Z Fighting bug on Unity 5.5

Kea

After update Unity (5.4 -> 5.5) i get Z fighting bug. More details on video:

How i can fix this bug?

Pharan

That's not z-fighting.
Z-fighting involves z-buffer accuracy and looks more like this: https://i.stack.imgur.com/MwBsT.png
Notice the bands.

Are you using the latest spine-unity runtime?
Did you upgrade your spine version too? Which version are you currently using?
Are you using the default Spine/Skeleton shader that came with it?
Did you change any of the SkeletonAnimation Advanced... settings?
Are you using multi-page atlases?
Are you animating the draw order in any of the animations seen in the video?
This problem is not occurring in any of the skeletons we've tested in spine-unity in Unity 5.5.

Kea

Are you using the latest spine-unity runtime?
No. I use 2.1.xx (where i can view current version?). I try to update to latest version but you change script hierarchy and lots of my prefabs can't find original scripts after update.

Did you upgrade your spine version too? Which version are you currently using?
Now we use latest version, but some skeletons are exported with older versions.

Are you using the default Spine/Skeleton shader that came with it?
Yes.

Did you change any of the SkeletonAnimation Advanced... settings?
No.

Are you using multi-page atlases?
Yes.

Are you animating the draw order in any of the animations seen in the video?
No.

This problem is not occurring in any of the skeletons we've tested in spine-unity in Unity 5.5.
I try 5.4.3p4 - have same problem.
On 5.4.2 - no problem.

Nate

Pharan is probably right, it looks like may a problem with attachment visibility rather than Z fighting, but have you tried setting Z spacing on the SkeletonAnimation component? It could be a bug in the older runtime. It may be worth figuring out how to upgrade without breaking your project, especially if you are using a newer version of the editor.

Kea

Today i update version (draft, only for test, lost lot of prefabs and disable events). But i get same problem with latest spine runtimes.

Z spacing help (with values > 1), but it made new problems in game - some game objects crossed with personages. It is not solution for me.

I create test scene in new project and get Z order bug again. With new runtimes and exported from latest version of spine.

Pharan

You can send your assets to us so we can test and check. contact@esotericsoftware.com

Kea

Yes. Sended.

Pharan

This seems to be a bug in Unity 5.5's orthographic camera/orthographic sort and dynamic batching.
We'll try to send a bug report to them.

Though even having a z-spacing of -0.0001 seems to be enough to correct it.

Crossed skeletons will always occur if your MeshRenderer uses more than one material since each material change causes a different submesh to be generated (and can therefore be batched). Set the sorting layer and sorting order properties on each renderer to make sure that doesn't happen.

Incidentally, just setting the sorting layers/sorting order without adding z-spacing will also fix the problem.

Kea

I try different versions, Unity developers add this bug in version 5.3.4p1. 5.4.3f1 last version without bug. Please say it to them.

z-spacing is not fix problem, in my project. Only values > 1.

Can you tell me more how set sorting layer and sorting order? For example i have 6 atlases.

Pharan

int mySortingOrder = 1; // any int. Between renderers, they just need to be different. Larger numbers go on top. Smaller numbers go under.
GetComponent<MeshRenderer>().sortingOrder = mySortingOrder;

This is also made visible in SkeletonAnimation's inspector, but that just exposes MeshRenderer's sortingOrder. SkeletonAnimation itself doesn't store it.

By the way, you don't need to send entire project folders to share your project. They include a lot of large files that Unity can generate itself (You don't need to share your Library folder. It's also usually a few times larger than the actual assets.). Best way is to use Unity's Export Package function.

Kea

Sorry, not understand.
Can you send me my sample with fixes?

Alexus

Hello. Any news about fix of this bug?
This bug always happend in my projects after i move from unity 5.4 to 5.5. Now I use unity 5.6.4, but this happend at any version higher then 5.4.
I think this is some sort of shared bug, because when I change shader to another one problem gone, but animations don't work correclty.
Also this happend always when I add spine object to the scene, even if scene dont started.

Pharan

The solution (as per Unity) seems to be one of two options:
a. Make sure your SkeletonAnimation only uses one material. or...
b. Add a Sorting Group component for each Spine GameObject. This will break dynamic batching. But if you were already using multiple Materials, dynamic batching was already broken to begin with so there's no harm. Additionally, you would also do this if you were using purely UnityEngine.Sprites instead of Spine-Unity.

This was tackled in a different thread. I guess it's buried now.

Alexus

Thanks Pharan. I just add Sorting Group component for each Spine GameObject and all work perfect.
But if I use two spine gameobjects(each has multiple Materials) together with SkeletonRenderSeparator, how it could works?
For example when one character hug another one. I need use different multiple Materials, because I have a lot of skins in 1 skeleton, but with same animations.
So if I use "a. Make sure your SkeletonAnimation only uses one material.", my atlas would be huge. Sorry for my English, I am not a native speaker, but I hope you understood me. 🙂

Pharan

It's really a sorting bug in Unity and not something under the control of the Spine runtime.

c. You could set the Sorting Layers of the different renderers causing problems manually to be different so that Unity never tries to batch them (and incorrectly sort them) or...
d. Turn off Unity's dynamic batching in Unity's Player settings. (this means you will have to do all batching manually. Look up their documentation to find out how to do that).

Alexus

Thanks for offer some solutions, but if I start to use it, I will ruin all my projects.

1) Did you report this problem to unity support?
2) If I use multi material, I can't use SkeletonRenderSeparator anyways.
3) For example, if I want create game with a lot of characters. Like 1000 skins on 1 skeleton. How can I do it?
I can't use 1 material, because my atlas will be very huge. I can't use multi material with Sorting Group component, because SkeletonRenderSeparator don't work.

Don't think, that I'm rude. Spine is the best solution for 2d animation, that I know. But I don't know, what to do with my problem. 🙂
Thank you guys for awesome stuff. 🙂

Pharan

Yes, we reported this to Unity back when this bug first appeared and again some months after.

What's wrong with SkeletonRenderSeparator and multiple materials? And can't you do option C?

If you think the individual skins will fit into their own textures, you can group their images in folders. That way, each skin won't be scattered across multiple textures and each of your skeletons will use just one.

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If your case is a mix-and-match case, you can probably use the Mix-And-Match way of doing it. Runtime repacking will make sure the skin will only use one texture (generated at runtime). This is unnecessary if you can already put skins into their own textures.