How to Adjust Easing Independently for Different Bones in a Character Pose

Before adjusting handles, identify whether the problem concerns the pose, timing, or speed through the transition. Write a concrete instruction such as “the ear should turn quickly at first, then approach its final angle gradually.” That gives you a visible result to evaluate.

Spine’s documented pose-to-pose workflow starts with the major poses, then adjusts their timing and fills in the movement between them. Its layered workflow focuses on a few parts at a time. Combining these approaches provides a useful order here: establish the two poses, refine individual bones, then review the complete character. See the official Animating guide.

Use this decision aid before editing:

What you observe	First adjustment to try
The final silhouette is wrong	Change the destination pose
A part reaches its destination at the wrong moment	Change that part’s key timing
The endpoints and arrival time work, but the transition feels abrupt	Adjust easing
A child part moves unexpectedly while its own values look correct	Inspect its parent’s motion

These are diagnostic recommendations, not automatic rules. Change one category at a time so you can tell which edit improves the transition.

In Spine, enter Animate mode and activate the intended animation. Set the starting pose and key the relevant properties; move to the destination frame, set the second pose, and key those properties again. Rotation, translation, scale, and shear have their own key controls. The official Keys documentation describes these prerequisites and controls.

Check that both endpoints are stored before scrubbing. With Auto Key disabled, changing a transform does not automatically create a key, and moving the timeline discards unkeyed changes. You can click the changed property’s key button or use K, the Key Edited shortcut. Auto Key creates keys automatically when changes are made, so watch for unintended additions. These behaviors are documented under Setting keys and Auto key.

For this exercise, begin with only the properties you intend to animate. Keeping the initial transition simple makes later curve changes easier to judge.

Open Spine’s Graph view and select the first bone. With the graph unlocked, the displayed bone rows follow the selection. Use the property visibility dots to display just the relevant curve, such as rotation. Select the starting key of the interval: its curve type controls interpolation to the next key. These selection and interpolation behaviors are documented in the Graph guide.

Choose Bezier and adjust its handles. Linear changes the keyed value at a constant rate; Stepped holds it until the next key. In Spine’s terminology, Ease out slows the change near the selected key, while Ease in slows it near the next key. Use the documented behavior rather than assuming another application uses the same labels. See Curve types and presets.

Repeat for the next bone, selecting only its intended property keys. Spine’s Separate handle setting lets you adjust one side of a key without moving the opposite handle. Also avoid repeatedly clicking Bezier after shaping it: clicking it on existing Bezier keys resets the handles. Both details appear in the Graph documentation.

Consider an illustrative pose transition with rotation keys at frames 0 and 24. The numbers below are practice inputs, not measured results or recommended angles for every rig. In Spine, bone-transform animation values are relative to the setup pose, as explained in Bone transforms and setup pose.

Bone	Starting rotation offset	Final rotation offset	Intended transition
Torso	0°	12°	Leave gently and settle gradually
Ear	0°	−20°	Turn promptly, then approach the endpoint slowly

Keep both pairs of keys at frames 0 and 24 during the first pass. Shape the torso transition, then shape the ear separately. Inspect frames 6, 12, and 18 and ask whether the ear has completed more of its turn while the torso continues its broader movement.

This comparison separates two creative choices. Different easing can make the ear appear almost settled earlier while preserving its frame-24 endpoint. If the requirement is that the ear actually reaches its destination at frame 18, move its destination key to frame 18 instead. Do not keep reshaping the curve to compensate for an arrival time you already know should change.

Spine’s Dopesheet supports that timing edit: selected keys can be dragged horizontally to another frame. Work on the ear’s property row rather than the animation overview. Selecting an overview or bone-row key selects the keys underneath it, which can broaden the edit unexpectedly. See Dopesheet selection and key manipulation.

Independent curves do not remove the skeleton’s hierarchy. Spine bones have rotation, translation, scale, and shear transforms, and a parent’s transform affects its children. A child can therefore move in the viewport even while its own keyed property holds steady. The official Bones guide explains this inheritance.

For the torso-and-ear example, inspect the torso first if the ear’s visible turn seems excessive. Then inspect any intermediate head bone, followed by the ear’s own rotation. This sequence follows the documented hierarchy and helps identify which contribution needs changing.

Avoid disabling inheritance merely to make a curve easier to understand. That changes how the rig behaves. Instead, judge the ear’s local adjustment while watching its combined motion with the parent chain. Choose the curve that produces the intended complete pose transition.

If several parts change together, inspect the selection before making another easing edit. In Spine’s Dopesheet, the overview row represents keys across the rows beneath it, while property rows expose specific keyed properties. Graph and Dopesheet key selections are shared. These details are documented in the Dopesheet guide.

If horizontal and vertical motion need different key times, Spine provides a Separate checkbox in a bone’s tree properties. Translation, scale, and shear normally key X and Y together; separating them exposes independent timelines for the current animation. Use this only when the axes need separate timing, as described in Separate X and Y.

After each change, replay the entire transition. Spine’s Animating guide notes that working in separate passes can produce disconnected movement between parts. A useful review is to watch once for the overall silhouette and once for the specific bone you edited, following the combined workflow described in Animating.

In Maya, use the corresponding animation curves in the Graph Editor and edit the relevant keys’ tangents. Autodesk distinguishes In Tangent, which shapes the segment before a key, from Out Tangent, which shapes the segment after it. Break Tangents allows the two handles to be manipulated independently. See the Maya 2026 Graph Editor Tangents menu.

For a transition that overshoots its keyed values, inspect the tangent choice. Autodesk documents Plateau tangents as keeping curve minima and maxima at keys and flattening segments between equal-valued keys. Evaluate that behavior on the selected property rather than applying it indiscriminately across the character. The same Tangents menu reference explains the available options.

Finish when the endpoints, arrival times, and movement between them all serve the intended pose change. Work from one bone’s property keys to the complete character, and make each additional edit answer a specific visible problem.

• Graph — Spine User Guide
• Keys — Spine User Guide
• Dopesheet view — Spine User Guide
• Bones — Spine User Guide
• Animating — Spine User Guide
• Graph Editor Tangents menu — Maya 2026