Importing for the first time in Unity

Misaki

Antidamage Hmm, that sounds weird. Could you please watch the video below to see if any of the cases in the video apply to you?:

As for your second question, I cannot answer it because I don't know much about performance, but perhaps @Harald can give you some advice later.

Antidamage

Misaki The issue is covered in the video, and it doesn't work. I outlined what is going wrong in my post.

Misaki

Antidamage Then isn't it possible that you didn't install the spine-unity runtime in your Unity project? Simply importing the skeleton files exported from Spine directly into Unity does not do anything to make the skeleton ready to be handled in Unity. If you have not already done installation, please install the runtime according to the Installation section of the documentation.

Antidamage

please install the runtime according to the Installation section of the documentation.

This is the same page I said I followed in my first post. I think it may help to read it again to fully understand what I'm asking.

No, they're installed. This is what the importer looks like after clicking Browse Atlas, turning off the *.asset filter and selecting the *.atlas.txt file:

Basically nothing happens after selecting the atlas.

This is what I have installed:

The exported spine assets are set to version 4.1 and are from 4.1.20. They were exported using the Spine.com commandline runtime. And just so it's totally clear, here are the files I'm importing:

Harald

Antidamage This is the same page I said I followed in my first post. I think it may help to read it again to fully understand what I'm asking.

No need to be rude. Misaki was trying to help by asking on purpose whether you probably overlooked something from the documentation page. Since you haven't described all your steps in detail in the first posting, we can only guess until you provide more information. The more information you provide up front, the less questions need to be asked to understand the origin of your problem.

Furthermore, it turned out you haven't been following the documentation page in the first place. Instead of copying the exported files over at once via the system Explorer / Finder or via drag & drop, you have chosen to go another way and import files one-by-one via Unity's Project panel context menu Import New Asset.. (and were unlucky in importing the skeleton .json file before the atlas atlas.txt file).

We generally would recommend against using the Import New Asset.. context menu, as it's just a very clumsy interface to copy files over to the selected destination directory.

Antidamage It would be a good addition to add a note to that window with the files listed!

Could you please descrtibe which window you mean by "that window with the files listed"? Then we can see whether we can improve the documentation. Or do you mean the dialog window you posted a screenshot above, listing "SkeletonDataAsset has missing Atlas" as heading and "Current Atlases" and "Missing Regions" in the main body:

Antidamage

Or do you mean that the description text below from the documentation page is unclear and could be improved?

Copy the exported files (or the folder containing them) to your desired subfolder of your project's Assets folder. You can do this by dragging the exported files from an Explorer/Finder window into your desired folder in Unity's Project panel.

Admittedly, we hadn't anticipated that anyone would be copying files over one-by-one instead of all at once. We might add that to these lines to be more explicit. Nevertheless, since problems mostly arise when the other lines of the documentation are not followed, it might help only little to add more lines to it.

Antidamage

Here is a video demonstrating the issue (give it time to process as it was just uploaded):
https://youtu.be/49FlZDivBYA

Misaki

Antidamage Thanks for uploading the video. I now understand the issue. The three skeleton files (.json, .atlas.txt and .png) must be imported at the same time and should be imported by dragging the exported files from an Explorer window into your desired folder in Unity's Project window as described in the documentation: Importing-Spine-Assets-into-Unity

Antidamage

Here are the files (minus the texture):

count.zip

8kB

Antidamage

Aha, thank you. It would be a good addition to add a note to that window with the files listed!

Antidamage

I was not trying to be rude, I was trying to be concise because it's a difficult thing to communicate in text. It's not helpful to assume rudeness when most people simply aren't going to be rude in that context, especially when they're looking for help.

I'm coming from UE so my assumption was that the json skeleton was the main file to import, and the rest would be imported with it if they were named correctly. I don't know a lot about unity so I don't always know the right questions to ask.

So for instance is it better to keep source assets in the project structure before importing them, or is it better to keep them outside of the project structure until they're imported?

Harald Copy the exported files (or the folder containing them) to your desired subfolder of your project's Assets folder. You can do this by dragging the exported files from an Explorer/Finder window into your desired folder in Unity's Project panel.

Yeah this isn't super clear to me as it could mean several things, e.g. what I asked above. It implies an understanding that there isn't a root file that will gather the rest like in UE. I guess I'll just watch the videos as well since, like I said earlier, it's a difficult process to convey in text even for esoteric.

Harald

Antidamage Second question: what's the best template to use for low end mobile and Spine? I've started with the 2D URP template, but would the Mobile 2D template be better?

Basically the templates only provide some different default settings, nothing you could not set to the same values yourself later. If you are targeting low end mobile, then the Mobile 2D template might fit your needs well in general, but you still need to decide which render pipeline you will be using. Whether you'll want to be using the Standard Render Pipeline (which seems to be used with the Mobile 2D template), the "normal" 3D URP Renderer, or the URP 2D Renderer, and assign and setup the Render Pipeline Assets accordingly.

As Unity is not documenting templates in detail, you can find info about it on other forums, e.g. here:

Harald

Antidamage I was not trying to be rude, I was trying to be concise because it's a difficult thing to communicate in text.

Sorry for the misunderstanding then. 🙂

Please in general don't try to be concise when asking on the forum, chances are that you leave out important information which might help resolve your issue. Instead it helps a lot to describe what problem you encounted by taking which steps, in as much detail as possible. The problem with trying to be concise is that one would need to be an expert on the topic already to know what to omit. You posted the detailed information after your initial postings, which was great and then provided the necessary information.

It's not helpful to assume rudeness when most people simply aren't going to be rude in that context, especially when they're looking for help.

Since you have now pointed out that you didn't intend rudeness, perhaps it was already helpful. 🙂

Having to cope with a problem and then not receiving a helpful reply can lead to frustration easily, which is understandable. Thus it might help to either get back into a more calm state, or to check if one's wording is not the best yet or could be misunderstood. And please don't get me wrong, I am not saying that you were frustrated and thus rude, I just point it out in case it could have been. 🙂

I'm coming from UE so my assumption was that the json skeleton was the main file to import, and the rest would be imported with it if they were named correctly. I don't know a lot about unity so I don't always know the right questions to ask.

If you're new to Unity, we highly recommend getting familiar with Unity itself and the general workflows first. Otherwise it may lead to a lot of frustration.

For example, Project - Import New Asset is something that we would recommend to not use when working in Unity. Any assets inside the Assets or Packages directories are imported automatically by Unity. Any assets outside the project's Assets (or Packages) directory are not visible to Unity, so things can't be found there.

Once you're more familiar with Unity, be sure to check out the example scenes that come with the spine-unity runtime, see:
https://esotericsoftware.com/spine-unity#Example-Scenes

So for instance is it better to keep source assets in the project structure before importing them, or is it better to keep them outside of the project structure until they're imported?

There is no such thing as "importing from within the project structure", if by project struction you mean the Unity project. Anything placed in any subdirectory within Assets is imported automatically. There is no manual import. You can just re-import a folder inside Assets a second time. Perhaps this misunderstanding might have been the cause of your problems.

If by project structure you mean from a subdirectory of your Spine project, outside of the Unity project, then it does not really matter, it's up to you. You just need to make sure to copy all exported skeleton asset files over into the Unity project after they have been exported. We don't recommend exporting the assets directly from Spine into a Unity Assets subfolder. In general we recommend automating the export process using the Spine command line interface, then you can export and copy the files over using a single shell script, and also re-export all your assets at once if you should later upgrade the Spine version from e.g. 4.1 to 4.2.