Related Discussions
...

We are currently researching ways to create 2D cutscenes in Unity. We work with a lot of high profile properties, and our clients demand near TV Show quality in their games (within reason).

I am very familiar with Spine but it isn't designed for cutscenes (this isn't a weakness, Spine tool is very clean and streamlined). I've found a Unity Timeline Editor called uSequencer that seems to allow Spine animation. Does anyone have experience with this? Are there any other tools I should check into that can use Spine as the primary animation?

Some folk have done adequate integration with Playmaker already. I haven't seen anyone drive a cutscene using Spine yet though 🙁 Adding it to my list of things to think about heh.

Check out this demo reel, at about 0:12:
https://vimeo.com/106001632
It seems they use a placeholder in Spine, then I expect at runtime that map the placeholder's movement to the camera.

Thanks for your replies.

Our cutscenes will be quite a bit more complex. Camera movement, Zoom, Multiple Characters, Character interactions, VO, Lip Synch, Scene Changes/Cuts, Parallax. It's really supposed to match the TV show as close as possible, but they (probably) use Toon Boom. This means I will be making the gestures and facial expressions match the VO- I can't just loop a single generic animation cycle.

If this was a personal project, I'd be fine using placeholders and have quite a bit of flexibility.

We'll give uSequencer a test run and report back. I have the feeling it won't support basic Spine functionality like mixing/blending and skins.

You could probably just make a simple interfacing class that allows uSequencer to call SetAnimation and other things you need in the Spine API.

mixing will be done automatically in that case. The same can be done with Unity's own native Animator, although that can be uglier since Unity Animations use SendMessage.

Whatever the thing is, given what you need, you won't be animating cutscenes in Spine. You'll be doing them in Unity, and you only need to interface with Spine's regular API as you would in-game.

If you have the Unity Editor expertise and time, know that you could probably create a scrubable timeline with Spine animations inside Unity. On the Spine-Unity side, Spine skeletons can be posed given an animation and a point in time (float) so it's very doable.

7 months later
r_schleufer wrote

We are currently researching ways to create 2D cutscenes in Unity. We work with a lot of high profile properties, and our clients demand near TV Show quality in their games (within reason).

I am very familiar with Spine but it isn't designed for cutscenes (this isn't a weakness, Spine tool is very clean and streamlined). I've found a Unity Timeline Editor called uSequencer that seems to allow Spine animation. Does anyone have experience with this? Are there any other tools I should check into that can use Spine as the primary animation?

A bit late on finding this, but you should go with Cinema Director. Does exactly what you need, and has heavy film focus:

www.cinema-suite.com

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/19779