While I've only done basic animations in Spine thus far, if I had to list features, it would be these:

1. Motion capture / rotoscoping and animation transfer
   (At about 2:10 in this video)

2. Cloth dynamics / weighted physics

3. Auto walk cycles / walk motors

4. Path animation

Of all these though, I think the motion capture is very impressive. In addition, check out the videos on cloth/hair dynamics. It's very interesting how they are using weights and physics to achieve it.

There is also a nice animated Tiger which no doubt is great for marketing:

There are a bunch of YouTube videos of the app here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPqZjHnq8U1hFehOUqEmgyQ

It's obvious the people/person who made this put a lot of effort into it, observing that Spine is it's only real competition.

I saw this on the Cocos2d-x forums:
http://discuss.cocos2d-x.org/t/creature-2d-skeletal-animation-tool-that-automates-walk-cycles-cloth-hair-and-more/20125

It doesn't look as good as Spine, but it does have a few nice features. Maybe the Spine team can have a look and get some inspiration for new features?

Really nice artwork, I'll keep you in mind

My understanding is Flash is not good for performance, compared to spine. And then Spine is more easily edited once imported, as well as more accessible in code (show/hide images, etc).

Every feature in Spine wouldn't be supported, but the trade-off is acceptable for indie devs. Larger companies that can afford a full time artist can spend the time using mesh animation and other features.

By allowing Flash animation imports, simple animations can be made at a much lower cost.

Spine works best when people develop animations in it's own editor. This I agree with. Unfortunately, this creates a problem for independent developers.

Let's say I want to create several animations for an app, and I want to hire an artist/animator to do it. The pool of artists I have to choose from is drastically reduced because I can't hire someone skilled with flash.

I could ask them to learn Spine, and maybe a few would be willing to, but the number of artists I have to choose from is still limited.

I can see asking an artist I've worked with over several jobs to take the time to learn Spine, but many individual developers may not have access to those artists on a regular basis.

Is there any chance the developers of Spine could reconsider developing a feature for basic animation imports from Flash?

I should note that these guys http://www.webtech.co.jp/eng/spritestudio/ allow for Flash import, but the $900 price tag is awful. They have their importer on GitHub https://github.com/SpriteStudio/FlashToSS/tree/master/jsfl so it might be worth a look if the devs are interested.

Yeah I'm using Box2d. It's nice to know the runtimes are up to date.

Not sure what approach I'll use as I was hoping someone did it already. I really don't need animations even though it's what Spine was made for. I would like the benefit of polys meshes instead of sprites with lots of empty space. Otherwise I might use simpler tools such as Texture Packer and Physics Editor or RUBE.

Not sure if I'll try to integrate the physics, but thanks for the info.

Is there an existing tool that simplifies the process of creating bodies & fixtures in Cocos2d-x 3.0 from meshes? I'm thinking about writing a C++ tool to do this, but would hate to re-invent the wheel.

Also, does the latest 3.2 version of Cocos2d-x support meshes, or is that runtime still being created? Is there a place I can find this out?

https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/865787917
Russell Sullivan
papergamer@gmail.com
original spine kickstarter

Subject: License name/email changes & Kickstarter badges

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Got it work, thanks!

How did you get the kickstarter badge under my name in the forum? I backed the original project myself.

Thanks

Chounard wrote

I use the built in Texture Packer to export all of my animation textures together, which will help save on draw calls. (In settings, I check "Combine subdirectories.")

How are you making this work?

In my Spine test project, I have two animations in the right hierarchy. I exported them by checking "Combine subdirectories" in the "Spine Texture Packer Settings."

For some reason, I still get two separate atlases. Is there something else that needs to be changed?

See images below: