A beginner’s Getting-Started Guide…
How do I use MikuMikuDance?
MikuMikuDance is a free 3D animation software for the PC with a huge, world-wide following!
First … move the downloaded ZIP folder to your desktop. Unzip the MMD folder: just double-click it and choose “Extract All”, and OK the defaults … and you will find the MMD folder on your desktop, ready to go! There is no install; MMD runs from its folder on your desktop.
Open MMD … MikuMikuDance.exe …
It opened, right?
If not … there are a handful of possible issues for you to investigate.
Carefully read
Okay … MikuMikuDance opened!
How do I get started with MikuMikuDance? What do I do first?
I recommend that you play the Sample Dance first. It shows you what MMD can do! Just go to the FILE tab, and click open(O) … and open the sample.pmm or the sample(AllStar).pmm sample dance … those are the two dances that are included in your original download. (NOTE: there is no music included for the Sample dances … they are silent.)
Add Miku…
and play with MikuMikuDance!
Next you will want to go to the FILE tab and click on NEW to bring back the white, empty stage. Find the LOAD button near the lower left of your screen … in the brown area … and choose your favorite model from the list … one of the MIKUs, of course.
NOW is when it gets complicated!
See LearnMMD’s HOW TO page for a list of links to our tutorials that will help you find out what you want to know … what you NEED to know as you work with MikuMikuDance. Also see our Bonus Pages page for links to some of our hard-to-find tutorial pages!
What do I do with MikuMikuDance?
Most new MMDers discovered MikuMikuDance by seeing some of the tens-of-thousands of MMD videos on YouTube … and they think they’d like to try it for themselves. Once they have MMD running on their desktop, they discover how complicated it can be! … just calm down and take it easy. Yes … MikuMikuDance is complicated if you want to make your own animations from scratch … but there are EASY ways to use it, too!
Memes …
The easiest
Comics …
Many MMDers enjoy
MMD, under the FILE tab, has “Render to Picture file(B)” … which lets you save the image you see as any of several picture file formats. I like to capture my OWN images by using the Print-Screen button on the upper-right of my computer’s keyboard. That puts the screen image into the computer’s clipboard memory so that I can PASTE it into a window in my Photoshop, GIMP or Paint program.
Music Videos using Downloadable Files …
See the LearnMMD
Custom 3D animation from scratch …
Creating 3D animations from scratch is a complicated business … but I find it fun to learn. I have been running MMD for over three years and I am still learning how to do it!
LearnMMD.com has a ton of tutorials (over 300) that explore many of the things you will want to know as you progress in the art of 3D animation.
Most important … Don’t give up!
Enjoy the process of learning MikuMikuDance. So complicated, so many details … such satisfaction as you learn something new about it.
— Enjoy MikuMikuDance!
– SEE BELOW for MORE MMD TUTORIALS…
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