz. It hasn't actually worked, but I think I can see why (and I wouldn't be surprised if this is why it wasn't working for me at all to start with). I followed your steps and it didn't appear to work, but I noticed I'm getting the following error in the Console:

"NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
SpineEditorUtilities.ResetExistingSkeletonData (System.String skeletonJSONPath) (at Assets/spine-unity/Editor/SpineEditorUtilities.cs:382)"

ResetExistingSkeletonData! That sounds very much like the kind of function I need. I've just looked in the SpineEditorUtilities.cs file and can see the following code:

static void ResetExistingSkeletonData (string skeletonJSONPath) {

  string dir = Path.GetDirectoryName(skeletonJSONPath);
  TextAsset textAsset = (TextAsset)AssetDatabase.LoadAssetAtPath(skeletonJSONPath, typeof(TextAsset));
  DirectoryInfo dirInfo = new DirectoryInfo(dir);

  FileInfo[] files = dirInfo.GetFiles("*.asset");

  foreach (var f in files) {
     string localPath = dir + "/" + f.Name;
     var obj = AssetDatabase.LoadAssetAtPath(localPath, typeof(Object));
     if (obj is SkeletonDataAsset) {
        var skeletonDataAsset = (SkeletonDataAsset)obj;

        if (skeletonDataAsset.skeletonJSON == textAsset) {
           if (Selection.activeObject == skeletonDataAsset)
              Selection.activeObject = null;

           skeletonDataAsset.Reset();
           
           string guid = AssetDatabase.AssetPathToGUID(AssetDatabase.GetAssetPath(skeletonDataAsset));
           string lastHash = EditorPrefs.GetString(guid + "_hash");

           if (lastHash != skeletonDataAsset.GetSkeletonData(true).Hash) {
              //do any upkeep on synchronized assets
              UpdateMecanimClips(skeletonDataAsset);
           }

           EditorPrefs.SetString(guid + "_hash", skeletonDataAsset.GetSkeletonData(true).Hash);
        }
     }
  }
   }

That all looks fine to me, but I'm no expert, and obviously something has gone wrong. The ".asset" file is in the correct place, so I'm not sure what could be causing this.

Do you think I should start a new thread specifically for this error?

Thanks for your replies.

I've uploaded two images:

unity_project.png

This shows the Project window. You can see the "character_suit_constraints_Controller" file only has 6 animations under it, and never gets updated automatically when I export new animations. At the moment, when I bake the SkeletonData, it goes into the "Baked" folder. That's where the updated Controller with all of the animations lives. When I add a new animations, I re-bake and go find the new Controller in that folder, then drag the new animation up a level into the Animator window for the Controller in the "characters > pc > data" folder.

unity_inspector.png

This is the Inspector for the SkeletonData file. You can see it's linked to the correct controller that's shown in the previous image. You'll also notice that there are 11 animations shown, only 6 of which are shown in the Controller in the previous image.

I'm using Unity 5 now. If I try rebaking over the existing one, I get an error, but it's fine. I'm giving up on worrying about this for now. I'm sure it's just got something to do with how I originally set up my project, and I imagine I wouldn't encounter the same problems in future if I just make sure I edit the correct Controller in the first place. I can work around it anyway.

And you were right: If I bake a new Controller, edit it, then rebake, it does update the animations and retain the existing transitions.