Editing presets in Spine (template round trip)

Spine 3.8 has no plugin API, so presets are edited in Spine through files:

Builder ──Generate──▶ package (.json + images) ──Import Data──▶ Spine 3.8.75
   ▲                                                              │ edit
   └──── Import template from Spine… ◀── Export → JSON ◀──────────┘

Steps

Generate any preset in the builder (or open any Spine 3.8 project of your own).
In Spine: Import Data → the package's .json → New project. See the package's IMPORT_IN_SPINE.md.
Edit freely: move or add bones and slots, swap or add images, reshape meshes, change keys, curves, timing, colours, events and draw order. Save your .spine project as usual.
In Spine: Export → JSON, tick Nonessential data, export next to your images folder.
In the builder: Import template from Spine… → pick the exported .json. * The images folder is found from the export; choose it by hand if not. * If the skeleton has several animations, choose the one the template plays. * Check the tint roles: which slots follow Primary colour, which follow Secondary colour, and which keep the colours you animated in Spine.
Register template. It appears in the browser marked "template" and can be generated like any preset, as many times as you need, each with its own instance name.

To update a template, export again and register with the same id and Replace existing template ticked. The version goes up and the old version is moved to _backup in the templates folder.

What the builder changes in a template

Control	Effect on your Spine data
Instance name	Prefix for every bone, slot, attachment, event, animation and image folder
Primary / secondary colour	Replaces the RGB of slots with that tint role (alpha is kept)
Opacity	Multiplies every slot alpha
Scale, rotation, position, mirror	Applied to the root bone's setup pose
Duration	Retimes every key, event and draw-order change proportionally
Start delay	Shifts everything later and keeps slots hidden until it starts

Everything else, including bone hierarchy, art, meshes, curves and key values, stays exactly as you made it. Effect-specific controls such as ray count belong to built-in generators and are not available on templates.

Supported in templates

Bones; region, mesh, bounding box, point and clipping attachments; rotate, translate, scale and shear keys; slot colour, two-colour and attachment keys; deform keys; draw order keys; events without audio.

Not supported yet: IK, transform and path constraints; linked meshes; skins other than default; audio events. The import dialog names the exact item to remove.

Where templates live

Documents\Anim2D\FX Templates\<template id>\ (open it with Open templates folder). Each template folder holds preset.json, template.json (your Spine data with the instance prefix removed), template_meta.json (tint roles, source file) and images\.

Notes

The preview does not draw meshes, clipping, shear or draw-order changes; it says so above the canvas. Check those in Spine.
Slots you leave visible at the end of the animation stay visible; the builder warns but does not change your authoring.
Regenerating creates a new package. It never edits a .spine project.

Anim2D 0.19.0 · Edit this page on GitHub