Recently I switched to new combo Phaser + TS and I wanted to use some old 3.8 assets. Overall assets are loading fine, they just become not visible on animation play. I got ESS version by myself, but old assets have mesh deform so I cannot upgrade it to 4.2 and I lost contact with the artist that made it. I tried to lower runtime version, but Phaser was added recently and connecting it as spine-ts is a nightmare. Is there a way to somehow connect those two together?
Version incompatibility causes animations to disappear
To connect your old Spine 3.8 assets with the new Phaser + TypeScript setup, you might face some challenges due to version incompatibility, especially with features like mesh deform. Since the official spine-phaser runtime is compatible with Spine 4.1, you may need to consider upgrading your assets to a version that is compatible with the runtime you are using. However, if upgrading is not an option due to the loss of contact with the artist and the presence of mesh deform, you might need to explore using a custom solution or modifying the existing runtime to support your specific needs. Unfortunately, without the ability to upgrade or modify the assets, integrating them seamlessly with the latest Phaser setup could be quite complex.
You can import data into 3.8, save a project file, open the project file with 4.2, and export it for 4.2.
You should only use exports from the same version of the runtimes you are using:
http://esotericsoftware.com/spine-versioning#Synchronizing-versions
Ah I missed the ESS part, sorry. Upgrading the data to 4.2 is the best way to load and render 3.8 data, otherwise you'd need to integrate the very old 3.8 runtimes with Phaser.