Is it possible to associate skin with color?

meps

I'd like to make skin as a set of color adjustments for slots. Is it possible to do in editor? I want to have complete skin prefabs for example for skin tones: white, black, tanned, alien, zombie and so on to select it by applying one skin to all skeleton rather than iterating and tinting externally predefined list of slots in cycle.

Probably example with skin tone is not good enough, because I can use the same grayish body parts for all tinting skins and I know how to apply color tinting to the image in the slot. Better example is coloring of random dress

one set of skins apply different dress images and other set of skins apply different colors for EMPTY slots of all outfit. Thus second pass of applying color will not override images that have been set on the first pass.

I have added image to the skin slot and then changed it's path to undefined value. Now image showed as missing but I can setup color tint for it. After loading animation data I can remove image overrides from slots of such skins. I think it's extremely ugly solution...

I have also found PointAttachment. But I think it will be no use for me because any attachments type is interpreting as instance that must displace previous slot value. So probably solution of my task lays in animations mixing...

Erika

Hello! the solution I'd propose to you is to try tinting the attachment instead of the slot, so that it can be different for each skin. As you mentioned, I too would have a white base with only shadows applied, and I'd recolor that. You can see an example of how this can be done on this stream:

(especially at 44:23)

And download the files to explore yourself here

meps

Thanks for replying! Your solution is really useful just for limited combinations of {skin-type}x{attachment-tint}. Now I have at least 5 different types of outfit (sets of images for all dress slots: unarmored, light armor and so on) and can tint each of them to 5 colors. So I have to create 5x5=25 unique skins, because your estimation to tint images will set them completely as concrete image sets with concrete color. But I'd like to freely expand my character equipment in future, so skinning and tinting must be completely separated.

Now I'm experimenting with additional animation track that tints only slots in timeline and thus don't affecting on their real content. I will rewind and stop this animation to the necessary color frame and mix it with basic animation track.

Erika

You might want to change slot color through code then! it should be reasonably easy to control it via code instead and get all the color combinations you want 😃 ColorTimeline

meps

It's safer and flexible to apply one animation with known name than apply some color (what value?) through the list of slots (where I should get them?). Animator can include or exclude any element of skeleton directly in spine editor rather than in additional configuration file or even in code. Any tint color also can be edited or added to the special animation keyframe.

madmuffin

Aware of the Necro but when I googled this subject, this was the first result that came up for it. A use case question:

If I want to then Animate the color tint, only Slots can have their color keyframed yes? So if an attachment is tinted, I see no option to then keyframe color changes to the base color, only to the tinted color of the skin?

Is there any way to have both? To be able to both tint the base color based on skin, but then also tint that color in animation to another color, completely from its White base like shown in the attached stream, and not a second layer of tint overtop of the original tint placed in the attachment?

Erika

Hi, if you want to be able to animate the color, it has to be done using slots, which means this won't work well if you directly tint an attachment inside it.
I would suggest to prepare recolored versions of your slots.

If this clashes because maybe you also want the color shifting to something else, like pink to red, and then light blue to navy, then maybe slot animation could still work if you prepare two separate slots,one for the starting color and one for the ending one, then each skin can have its ouw variation and all is cool.

Another option would be to have some premade version of these animations that need different color tints that you only use with the given skin. If this only hs to happen on one specific animation, this may be quicker and more efficient than creating multiple sets. If instead these colors need to be recalled often, then the first solution would be the preferred choice.