MikuMikuDance MMD Cage Stage Tutorial

Where can I get the MMD Cage Stage? How can I use the Cage Stage in MikuMikudance 7.94 … it has so many .x pieces! I can’t read the names of those Japanese files!

Enjoy this amazing MMD Stage …
The MMD Cage Stage from the Sinlessrogue.Angelfire page

I wanted to try something new … so I downloaded this MMD Cage Stage from the sinlessrogue.angelfire Backgrounds page.

This is an amazing stage with 14 individual .x parts … not counting the one .PMD dummy bone that is included … and a .VMD! The individual elements, like a globe of the Earth, one of the Moon, and one for a fiery planet … not to mention all of the mirrored globes … can be used as accessories, all by themselves!

I made a short video to show off what I learned, just this afternoon … I am sure it can be made to “do” more!

Japanese File names in the Zip!

If your “System” is like mine, it scrambles Japanese file names when I open a downloaded Zip. So I be sure to use the Applocale/7-Zip routine to Extract files from that new Zip!

Editor’s
Note: 5/28/2016

Another method for keeping the Japanese file names as you open a Japanese model zip folder is to use the free Bandizip software with the Code Page dropdown set to Japanese. See the Bandizip article.

The Files have Japanese Names!

I couldn’t tell which element was which … not just from those file names … so I made a set of pictures to identify each of the 14 elements of the stage.

DOWNLOAD my ID Chart ZIP

Included in that ZIP is my new READ ME x 3.txt file. I tried to use Google Translate to “read” the included READ ME.txt file and was unable to make much sense of the translation. I made a new ReadME and called it Read Me “times three” because in there is the original Japanese ReadMe text … The stupid Google translation … and the Romaji text generated by the Google Translate page … I think the Romaji “reads” better than the the broken English words.

So … Open MikuMikuDance … and begin!

Open MMD. Open my ID Chart so you can see which element is which. LOAD one of the .x elements of the Cage Stage. I also did a LOAD of the included PMD Dummy Bone. I started out by attaching each element to that same dummy bone #10. Keep adding parts until you like what you see. The large globe/sphere elements all have their bone attachment in their centers … so you can easily spin them on their dummy bones. BUT … If you attache them all to the same dummy bone … they simply overlap each-other … not good. So just load the one sphere you like.

It turns out (get it? … turns?) that there is a supplied .VMD Motion file that you can load onto the supplied Dummy Bone #10 … the motion is 7200 frames of a gentle rotation. You can copy/paste it onto other bones … you can use the EXPAND function as you paste that motion to speed or slow the rotation of the various elements. Open your own set of Dammy Bones so that you will have plenty to work with. As you attach elements to the various dummy bones, you will want to move the dummy bone to recenter the element’s position within this concentric stage. (i.e. Dummy bone 5 is not in the center of the stage. You will want to move that bone over and back, or front, to position it in the central axis of rotation.)

You will want to adjust the SIZE of some of the pieces. See our many articles about using the settings in the AMP panel to adjust size, transparency, and other aspects of the accessories you mount to dummy bones.

Today I enlarged the beautiful pink sphere to a SIZE setting of 8.0 using the settings in the AMP. It is big enough to dance in … and has plenty of room to swing the camera around, too! I added only the translucent dance floor piece to complete my setup. Nothing is spinning in this animation. The camera motion is what’s causing all of that background motion. Fun stuff!