Hey @FCSW_Ben
Also an aging animator here, with 20+ years of experience in classical hand-drawn 2d animation and 13+ years of 3d animation.
We try to make Spine as user-friendly as it gets, trying to fit the needs of different animators with different experience levels coming from different software. Spine is unique because it has 2 graph views the Graph and the Curves view. We noticed that some of the old users prefer to use the old Curves view, and there are certainly some use cases where it's more handy to use it than the Graph view.
We take every feedback very seriously and we always try to make our product the best there is, so concerning that we are trying to make the curve behave in a more efficient way.
That being said, I did notice some mistakes in your approach that I think you need to address. The timing chart and the curve representation you drew out do not match. I sketched out the corrected curves on your drawing
To be more clear I did the same thing in Spine with the whole curve visible in the Graph view for clarification.
So from keys 0-6 
then 6-9
and 9-13
Another benefit of using the Graph view is offsetting the X and Y curve, which can help a lot in different places. I recommend checking this video, maybe could help:
Also as you like to think in poses rather than frames, as I do, I recommend checking this video where I go through my workflow and show how I think and do animation:
I can see a few different workflows you could try if working with default bezier does not work out for you, but personally, after trying all kinds of different approaches, I still find the fastest and the most efficient workflow the one I explained in the video.
Another thing you are doing that I would avoid is separating tangents for a breakdown, if you want a breakdown to have a smooth transition, you would not separate them. Or separate the tangent on a first key, which has only half of a tangent handle to begin with.
On your example, you show interpolation between key 0 and 5 and then you move the tangent handle to 90 degrees, it's to be expected you will get an extreme overshoot in that case. I recorded the gif making the same thing in Maya so you can see the same curve overshoot result. 
I would definitely recommend you to get familiar with a Graph view because you will see what the curve is really doing, and it will help you to notice mistakes right away.
Danimate
Well, what you are referring to is a really good and tough question to answer. I dont prefer just moving stuff around because I animated for years drawing on paper, so I like to think of the character in Spine as a drawing, and all the poses as breakdowns and in-betweens, so if I need e.g. do drag the hand behind the body, I pretty much know how it should look drawn. Looking at Graph View curves just helps me to see the fluidity of motion for certain elements (so if there is some bumps, weird timing, or weird keys, I can spot it immediately). Maybe the best practice for you at the moment would be to find very good references and go through them frame by frame. Thats the best way to analyze and learn animation. I do this practice almost daily to keep my animation skills sharp, and I always get surprised by how some things are moving. And sometimes, for good animation, you really need to sculpt every frame to look good. Look at your character how it looks, not your bones, so if you need, translate or scale the bones to deform the drawing to get the poses you want.- 已编辑
Hey Danimate!
First, I want to congratulate you on choosing animation as your field of study. I think it is the best job in the world. I have been practicing it since 2002, and I still find new and exciting things to learn and excel at. Let me try to answer your questions as best I can without creating any confusion. Although animation can get extremely technical, it's still an art form, so sometimes some terms and ideas can be hard to understand at first.- Yes, editing animation can be very difficult and tedious. The best way to go with it is in my experience to be very organised. By that I mean, plan your animation ahead. Know your main, 'golden' keys, then your breakdowns. So if you need to edit your animation you know exactly which part of the animation you are working on. e.g. you are animating a character getting out of a chair, and your anticipation lasts from frame 1 to 8. you notice that it feels a bit fast, so you add frames in between those keys to slow it down. What helps to stay organized in Spine is to key the whole character, all the controls, so you dont think of the character as a bunch of individual body parts, but as a whole, as one drawing.
- Timing and spacing are pillars of good animation. That is something it's good to train. Its good to start with simple things, like bouncing ball. With offsetting things you should be careful, sometimes moving the curve is not enough to make the parts of the character to look believable enough. My general workflow with most of the things is to make the main poses just right, considering all the elements of a good design, like the line of action, good and clear silhouette, where is the center of gravity, straight vs curves etc. then when I play the animation and I see that the timing and spacing feel right, I will add all the extra movement according to main action. Sometimes it is hard to see where exactly should some things fall so it's better to have the main things working and then add all the extras. Dont just offset stuff just because you know that some parts should move later in time, try to really pose them. This is where artistry and experience come in play, with time and training you will get better at adjusting the poses to feel better. I designed Animating with Spine videos to have exactly the exercise to make you a better animator. I did those exercises countless times and I recommend you go through them.
- Timeline can be tricky if you think of your character as a collection of bones. Think of your animation as "poses" and look only at the first, main timeline, and think only as where are my poses in time. Then when you have your animation working more or less OK, you can go through individual bones and polish their curves. This is something that you will also get better, at because you will be able to identify just by looking, like OK my translate Y needs to start moving faster.
- Well, this is a complex topic, in general, no, elements in our body are not separate entities, we work in unison, and one thing always affects the other. BUT, things move in a different times. My experience is again to think in poses, not individual body parts. Let's say you are animating a jump animation. So you have a starting pose, anticipation, jump, mid-air, fall, recovery, and some kind of neutral pose. With every pose you are making you should think of the whole body, the whole pose, and how it connects with the other. Once you have that dialed in, you can go through different parts of the body and poolish them, like e.g. you want the left arm to drag a bit more. So each individual part of the body has its own arc, timing, and weight but the whole thing needs to work as a whole, otherwise, the character will look and feel disconnected. So always think of a pose and unity first. As the face goes, the same thing. The face moves as a whole. So try to think in expressions, not in elements of the face. So let's say you have a face going from happy to a frown, you would start with making these main two poses, where all the elements are included, eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth. Now, how you transition between those poses is where again your skill is important. Maybe the character was happy but then he saw someone he didn't like, so first he blinks, with a bit of relaxing the brow, slowly losing the smile, then the brows go fast into angry one and the mouth follows. It's hard to smile and not include the eyes or the eyebrows. So yeah, always try to think of the expression you want to achieve, and then how to add good breakdowns to look natural and organic.
I would definitely recommend you to always first and foremost plan your animation. Maybe some basic thumbnails, shoot references etc. If you are working with reference try to really analyze where are the main storytelling keys, and where are the breakdowns. I would also recommend you go through the Animating with Spine videos and try to do all the exercises. Some of them are tedious but stick with them. You have an analytical brain which is great. If you have some specific questions, dont hesitate to ask. Animation can be very topic-specific, and more often than not rules or principles do not apply so some creative thinking is necessary.
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Learn how to use physics to speed up your production time in our latest Spine Tips video!
We dive into follow-through and overlapping action in our latest Animating with Spine video!
Blog: Follow-through and overlapping action - Animating with Spine #8
Check out our latest Spine Tips video! Learn how to make an FK arm setup with an IK constraint to mimic muscle contraction.
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Hey there! As a long-time 3D user myself I was asking the same question when we were designing the Graph view. We were considering it and decided to omit the idea. First, we look at the functionality of some functions, with weighted tangents it is easier to get better spacing, so you end up using way fewer keys, which is better for performance. Second, we do not want to have endless sub-menus with a lot of functionality that is not useful, the goal is to stay user-friendly and intuitive. The problem you can have with weighted tangents in general is when you retime your animation the curve changes shape and destroys your spacing. For that, we have the Retiming option. Try it out, and see what is your favorite way to preserve the curve when you shuffle your keys around.
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Check out our latest Spine Tips video! Learn how to use easing and to choose the right keying techniques to improve your workflow!
Check out our latest Spine Tips video! Learn how to set up a basic skeleton utilizing inverse kinematics.
- 于 Plugins
- 于 Plugins
- 于 Plugins
For the best most organic feel, what you want is to slightly change the apex of your curves, so every bone has slightly different values and spacing. Actually, this could be a good topic for a tutorial video.
Check my video about the Wave principle
It talks more about animation principles than workflow, but maybe it can be helpful. - 于 Plugins
Actually, the curves are the best way to see the offset.
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@Urr
Maybe try using Dopesheet and Graph view in unison with Sync button ON. This way the curve you have selected will be automatically filtered in the Dopesheet. And you can see if your animation has some bumps and you can fix the curve immediately.
Having keyboard shortcuts is a good idea. My preferred workflow is to key everything and then clean up and polish it later. This way I concentrate only on the timing of a whole pose at a given key and just key stuff fast, so I get the motion I need first.
For your 40 animations first I would see how much and what can I copy then try to work around that.
And yup, physics is on the way. I have to say it will be cool, still, I am a weirdo who likes to animate everything by hand, so I can add personality even to a simple piece of cloth
- 于 Plugins
@Urr I'm curious about what kind of animations you are making to have so many problems. If you can share your project and maybe I can help with finding the easiest and fastest workflow for you. The thing with animation is that it's hard. Making convincing motion requires laser-sharp focus, and usually years of practice. When you look at the usual 3 years of bachelor's + 3 years of junior position you need around 6 years of constant work to be a decent animator. Some get it faster, some slower, but it's still years of concentrated work. We are constantly working on how to make Spine easy to use and intuitive with new features, but that is a huge challenge as there are so many use cases, plus users coming from different backgrounds with different skill sets and different necessities.
Nice!
Check out our latest Spine Tips video! Learn how to rig a simple sack using techniques that are useful for any biped skeleton.
Learn how anticipation prepares the viewer for your actions in our latest Animating with Spine video!
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Hey ManInCool,
ManInCool ：So I suppose as a feature request, I would suggest then as silverstraw has pointed out, that even Transform keys get pasted relative to the axis that has been selected, or that there be at least an option to set it that way.
I'm not sure if thats possible as transforms from parent bones affect their child's bones as explained here: Bones - Spine User Guide: Bone transforms
We will investigate to see what can be done.
In the meantime maybe this can help with your key copy/pasting
If you click once on your Translate numeric display you can just CTRL+C/ CTRL+V desired value
Clicking on the Translate icon will select the Translate tool. This is a known mechanic and we can not change it as it would confuse a lot of users.
My personal favorite and probably the fastest way to copy/paste keys is selecting a key then SHIFT+CTRL+LMB drag will copy your desired key.
Also keep track of not only which bone is selected, but also which key. You can be on e.g. frame 30 but still selected the key on frame 15, you will copy the values from the selected key, not the values that your time marker is.
Hope this helps