Hi everybody,

The licencing of Spine is quite clear for me concerning game creation : you must have a license to distribute your game using Spine runtime.

But what about modding ? In a game using Spine Runtime (Darkest Dungeon for example), if I modify Spine animations, does I need to buy Spine Essential to share my mod ?

Does your mod contain the Spine Runtimes? If it doesn't, then you do not need a Spine license to distribute it (though I wonder how you would modify the Spine animations without using Spine). The data files created with Spine are the IP (intellectual property) of whoever created them. However, the Spine Runtimes which load and render Spine animations are our IP and the intention of our licensing is that the Spine Runtimes are only used by Spine licensees.

If your mod contains the Spine Runtimes (including indirectly, eg if it contains Darkest Dungeon which contains the Spine Runtimes) then the Spine Runtimes License Agreement applies:
Spine Runtimes License Agreement

As described there (in legalese), there are two options:

1) If you license Spine, Section 2 of the Spine Editor License Agreement applies which grants you more lenient rights for distribution/etc:
Spine Editor License Agreement: s2

2) Otherwise, you can still distribute your mod containing the Spine Runtimes but will need to make it clear that anyone who uses your mod needs their own Spine license.

Note in both these cases the Spine Runtimes License Agreement needs to be included with the mod.

Thank you Nate for anwering quickly.

My mod does not contain the Spine Runtimes. in order to work, it needs Darkest Dungeon game engine, witch contains Spine Runtimes. So I understand that I don't need to buy Spine licence to freely share my mod, neither does anyone to use it with Darkest Dungeon (assuming they have a legal copy of the game). Ok.

The way I modify Spine animations is quite rudimentary. I found a script to convert .skel to .json and vice-versa. This enabled me to look into the json data, make changes and test results. In the end, I got a basic understanding of the animation data structure : bones geometry, meshes vertices, and the like. So, I can remove or duplicate items, translate and scale them, etc. Very handmade, but useful for little tinkering.

MaxDD 작성:So I understand that I don't need to buy Spine licence to freely share my mod, neither does anyone to use it with Darkest Dungeon (assuming they have a legal copy of the game).

Yep, that's correct!

Ah, modifying animations that way sounds quite painful. We have quite a fancy editor for making animations!

Spine editor looks great indeed !
Unfortunately Darkest Dungeon is an old game now, with ancient 2.1.27 runtimes... I would be frustrated, I could'nt make use of all these new features you added since then !
Joking aside, for now I'm only tinkering little mods as a hobby.
Be sure I'll consider using Spine Editor if I continue increasingly modding - or maybe in the future, for Darkest Dungeon 2, if it uses newer Spine Runtimes !