Spine Pro vs Unity 2D Animation
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ค. 2024
- Unity 2D animation package or Spine Pro? A native solution for game devs compared to one of the animation market leaders! Things might get foxy.
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Enjoy!
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Also, some timestamps for your convenience:
00:00 - Introduction
01:11 - Importing Graphics
03:09 - Mesh Creation
05:13 - Bones Creation
06:32 - Mesh Weights
07:29 - IK Constraints
09:13 - Advanced Rigging
10:50 - Animation
11:43 - Path Constraints
12:28 - Character Customization
14:41 - Game Engines Support
15:44 - Price
16:24 - Conclusion
► Lastly, the link to Unity path follow tutorial:
• Unity Tutorial How To ...
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![[spine-godot] Exploring spine-godot](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/v6r2k7YW6d0/mqdefault.jpg)
FYI, you can export from GIMP as a PSD, then renamed the file to PSB extension and import into Unity as a PSB with no issues.
The fact that unity is free makes it very easy to decide.
If you are doing this as a hobby or just starting out -> Unity
If you are doing this professionally and have the cash-> spine2D
Yes, im artist, and create character for clients, than program on godot, unity, unreal, and other. Primary aniamtion on Dragon Bones, but now im considerin to buy Spine2D essentials, and next Pro, for the runtimes.
If you make this a hobby or to learn, you can use the Spine trial easily. You have all tools like a pro version but can't save it. I was learning Spine this way and was more than enough.
I work in Unity also but workflow in Spine is waaaaay easier and more pleasant.
10:06 If you add the Parent of your Head-Front-Control (Head) to the second source with 1 - it will be working as expected
when i doing this, the constraint ignored the head front control completely
what does this mean? can you re-explain?
@@elindiamond1382 You should always create a child gameobject for the SpriteRenderer if want to use the Animator.
2:36 here I export my assest as PSD file from KRITA and then I rename my file extension as PSB and yeah it works for me
My exports from Krita did not work for some reason. Exporting from GIMP, however, did.
Most graphics programs can save files as .psb
I have been using Paint Tool SAI for years and it does, just like GIMP
That was a very good way of displaying how each application works thank you.
I am happy I got spine now.
This video is just what I was looking for and happy that it's more recent since both tools have evolved over time. Thank you!
I never used any of these softwares. But I learned more over animation than I ever did :)
Thank you
Glad I could help! :)
A lot of work in this video, congratulations
Re PSB. I read that gimp, which is basically free photoshop, supports psd files. And you just need to change the file extension from psd to psb to make it usable in unity.
This is something that i just read/researched online so dont quote me, but worth trying since both unity and gimp are free.
Thanks a lot for this comparison, it's very interesting ! :)
For the Position Constraint Issue just add another bone to the list, like the head bone and adjust the values. Start with values like: Front CTRL = -0.5 and the Head = 1
Longshot, but do you know if there's a tutorial on doing this?
@@coentertainer I havn't done one yet, but i work on it. Maybe later. I never have seen it before.
@@OctoManGames Ok that would be awesome. I've used Live2D a lot and would love to easily achieve that "fake 3D" effect in Unity. If you think of it, please let me know if you make that tutorial
@@coentertainer I got the idea from "Spine" video about that, and trial and error a bit. Setting is shown in this video, but you need a root bone or such in the list as explained.
Man, you save my day, my hero
thankyou for the video. I look forward to your next comparison of spine vs unity
Sure thing! :)
I was waiting for something like this, thanks!
More to come! :) Glad you liked it!
Thanks for the explanation. Now I can decide which one to choose.
Just one question, how do you export the (skeletal) animation for use on different characters (with the same bone) from spine to unity?
Hi, thanks for the video, do you have a link where i can do a tuttorial of the position Constraint component in Unity?
Great comparison, thanks for your effort!
I love your videos and your comparisons are very professional
Thank you very much! :)
You made my day!
Very concise great job
Very nice, clear video. Informative. Thanks.
Glad you enjoyed it! :)
As my name suggests, I really like your fox! :) Looks awesome.
Thank you so much! :)
When you import from Spine to Unity, can you swap only certain body parts? Like if you imported a character with different faces/armors etc you can hot swap them?
in unity you can make a sprit library that can swap your sprits. Be cautious on how big, it will drag your editor performance to a crawl
This was super useful, Thank you!
Liked and subscribed)) really helpful videos!
Happy to hear that! :)
On the unity animation issue where you would drag and bones would be connected to other parts of the image -
I believe you need to use to use the brush tool to remove bones control of the parts of the sprites you don’t want it to move. If you find a bone is moving parts of the mesh you don’t want it to, then select brush tool and then double click the sprite it’s messing with and single click the bone. Then hold ctrl/command and hold-click and wave over the parts of the mesh it’s controlling to remove the bones control of them. I hope that helps!
Thanks for the info!
Yes, that's what I did: went through each mesh and removed the irrelevant bones from the list. It's relatively easy to fix, that's why I believe it's a minor bug.
@@ThinkCitric oh okay, it looked like in the video that was the issue you were running into when you would move the character and parts of it was sticking.
Btw great video, I’m trying to make a game with over 100 controllable characters and I was curious if spine would be better for something like this. Looks promising! Can do something like replace arms or eyes with new meshes. Like let’s say I wanted different legs for that fox that I made for another character. Would it be easy to get those new legs from one character in your fox animation to replace the current ones with spine?
@@TheSearchForAwesome just to make it clear: we're talking about the automatic mesh weights issue (ear bone controls the nose) and not the position constraints issue (the one with the head turn), right?
The first one can be fixed the way you've described, and the second one is still an ongoing problem.
Regarding your question, yes, I believe Spine would be the best option for that. You can even add certain bones to specific character skins, and animate them differently if you like. For example, a character can have a long tail in one skin, and a short one in another skin. You can animate each tail differently, but reuse the rest of the rig and animations.
Hope it helps!
@@ThinkCitric thanks! Yeah that was what I was talking about. It looked like the bones were connected to mesh’s in an odd way to me, but I might be wrong there. Sorry to waste your time if so :)
Thanks for the great videos. Can use Gimp to export as PSD, ten change file extension to PSB no problem.
Hey, Great video.
For spine export and import into unity for every change. Have tried setting the folder export path to unity resources and simply using cmd+shift+e every time you make the change. (not sure if it works for unity but this works for other engines)
That's a great tip!
Great video! I agree it would be great to see the same comparison a year or two down the line. I think Unity will catch up in a few years.
It's been one year and the 2D animation package is still the same, and Spine has progressed a ton in the latest version.
Not hating, I'm researching because I actually HAVE to use unity's animation package instead of spine for my current job.
@@somerandom2858 Agreed - Spine is still king.
I since understood that Unity creating a package for something sadly doesn't mean what I hoped it would in terms of stability and commitment :)
Super informative video.
Thank you for this video!
Would love to know more about comparing the performance and memory!
Wow such as good video, subscribed.
Did you try the newest 2021.1? I wonder if those bugs get fixed.
Amazing review
This was very informative! Thanks for doing some of the homework for us ^^
Have you gone back since putting this comparison together? It's been over 2 years, and i think unity has done some decent updating. Also, from the stance of a novice (at best), spine has some of the worst user help around! >< I'm personally finding it unclear how anyone gets to know spine from the start. If i already knew spine, perhaps i would agree with your 4-8 score, but from a novice stance, the help from the unity community + user manual is SO MUCH more abundant, i don't see how i could realistically even attempt to build in spine. Just a thought! ^^
9:26 How to make this effect? I have lots of head parts, do i need add weight for every part manually, or there already made-up feature for it? Are there tutorials for this method, and what the name of this effect? I`m using Unity*
The addition of sprite swapping or equipment usage might have been a useful addition to this comparison. We wanted to use Spine, but found that it just didn't allow for the use case of having a complex rig equip/remove armor pieces dynamically. Or dynamically generating a rig.
Technically Unity didn't really support this either, but Unity gives you access to the source code for you to modify.
Spine has skins though?
@@madeeasy7148 skins are just that, reskins. They don't allow you to modify the skeleton or dynamically add and remove body parts.
Making a custom skin for every possible combination of armor and equipment it's not reasonable.
@@filiecs3 That's odd for a few reasons. Spine gives you the runtimes source code while Unity is closed source. Spine is designed specifically to be very flexible about customizing your skeleton while Unity has trouble just swapping an image. Also since Spine 3.8 (2019), skins can have bones and constraints, so skins can change the skeleton's proportions or have bones specifically for only certain skins.
@@NathanSweet the 2D animation package for Unity is open source.
My point is that you can't add and remove bones dynamically. Such as having a character with a rig composed of different body parts that each can have different skeletons. Having a character equip a cape with a skeleton and be able to take it off and remove the skeleton.
The main problem with spine is that you can't add components directly to individual bones on the skeleton. With Unity's system, you can.
@@filiecs3 You can do that with Spine though. Skin bones would be to define and animate the extra bones beforehand, but you can add/remove bones at runtime with the API. You can attach GameObjects to bones, so the GameObjects move/transform when the bones do. The GameObjects could be another skeleton, an image, or anything you want. You can also attach bones to GameObjects, so the bones move/transform when the GameObjects do.
@Think Critic - How about doing a Spine Pro vs Moho Pro and/or a Spine Essentials vs Moho Debut set of videos? I have been looking at these two products (at the different levels), but don't know enough about animation to understand how they compare.
I've seen all your other animation comparisons. I had been playing around with Dragon Bones and think that Spine Essentials might be a better option for me as a beginner/hobbyist/non-talented artist, especially since it has a better upgrade path. Especially since I heard that Dragonbones' development has been stopped.
BTW, I found your style of animation (the example in the Dragonbones/Spine Pro comparison) to be amazing. I have not yet seen any animation examples of rigging, etc. done with that level of detail/smoothness in my limited time looking for animation software.
Kudos!
Video was very useful, but to my eye reviews points system does feel a bit "shooting from the hip", i don't know if this kind winner takes it all comparison is really useful here. The real decider I think is how the tool fits into the needed workflow. For me it looks like Spine wins the overall quality (surprise surprise), but Unity wins if you do lot simpler the game engine integration and avoid additional import / export hustle. That constraint thing looks too wrong to be a bug (which it still might be), I would assume that they use some weird hierarchy logic that needs to be figured out. For Unity's reimport, can you not just replace the original file in the folder and the new part layer would appear, this one feels also like the real solution might be anything (not that Unity couldn't have bugs, because it does). Anyway the end result of the test being 8-4 seems pretty odd and missing the point a bit.
Can spline be used if you are only using Bolt visual scripting?
😊There are over a dozen other debtors on Spine2d's list. Unity is just one of them. And to each of them, he beats the penates just the same.
Krita has the ability to save as a .psd file, which you can use an online file converter to make it a psb file.
Thank you
Has Unity updated to include some of the missing features like direct mesh animation?
i don't know if it's me doing something wrong, but in unity mesh creation you can't connect your inner mesh edge on your own, it will breaks the mesh, which makes it unusable when encounter more complex topology like balls or human face.
Hey there, thanks for the video. It's been 2 years since your comparisons and I was wondering if you'd make an update to spine vs unity vs blender again? They've all made considerable updates since then. I hope you didn't give up on youtubing! You do great work. I look forward to your update videos on these :D
Performance wise which one is better?
the unity skinning editor has changed a lot since 2 years ago and I can tell there are more rounds unity can win now.
Memory allocation and fps comparison might have been added
how to make this 9:46 ?
2:48 what do you mean extra time and effort, don't you have to do this in spine as well? the bones aren't going to align themselves (?) the only difference is that u are doing it before u import it in spine, but u still have to do the same thing, no?
Love your work💌! I wanted to learn 2D animation in unity! for where I can find a good online tutorial ? please help me 🥺
Dragonbones vs Unity 2d next time may be ? Big Thanks for quality video btw.
Thank you!
I already did Dragonbones vs Spine BTW, using the same criteria. Does that help?
@@ThinkCitric Thanks again , I will check now 🤗
Can we get a spine vs moho
The amount of ad breaks in this video is unreal
Thank you! Really interesting and useful!!!
Glad it was helpful! :)
You "vs" videos really awsome and helpful. Please complete them with puppet and spriter
Thank you so much!
That's the idea! :) I am checking free alternatives to Spine at the moment, and hope to include some paid ones like Spriter Pro/2 or Creature 2D as well!
@@ThinkCitric for free alternatives, possibility of using blender 2D animation would be great
@@HojjatAMRezaei Gonna check it out!
Does anybody know if it would be possible to make a cartoon by only using spine?
It is! Spine isn't specifically for cartooning but a number of studios are doing it. For example, this amazing video is done with Spine: th-cam.com/video/x9J2A5I1P4o/w-d-xo.html
Also Mišo i Robin, a cartoon on Croatian TV: juhuhu.hrt.hr/emisija/29/miso-i-robin
hey I love your video, I'm currently using coa tools plugin in blender, can you make a comparison video with coatools with spine?
Do you use COA tools with unity? I am interested to hear about how people are exporting animations...
@@torq21 COA tools are very powerful and it has the closest feature spine as a free software, it has bone constraint and stuff and mesh and stuff... but I quit, mainly because I found that it doesn't have the feature that I wanted and I can't afford 300$ spine just for the mesh feature. instead, I use Blender and start building 3d models and stuff for my game. :( but still, COA tool is a great 2d bone animating tool and you should definitely try it.
@@mcjelly0183 I've used COA tools a bit and they do some interesting stuff. They seem mostly pointless without the export stuff. Thanks to this video I've started getting familiar with the Unity 2d animation tools which are a pretty good substitute.
First of all, thank you very much!
Well, if it's not a commercial project and the animations are going to be simple, I'd say go with Dragonbones. :)
@@ThinkCitric Thank you!!!
are you gonna do godot skeletal animations too?
I don't have any experience with Godot yet, but their solution looks interesting, so I might look into it as well.
7:09 you should go to bone influence to fix it
Yes, that's how it was fixed indeed.
6:00 idk sounds like a skill issue because i manually name every bone on 3d models and it doesnt take very long if youre good at it.
A skill issue ? how naming everything manually vs automatically is a skill issue ?
@@ArtRiku they were complaining about having to do it manually when that's a rare feature for bone related stuff. Skill issue.
Unity is free, and you can used to learn, for me that's a huge adventage for a starting animator.
One is free, one is not (it takes a percentage of your profit)
I'll go with the free one.
Thanks for the comparison videos. Think the bass on the audio is a bit too high, somewhat hard to hear at times what is being said over the bass. This is usually the cause of putting the audio through too many bass boost filters.
Thanks! This is the first time I've used these bass boosts, and I probably overdid it :/ Will use less of them next time!
Being able to do it inside unity is huge.
A quick one stop solution is definitely more efficient than using multiple softwares.
I would use unity's solution even if some part is inferior to spine.
And I would keep bone animation to a minimum anyway, because frame by frame animation looks better.
Eh, I say first round goes to Unity- the cost of Photoshop is negligible compared to Spine and is also an industry standard. Why would someone use the more expensive industry standard, Spine, and not the cheaper industry standard, Photoshop?
If you do have Photoshop, then Spine looses the Unity in upload speed. Therefore, 1 pt to Gryffindor... I mean Unity.
Spine vs after effects
Thanks 🧡
But
What is the difference between spine and spine pro ?? 🤔
there is a short vid on this channel about this. look for latest vid.
In a nutshell, Spine Pro supports meshes, IK, Transform and Path constraints, while Spine Essential doesn't. You can still create good animations with Spine Essential though, and they will be good enough for most 2D games. However, the 2.5D effect will be very hard to achieve.
I have a separate video with some examples, if it helps.
@@mikeistp5736
Yes, i just saw it 😁, thanks
But do you use spine?
@@ThinkCitric
Well thanks
I think I can't download any of them
Pro will cost 4500 with my currency
And essential will cost 1500 😢😢😢
@@shortcut747 I do. spine-essential is pretty much irrelevant program, ignore it.
Is unity still buggy? A lot of time has passed since this comparison
Spine vs Spriter pro?
Forget about particles. And 1 raund sould be 1.1 becouse the one who has 300 for spine has 10 or 20 for photoshop.
Spine Pro is the king
Well no matter what, cheaper prize always the winner at the end..
10:16 I'm having flashbacks with this... and they are not pretty.
Make video tutorial in
Godot Game Engine comparison please
I think the main advantage of the Unity package was not mentioned - extensibility. Theoretically, you can make any kind of controls and functionality that you want, when in Spine it's not even an option.
Don't make the same mistake I did: animations made in Unity 2D are made to be used... in Unity. No export is planned (there are tricks, but the result is tedious, and the sprites are of bad quality).
"Spine can generate meshes automatically, but I prefer doing it manually as it is more precise and the result is more efficient."
"But Unity can generate meshes automatically, which BLOWS MY MIND! However, they're not very accurate or efficient."
Did you have a stroke at some point during this process?
As developer I would always choose Unitys tools, as the spine workflow, from my perspective, caused so many problems and consumed a huge amount of time getting right.
Especially when trying to create something more advanced with Unity Mecanim and Layers. That said, I can't speak from the animators perspective wich one they would prefer.
I feel like there’s a compromise whichever is chosen. Spine is the more polished and does whatever you need because animation is its only focus. But like you say, unity tools are in-engine so allow for simpler integration with the game world. Taken as a complete workflow the small quirks of unity animator aren’t a big deal compared to dealing with a 3rd party package.
For Freelance Artist its better Spine2D for runtimes, i can create a character animation, this can be use on Unity, Unreal, Construc3, Godot (next release), etc. Its good for port. And if i can sell pre-created characters its better to. Spine have a great workflow for a animator and runtime can work good on unity. But if you have a studio that work only on unity and you have all the artis work on you project, Unity System Animation is good option, but if you work for freelancers animator, Spine2D its better.
We need Toon boom Harmony vs Spine ( I know that Harmony is better but it Will be interesting see).
Sounds interesting, will add to the list!
Why am I not surprised that Unity's product is riddled with bugs? :D
Easier conclusion
Unity = free
Spine = $
I make games as a hobby but i already used unity for more than 1 year and i'm still learning i jsut made 4 prototypes with one of them that i can't use because there!s too much quality in it.
There is no FPS comparison. In my opinion, Unity will be performant.
The most important category is ignored, nice.
That's the thing they forgot that unity is a game engine. Is normal at the beggining fps drops, but even that I think Unity is even superior to spine bcs of including a tool like on their Unity Registry (Asset Manager) making ez to use.
That happens when a starving game engine tries to take over the animation market...
Sorry, but, at this point you are comparing something new with a tool you use everyday.
Of course the tool you use would win, because you had more time to overcome the issues you found in Unity.
There is so much wrong and incomplete in this comparison I don't know where to start...lol
when will you start
I cannot stand this animation style, it definitely suits some styles of games but it looks too fluid in a way and stiff at the same time
Lol who works for spine🤣
One more thing, Spine is hard for coding, their animation codes are totally disaster if you want to make complex logic with complex animation
wait hold up did she say 2 extra clicks gets annoying? Having to name each bone manually is also a bad thing? Oh hell nah. that section shouldnt even have been in the damn video. That is null and void. It doesnt matter or affect anything. I dont count that at all. You are tweaken
Well, I sure can tell that you're quite frustrated with Spine and I'm sorry that you feel that way. This software is quite expensive and the whole purpose of these comparison videos is to find an alternative that will be just as good or better, and preferably cheaper. If you know anything that fits the description - please let me know, and I'll check it out.
Also, there's really no need to call me names, this video is just my personal opinion based on the experiment that I did. Your opinion may differ and that's okay.
@@ThinkCitric I get what you're saying but some things don't qualify. Personally, I'd never say one program is better than another just of a few extra clicks. Money isn't the issue . I'll still get spine. I was just saying about the whole extra clicks.
This review is so viased. And you lack lotta knowledge about Unity. Starting from unity tool is free and already embedded on Unity should add 10 points just to begin with :-/
Spine Pro ranks higher in all animation software reviewed, because it's your favorite software,
these comparisons suck 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
unity how about the export types? and the artifacts