In light of upcoming changes to our runtime, and creating new extensions like Spine (with latest runtime) and Rive, we’re going through the code to see what needs to be done in order to do that.
While doing refactoring, we also look at the current code that exist, and make sure the code stays relevant.
One such thing is the usage of Spine models in the gui scene. Our gui system is not written with extensions in mind, so it will take a large amount of effort in creating a new api for it.
We’d like a better understanding for how much the feature is used, and what the use cases are.
Q: Are you using Spine models in Gui scenes?
Yes
No
0voters
If you are not using Spine in gui, you can stop here.
I think the only instance that comes to mind is the endings picker from Interrogation, which is a set of 3 buttons with big spine animations on top of them. The reason we did it in GUI was because we needed the spine scene clipped to the button frame. If the new Spine runtime supports Spine’s clipping features, then that might not be as necessary. Otherwise maybe it can be done from the render script using the stencil buffer, but that would be a lot of render predicates. As it is right now (part of GUI) it’s still the easiest to implement solution.
In Juump we use Spine components to choose skins. We use a Spine components in game, so for us it saves time to use the same Spine components in the Gui, so we don’t have to create separate thumbnails for them.
I am not using Spine in GUI, neither in game - for now. But I will leave my few thoughts here anyway I think that removing such support is a bad idea, because in many games, including mobile casuals, I see spine animations used not only in game, but in GUI (characters speaking, skins selection and so on), that if I would make such game I would definitely put it in Defold’s GUI. Missing such feature and stating that mobile games are priority is misleading imho. The same applies to any other platforms actually.
I want to make clear that we do not plan to remove something that is frequently used.
There is rarely any questions about Spine in GUI. And we have no built-in analytics that tells us what features are used. Hence the poll.
We added Spine in GUI because of requests from King game teams, and now that we are expanding our extension system for Rive we also evaluate parts of the engine that can benefit from the changes.
Something specific to GUI which is much more complicated to do with GOs is clipping. We have Spine scenes which are clipped within GUI rects for certain things in some of our projects. Like think animated playing cards or RTS unit avatars. It’s the same with particles, we use particles often in GUI for various kinds of complicated effects. I wish we could have models (or at least an easy to use draw to texture for models that could be used in GUIs) work in GUI too!
I have been working on an RPG game for about 2.5 years on and off. I am using spine in GUI for displaying the characters with outfits in the inventory menu. I’ve run into some issues with not being able to change the spine color for hair and eye color but have developed a temporary work-around.
Right now I have in game characters that can move around and there outfits change when the player adjusts them in the inventory so I am using it for both.
I think that removing such support is a bad idea, because in many games, including mobile casuals, I see spine animations used not only in game, but in GUI (characters speaking, skins selection and so on), that if I would make such game I would definitely put it in Defold’s GUI. Missing such feature and stating that mobile games are priority is misleading imho. The same applies to any other platforms actually.
