Proper SkeletonAnimation script?

beastsofmerit

Hey, newbie indie dev here

I'm trying to write a SkeletonAnimation script that will control my character's movement as well as switch animations based on certain parameters. Since I do not know much about coding, I followed a Think Citric tutorial which worked great, but then I tried to add a few lines of code for a run animation, and here was where I hit the wall.

Hours later, the best I could get is this: everything works, the only problem is my character won't actually move when running. He does play out the run animation correctly, but he will not move forward or backward. So, could anyone take a look at my script please? Any help or pointers would be much appreciated!

Also, please note that I'm using W and S to run - I did it as a test because I do not know yet how to do it otherwise, just fyi.

using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;
using Spine.Unity;

public class Klym : MonoBehaviour
{
    public SkeletonAnimation skeletonAnimation;
    public AnimationReferenceAsset idle, walking, running;
    public string currentState;
    public float speed;
    public float movement;
    public string currentAnimation;
    public float runspeed;
    public float run;
    private Rigidbody2D rigidbody;

// Start is called before the first frame update
void Start()
{
    rigidbody = GetComponent<Rigidbody2D>();
    currentState = "Idle";
    SetCharacterState(currentState);
}

// Update is called once per frame
void Update()
{
    Move();
}

//sets character animation
public void SetAnimation(AnimationReferenceAsset animation, bool loop, float timeScale)
{
    if(animation.name.Equals(currentAnimation))
    {
        return;
    }
    skeletonAnimation.state.SetAnimation(0, animation, loop).TimeScale = timeScale;
    currentAnimation = animation.name;
}


//checks character state and sets the animation accordingly
public void SetCharacterState(string state)
{
   if (state.Equals("Walking"))
    {
        SetAnimation(walking, true, 1f);
    }
   else if(state.Equals("Running"))
    {
        SetAnimation(running, true, 1f);
    }
   else if(state.Equals("Idle"))
    {
        SetAnimation(idle, true, 1f);
    }
}

public void Move()
{
    run = Input.GetAxis("Vertical");
    rigidbody.velocity = new Vector2(run * runspeed, rigidbody.velocity.y);

    movement = Input.GetAxis("Horizontal");
    rigidbody.velocity = new Vector2(movement * speed, rigidbody.velocity.y);

    if (movement != 0)
    {
        SetCharacterState("Walking");
        if (movement > 0)
        {
            transform.localScale = new Vector2(0.11f, 0.11f);
        }
        else if (movement < 0)
        {
            transform.localScale = new Vector2(-0.11f, 0.11f);
        }
    }
    else if (run != 0)
    {
        SetCharacterState("Running");
        if (run > 0)
        {
            transform.localScale = new Vector2(0.11f, 0.11f);
        }
        else if (run < 0)
        {
            transform.localScale = new Vector2(-0.11f, 0.11f);
        }
    }
    else
    {
        SetCharacterState("Idle");
    }
}
}

beastsofmerit

Harald

Did you have a look at the example scenes in the Spine Examples directory that come with the spine-unity runtime?

beastsofmerit escreveu
Since I do not know much about coding, I followed a Think Citric tutorial which worked great, but then I tried to add a few lines of code for a run animation, and here was where I hit the wall.

It's not quite clear what was shown in your Think Citric tutorial, what worked before adding which lines. Please note that you will need to learn programming first when writing any behavior scripts in Unity. You will get frustrated when trying to create a patchwork of copy&paste code snippets from various tutorial sources without understanding how and why things work.

beastsofmerit escreveu
Hours later, the best I could get is this: everything works, the only problem is my character won't actually move when running. He does play out the run animation correctly, but he will not move forward or backward.

What does your animation look like, is it an on-location animation without any horizontal movement (no root motion), or does it move horizontally and then repeat from the start again after each loop?

beastsofmerit

Harald escreveu
Did you have a look at the example scenes in the Spine Examples directory that come with the spine-unity runtime?

I did but it did not help me because of my limited understanding of how these things work :shrug:

Harald escreveu
It's not quite clear what was shown in your Think Citric tutorial, what worked before adding which lines. Please note that you will need to learn programming first when writing any behavior scripts in Unity. You will get frustrated when trying to create a patchwork of copy&paste code snippets from various tutorial sources without understanding how and why things work.

Well, it was a tutorial and I was watching it to learn, I believe that's why I even managed to get some of my code to work.
I've highlighted my own lines with the # symbol, I hope it helps.

Before I added my lines, everything worked correctly - the character played the correct walk and idle animations, and switched them based on the specified conditions, i.e if the movement float variable is greater than 0 it would play the walk animation, if it equals zero, it would play idle.

So, I tried to follow the same principle and add a run and runspeed float variables. If run is greater than 0, play the run animation (which it does). But since my character does not move forward, I can only assume something is wrong with these two lines (they are inside the Move method).

  run = Input.GetAxis("Vertical");
  rigidbody.velocity = new Vector2(run * runspeed, rigidbody.velocity.y);

using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;
using Spine.Unity;

public class Klym : MonoBehaviour
{
    public SkeletonAnimation skeletonAnimation;
    public AnimationReferenceAsset idle, walking, running;
    public string currentState;
    public float speed;
    public float movement;
    public string currentAnimation;
  #public float runspeed;
  #public float run;
    private Rigidbody2D rigidbody;

// Start is called before the first frame update
void Start()
{
    rigidbody = GetComponent<Rigidbody2D>();
    currentState = "Idle";
    SetCharacterState(currentState);
}

// Update is called once per frame
void Update()
{
    Move();
}

//sets character animation
public void SetAnimation(AnimationReferenceAsset animation, bool loop, float timeScale)
{
    if(animation.name.Equals(currentAnimation))
    {
        return;
    }
    skeletonAnimation.state.SetAnimation(0, animation, loop).TimeScale = timeScale;
    currentAnimation = animation.name;
}


//checks character state and sets the animation accordingly
public void SetCharacterState(string state)
{
   if (state.Equals("Walking"))
    {
        SetAnimation(walking, true, 1f);
    }
   #else if(state.Equals("Running"))
   #{
   #    SetAnimation(running, true, 1f);
   #}
   else if(state.Equals("Idle"))
    {
        SetAnimation(idle, true, 1f);
    }
}

public void Move()
{
   # run = Input.GetAxis("Vertical");
   # rigidbody.velocity = new Vector2(run * runspeed, rigidbody.velocity.y);

    movement = Input.GetAxis("Horizontal");
    rigidbody.velocity = new Vector2(movement * speed, rigidbody.velocity.y);

    if (movement != 0)
    {
        SetCharacterState("Walking");
        if (movement > 0)
        {
            transform.localScale = new Vector2(0.11f, 0.11f);
        }
        else if (movement < 0)
        {
            transform.localScale = new Vector2(-0.11f, 0.11f);
        }
    }
   # else if (run != 0)
   #{
   #    SetCharacterState("Running");
   #     if (run > 0)
   #     {
   #         transform.localScale = new Vector2(0.11f, 0.11f);
   #     }
   #     else if (run < 0)
   #     {
   #        transform.localScale = new Vector2(-0.11f, 0.11f);
   #     }
   # }
    else
    {
        SetCharacterState("Idle");
    }
}
}

Harald escreveu
What does your animation look like, is it an on-location animation without any horizontal movement (no root motion), or does it move horizontally and then repeat from the start again after each loop?

If I understand correctly, it's a treadmill animation and I'm using code to move the character horizontally. The animation is played correctly, it's just that the character does not actually move forward. Should I record a video of what it looks like?

Nevermind, I seem to have solved it

Replaced the line

rigidbody.velocity = new Vector2(run * runspeed, rigidbody.velocity.y);

with
transform.Translate(Vector2.right * run * runspeed * Time.deltaTime);

All good now.

Harald

Glad to hear you've figured it out, thanks for letting us know! Nevertheless you should be changing Rigidbody2D velocity instead of moving the Transform in order to have proper Physics interaction.

Please note that your second line modifying rigidbody.velocity was overriding the effect of the first one:

# rigidbody.velocity = new Vector2(run * runspeed, rigidbody.velocity.y); // this X value "run * runspeed" will be overwritten below and thus has no effect.
movement = Input.GetAxis("Horizontal");
rigidbody.velocity = new Vector2(movement * speed, rigidbody.velocity.y); // this X value here wins, since you overwrite it here

It's like the following:

a = 5 * runSpeed; // this has no effect
a = 3 * walkSpeed; // the last assignment overwrites the first one

If you want to add these values, you should not assign but add instead:

a = 5 * runSpeed;
a += 3 * walkSpeed; // now this is added

beastsofmerit

Ooooh, so that's what it was. So I was basically telling Unity that the velocity aspect of my rigidbody was equal two different things at the same time, which it obviosly could not be, so the latter ended up overriding the former. It makes perfect sense.

It's crazy how missing one symbol can do this much damage.

Anyway, thank you so much, Harald, it works great now!

Harald

Glad to hear it helped! 🙂

beastsofmerit escreveu
[..] so the latter ended up overriding the former.
It's crazy how missing one symbol can do this much damage.

This is the way imperative programming languages work, they execute one line after another, without respecting your initial intent 😉.