You're right that importing both skeleton and animations from JSON into an existing skeleton requires multiple steps. Let me clarify the workflow and reasoning:
Current workflow:
When importing JSON data into an existing skeleton using Import Data, you can import bones, slots, skins, and attachments, but not animations. This is by design - Import Data is primarily intended for importing data from scripts.
To import animations into an existing skeleton, you need to use Import Project instead. However, this requires importing from a Spine project file (.spine), not directly from JSON.
Why the limitation exists:
The technical reason is that Import Data focuses on structural elements (bones, slots, attachments) rather than animation data. Import Project is specifically designed to handle animations, but it has strict requirements: the target skeleton must have bones, slots, attachments, events, and constraints with the same names as the source skeleton - but only for items that are actually keyed in the animations being imported.
Your suggested workflow is correct:
- Import Data from JSON to update the skeleton structure
- Import Data from the same JSON into a new project
- Save that project
- Import Project to bring the animations into your existing skeleton
While I understand this feels cumbersome, there's no indication in the available information about plans to streamline this into a single step. The separation between structural imports (Import Data) and animation imports (Import Project) appears to be intentional for maintaining data integrity and handling the complex dependencies between skeleton structures and animations.
