How to loop any PNG sequence VFX in Spine

Mar 20, 20232 min read

Updated: Dec 28, 2023

Welcome to this tutorial! Today, we will be exploring how to animate a fire PNG sequence using Spine. By importing the sequence and animating it, we can create a seamless loop. To achieve this, we will duplicate the sequence and overlap it with a half cycle offset. So let's get started and animate VFX in Spine

Import PNG sequence VFX into Spine

Copy the sequence into your Spine project directory
In Spine drag the first image of the sequence which will create an image attachment
Select that attachment and convert it to sequence attachment
Remove the index from the attachment's name and add it in the properties panel

the process of importing png sequence into spine — Import PNG sequence into Spine 2d

Animating PNG sequence VFX in Spine

Simple animation

Switch to Animate Mode
Set desired FPS, Spine by default uses 30 FPS
On frame 0, select the attachment and key the loop under sequence parameter
Move the playhead on the frame that matches the sequence length and key the loop again, this will make sure we have exact length of animation we need for our sequence

animating png sequence in Spine 2d by keying loop feature of the sequence attachment — Animating PNG sequence in Spine 2D

Fading in and out

Fade In

On the 0 frame select the slot that contains the attachment and set the opacity to 0. If you have autokey enabled that will create a key for us automatically, otherwise create it manually
Move the playhead few frames and change the opacity back to 100

Fade Out

Move the playhead at the end, leaving few frames to fade out and key the slots opacity, this will make sure the attachment will be 100% visible up until here.
At the final frame select the slot and set the opacity to 0