AGI Workshop Day8- Friendship Started with Spine

By Summah Briggs

RATIONALE – 

• I was having problems creating a working animation rig within Unity, and after about 4 different tests with mixed levels of quality, I decided to try another program. 
• Thankfully, Spine is a lot more animator friendly, and today I was able to create a fully working character rig I was actually quite proud of. 
• I needed to make sure I had a working rig, and that I was happy with the quality, otherwise I'd just want to keep remaking it until I was happy, with little to no time left to animate. 
• Spine itself is user friendly incoperating assets made back into Unity, so all the assets I make can be brought back into Unity if I end up making a whole character scene. 

CONTEXT – 

• The main reason I decided to use Spine as opposed to other programs, was the amount of Youtube videos I could find detailing how to create great rigs within the software. 
• One of the main videos I've been following is a series created by the creator of the game 'The Adventure Pals', who details how to create a rig and animation assets similar to the style I want to achieve. I'm super thankful they're great quality tutorials. 

METHODS – 

• Following these videos I've been able to create a new rig that I'll now be able to start using in order to animate. 
• Spine itself is an incredible software and I had little to no issues learning it. 
• The main issue being, that using mesh based files and animation.. I had to pay for the full software.. and it isn't cheep.. Considering I'll be starting Masters and intent to make more games in the future though, at least I'll be able to use the program again for future projects. 

OUTCOMES – 

• Now that I have this rig, it's time to start animating tomorrow, which I'm really quite excited about doing!
• Since I have managed to finish the rig ahead of schedule, I have a few different animations I'd like to try make, rather than just one:
  • A standing idle animation. 
  • A slow/mid/fast run, depending on complexity I could do all 3
  • A crouching animation. 
  • A jumping animation
• With all of these complete, depending on how long it takes and the quality, I'll then see if I have enough time to try and create a scene within Unity and incoperate the character in with background elements. These would need to be created within photoshop, and depending on complexity, would take 2-3 days I'd imagine.. Though I could ask some friends to help create the background art while I focus on rigging and programming, I'll ask my lecturers on their opinions tomorrow :)