• Editor
  • Use atlas made with an external software ?

Hi Everybody

Recently, we decide to use Spine in our pipeline and this software is very powerfull and easy to use ! Big Thanks to Esoteric Software !
But we discover it step by step and we have a big beginner question :

In spine, is it possible to use images from an atlas created in an external software, not with the included "texture packer" ?

In our project, we have a character with 5 evolutions. For each evolution, the clothes of the character change but the animations still the sames.
To do that, we planned to make 5 atlas (1 for each evolution) and "simply" swap the texture of the ingame character .
But the 5 atlas must be "the same": for example, the "R_upperLeg" piece in the atlas 1 must be exactly in the same place that the "R_upperLeg" piece of the other atlases.
To do that, we planned to make the atlas manually in an external software.
Maybe it is better to do this with the "skins " of Spine ?

Best regards.

Related Discussions
...

The editor uses individual images. You only need an atlas at runtime. You can use the libgdx atlas format or write your own atlas loader. Depends on the runtime, eg spine-starling can load a Starling atlas.

You'll need to use individual images in Spine, but at runtime your plan to swap the atlas can work. You can even use the Spine texture packer if you disable trimming whitespace and have all your images the same size.

Another way to do it is to attach all the images in Spine and use skins.

Yet another way is to use images that are all the same size, attach one set of images in Spine and note the position of the bone that the image is attached to. Next you make an alternate set of images keeping in mind that the bone position. Then you can pack all the images in the same or different atlases. at runtime you can programmatically create attachments for the images. You use the set of images you attached in Spine and just change the texture region.

Than you Nate for your very quick response !

Nate wrote

...
Yet another way is to use images that are all the same size, attach one set of images in Spine and note the position of the bone that the image is attached to. Next you make an alternate set of images keeping in mind that the bone position. Then you can pack all the images in the same or different atlases. at runtime you can programmatically create attachments for the images. You use the set of images you attached in Spine and just change the texture region.

It's exactly what we want to 😃
With this method, we could swap each piece of armor individually.