line art and color layer matching

scarywilko

im very new here so this might already be answered but i never found one. im wanting to have my line art on their own layers and have the colors beneath them. if you have seen the “mustache arm” example project- thats what i mean. i like those natural bends you can get from slicing the ends off of the lines and hiding them behind the colors. i also want to have the color layers separate so that the colors can be changed in the character creation screen of my game. my biggest problem comes down to meshes, but im also not sure that im using the best method for the results im wanting in general as i really don’t see anyone use this method. with meshes, i cant seem to get the line art and color to share a mesh. for example: when i try to create a mesh around the color layer on the torso, if i duplicate it and attach it to the torso lines as well, my image goes missing and i can no longer see my lines. any pointers? or is there a better way for me to achieve color changes without interfering with black line art and having the natural bends from slicing the lines? thanks.

Spinebot

To achieve the effect you're looking for, where line art and color layers are separate but work together seamlessly, you can use a combination of techniques in Spine. Here's a step-by-step approach:

Separate Layers: Keep your line art and color layers separate. This allows you to change colors easily without affecting the line art.
Mesh Duplication: Create a mesh for your color layer. Once you have the mesh set up, you can duplicate it for the line art layer. Ensure that both meshes have the same vertices and weights to maintain alignment and deformation consistency.
Linked Meshes: Consider using linked meshes if you want to apply the same deformation to both the line art and color layers. This way, any changes to the mesh will automatically apply to both layers.
Draw Order and Visibility: Make sure the draw order is set correctly so that the line art appears above the color layer. If your line art disappears when you duplicate the mesh, check the draw order and ensure that the line art is not being hidden by other elements.
Mesh Visibility: If the image goes missing when you duplicate the mesh, ensure that the path to the image is correct and that the image is not being hidden by other elements in the draw order.
Color Changes: For changing colors in the character creation screen, you can use Spine's skinning feature to swap out color layers or use tinting to adjust colors dynamically.

By following these steps, you should be able to achieve the desired effect of having separate line art and color layers that work together seamlessly, allowing for color changes without affecting the line art.

scarywilko

Spinebot i was under the impression that linked meshes only worked for one image at a time? am i wrong?

Misaki

scarywilko Sorry that Spinebot's answer is not very useful. Unfortunately, the linked mesh is not very useful in your case because the current functionality does not allow linked meshes to be used in different slots. We have long wanted to improve linked meshes to work with different slots, and this is currently on our roadmap as a feature to be added in Spine 4.3. (However, we cannot necessarily guarantee that this will be added in 4.3, as priorities may change if there are other improvements that need to be made more urgently. At least we recognise that this is an issue that should be addressed sooner). You can subscribe to this issue ticket to receive notifications when there is any progress on this issue:
EsotericSoftware/spine-editor195

Regarding the current solution, the Weld added in 4.2 will be useful. We are sorry that we have not yet been able to add a description of this feature to the user guide, but here is a video that introduces this feature:

As demonstrated in the video, Weld is a feature that allows you to set weights by reference to the weights that other overlapping meshes have, which can be useful if you want to set the same weights for the sleeves on the arms, etc. Weld can be used even if the positions and numbers of the vertices of the overlapping meshes do not match. You can also select vertices first and then use Weld to make only the selected vertices match the weights of the other meshes.

Sorry for going back and forth in the order, but I'm actually not quite sure what condition you are referring to in the following part of your first post:

when i try to create a mesh around the color layer on the torso, if i duplicate it and attach it to the torso lines as well, my image goes missing and i can no longer see my lines.

Could you give us some example images of what kind of condition you are talking about and explain it to us?