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How do I do MMD? Do I have to know coding to do MikuMikuDance. Open MikuMikudance and see how easy it can be.

Open MikuMikuDance… just for the fun of it!

I got this note from an MMDer a few days ago… and I have been thinking about the mindset on display here:

I intend to keep innovating, and hopefully hit and break the limits of what you can do with this, quite honestly, obsolete directX9 crapware ​and keep pushing it beyond anything else.

So, let’s explore the full extent of what this old one can do! Let’s break something! Let’s keep innovating until there’s no more!

Wow!… right?

HARSH at first read… but then you can get into where that MMDer is coming from. We MikuMikuDance enthusiasts are so lucky to have innovators with the attitude displayed in those paragraphs; enthusiasts who are constantly working out new methods and avenues for better performance of our “obsolete directX9 crapware”.

But…

Open MikuMikuDance… just for the fun of it!

MikuMikuDance IS fun. Yu Higuchi, credited as the creator of MikuMikuDance, I am sure, did not envision all that his little software has become today! People like the author of that note, above, have, indeed, pushed MMD to beyond the original intent of the software: Fun. It’s an easy (enough!) to use 3D animation software allowing the user to create cartoons to share with the world online. Fun.

This is one of my first MMD videos… over 8,200 views in 11 years!

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Getting back to basics… Don’t sweat the small stuff… just have fun!

Thanks to the thousands of models, motions and WAV files available for free download, operating MMD could not be easier! Download the files. Load a model, put a motion file onto that model, load the WAV file… push PLAY.

From there, you use your OWN creativity to add a stage, add effects, move the camera, and make those downloaded elements into your own animation.

K.I.S.S. makes for an easy, fun afternoon of MMD.

Keeping things simple lets you bang-out a rough start for your new project in under an hour… and most of THAT time will be spent looking for your files online. The actual “load the model, motion file, WAV file and push PLAY” takes only a few minutes!

You can create projects “from scratch”, too…

I have made a handful of MMD animations starting only with an inspiration.

I usually start with a piece of music I’d like to see in MMD. I download the music. I may edit the music using Audacity audio editing software to adjust the loudness… I may add some silence before the first note of music so as to give me time for the video to open before the music starts. I may edit the song down to a particular few verses rather than use the whole piece. Sometimes I add “applause” or “laughter” sound clips (that I downloaded from Zero-to-450.com) I keep track of my source link for that original music and anything else that I might download for my project… Keep the Faith-MMD!

My next step is to select a stage and load that into MMD. I might add props; tables and chairs and, whatever. I place the model on the stage and spend some time posing the model so as to look nice in frame zero. I load my WAV file into MMD. I push play and visualize the whole scene.

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Now, before actually animating anything, I do my basic camera motions. Taking cues from the music, I zoom-in and out, pan from one side or another… make sudden scene cuts as I move from a long-shot to an intense close-up… all without actually animating the model. … It is amazing how close to a finished animation you can get without actually animating anything but the camera! I have several tutorials about doing this camera-work, pre-animating routine…

Dream Lover… Arrow… Trick Bag… … See ALL of the Making-of articles on LearnMMD

In my “Arrow” animation, I went through exactly that process and discovered that doing the camerawork first helped me to animate the model. I had Haku sitting on a tall stool and playing the guitar. I wanted to animate her fingering of the various chords on the neck of the guitar as she played. Because I already had my camerawork pretty much done, I could see those few instances when the camera’s view included the neck of the guitar and so I needed to carefully animate those chord changes ONLY when the area was visible to the audience. Same thing with the body of the guitar where her fingertips were strumming the strings… I only had to deal with that when it was on-camera.

Stage assembled, models in place, music in place, camerawork in place… NOW I can start to animate my models. … Keep in mind that nothing is “set in stone”. You can still edit the music, the camerawork, the props. The entire production is under your control and you can do what you want. You can FIRE your dancer and load a new one!

Have FUN with MikuMikuDance!

There are so many sides to MikuMikuDance… The models (collecting and creating), the Stages (collecting and creating), the motion files, the music, the MME effects… so much to learn and so much detail to immerse yourself with… but … in the end…

Just have fun with this ancient jewel of a software.

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– SEE BELOW for MORE MMD TUTORIALS…

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