Reggie Replies to interesting comments and emails. Send Reggie your question or tell him what you are doing to learn how to use MMD. What have you discovered?
KayLeek wrote: i need help on motion data
how do i use it
HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
reply back please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here’s the Long Answer about how to use Motion Data:
Wanna save motion data from your dance?
Let’s pretend you have the Sample Dance open and you want to have Rin doing the dance instead of Miku. You want to copy the motion data from Miku and paste it into Rin.
Use the Range-Select windows under the Frame Counter area.
Set the range for this dance as 0 – 800. See that All Frame is selected.
See that you have Miku Selected (not Camera/Light/Accessory)
Click the Range-Sel button. See that All the diamonds are red. Click COPY.
Now delete Miku. Load Rin. Click PASTE.
All of Miku’s diamonds now drop into place for Rin. Click PLAY and watch Rin do Miku’s dance.
—
Want to Save a Motion Data file?
To save that dance motion as a file that you can use later:
After you have the Range selected … and the diamonds are Red … click COPY. That puts all of those diamonds into memory.
Now got to FILE and choose SAVE MOTION DATA. You will be asked to give it a name. Name it and click SAVE.
—
Want to use a Motion Data File?
To use a motion file, FIRST go to the frame where you want to paste that file data. If you are aligned with Frame Zero … the data will start at Zero. If you are aligned with Frame 57 … that data will start at Frame 57.
Go to FILE and LOAD MOTION DATA. Pick the file you want. That’s it!
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You can download motion data files online … YouTube … Drop them into your USER folder inside the MOTION folder so that MMD can find it easily.
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Motion files have a .VMD extension. Pose Files have a .VPD extension. Pose Files work the same … except they are only a Single Frame. You make a pose file by highlighting the diamonds in a single frame … go to FILE and click SAVE POSE DATA. To use a pose file, go the frame you want, be sure the right character is selected … and click LOAD POSE FILE.
—
Now you know everything! Have fun … keep asking questions!
Rim wrote: When I try to load stages and new models, they either don’t load, or do but no color, it’s all white, except for the shading and some random bits of colour… my new models don’t work?
I DO HAVE a fix for that …
What happens is that you are downloading models from Japanese sources … and their file names use Japanese characters. Your computer is substituting English gibberish for those Japanese characters.
The fix is to download some free software that lets you open a ZIP file, keeping those original file names intact.
Here’s my article about that problem: https://learnmmd.com/http:/learnmmd.com/opening-japanese-models-in-mikumikudance-7-39-sometimes-they-don%E2%80%99t-work/
Read my notes … click that orange link, there, to mikudance.info‘s HELP page … do everything, just right … and you will be in business. (You will like MikuDance.info! … plenty of models and accessories to download … updated often!)
Lemme know if you need more help with it.
SarahP wrote: How can I change the clothes on my models?
Using MMD, alone, you cannot change the clothes on your model. The models are designed as single units. They seem to have fabrics, belts, and chains that could be exchanged for other elements … but the models are actually only one piece. There is now software, just recently available in English, PMD Editor, that let’s you modify your models or even create a new one! Also called PMDE … PMD Editor is getting written-up in the pages of LearnMMD.com. Check it out!
BigS Writes:
Hey, I’m kind of new to MikuMiku Dance and I just have a few questions that I could not find on your (totally awesome) site. Btw, thanks for making your site, it helped alot.
Thanks for asking! Yup … that’s a lot of questions … Here are my answers.
#1 Submit a frame? … I guess that’d be Register the pose in that frame … Every time you move a bone you want to click the Register button in the dark blue Bone Manipulation area under the lower left of the Stage Screen. What I do, that also works well, is just hold your left hand over the Enter key on the keyboard. Every time you move a bone, click Enter … that’s another way to Register the bone. If you move a bunch of bones and THEN decide to Register, you can click on one of the diamonds in that frame and then click V-Sel … Vertical Select … to highlight all of the bones in that frame … and then click that Register button in the blue Bone Manipulation area to catch ’em all.
ALSO … as you move bones in a frame and you want to “undo” … just advance the frame counter a click and every not-registered bone snaps back into its old position.
#2 Move a character without bending their legs … You will find that the two Leg IK bones and the Center bone are the main bones that you will use to move your models around the stage. In the Brown bone chart on the far left of the Frames area, Click the +IK to show all of the IK bones. Click on Leg-IK R and Leg-IK L … hold down the Shift key while you do it so that BOTH are selected at the same time. Still holding Shift, click on Center at the top of the list … so now you have the two Leg IK and the Center bone all selected. NOW you can use the Red/Green/Blue rollers in the bottom right of the stage screen to move your character anywhere you want to.
Another way to select the right bones for moving the entire character is to use the BOX-SEL button in that blue Bone Manipulation area. Now you can drag a box around the character to select every bone in the entire model. Be sure to include everything so that no part is outside the box. You know you have done it correctly when you see the Red/Green/Blue rollers light up. Now roll those rollers to scoot your model wherever you want it.
#3 Download another stage or something … Easy! What you are looking for are called MMD Accessories. Search the web for MMD Accessory Download and you will find a bunch of them that people have made available for you to use. You are looking for files that have a “.x” file extension. Look inside the MMD program folder and see the USER folder … inside that is the Accessory folder … put your new items into that folder … note that all of the accessories have that .x file extension.
You can also make your own new accessories … stages … props … using Google SketchUp … Read the articles on my LearnMMD.com site to learn about that.
When you use an accessory, you can attach it to the Ground, to some part of your character, or to a dummy bone, which lets you manipulate the part as if it was another character. Again … Read about dummy bones on LearnMMD.com .
#4 Adding music. There are 2 ways to add music: 1.) “After the fact” by using a movie editing software that lets you blend your video with your separate soundtrack … or 2.) Adding music directly into your MikuMikuDance by going to the FILE menu and clicking Load WAV File. To do that, your music has to be saved in a WAV format … has the file extension “.wav”. You can’t use an mp3 file … it has to be wav. Again … if you don’t have software to convert your music files into a wav format … search the web for some freeware to do it for you. I went through this, myself in October, 2011, and I found a FREE program called AUDACITY 1.3 that I like. ALSO … like with the accessories, people on the web have WAV files that you can download … search LeekSpin Polkka wav or MMD wav music and see what you find. In my DOWNLOAD page on LearnMMD.com I have a link to a page that has the Ieaven Polkka (the LeekSpin Polkka) WAV for free download.
Once you have a wav file, drop that file into your MMD program file … inside the WAVE folder in your USERS folder … so that you and MMD can both find it. Then you have those WAV options in the file menu. Go to LearnMMD.com … to my File Menu write-up and you can read about how to use those options.
#5 Make Ren Walk, not Neru … Easy! You want to use the Range Select windows under the Frame area. Take a look at the walking motion and determine how many frames are used … what’s the last frame with any data in it? Enter that number into the Range-Sel window. Let’s call it 0 – 450 . See that “All Frame” is showing, there, so that when you click Range-Sel all of the frame data will be selected. (Take a look at the other options and see that you can select a range for any one bone or for all of only the facial movements and etc.) Click Range-Sel and see that all of the Diamonds have turned red … they are selected. Now click COPY to put those diamonds into memory. Now you can DELETE Neru and LOAD Ren. Be sure that the frame counter is at Zero because we are going to PASTE the data into the current frame. See Ren snap into the new Frame Zero position. Click PLAY and watch Ren do the walk.
Range Select is a powerful tool that lets you copy all kinds of motions. Following these same steps is how you can save motion data on your own. You use Range-Sel, Click COPY and then go to FILE and click SAVE MOTION DATA … and MMD lets you save that data as a file that you can reload into another character whenever you want. Easy and fun!
There you go! — Reggie
Josh wrote: I found your page while searching the web for help
with MikuMikuDance. Thank you for your page. I just downloaded MikuMikuDance 7.39 and I did not have the missing file error that you write about. My MMD opened and seems to run just fine. Is that a problem??
HI Josh! That is good news that your MMD is running fine. I think the Missing File Error will happen to people, like me, who are running older computers. Have fun with it! Let me know when you Post a Video to YouTube!
KikiKiki wrote: I can’t get my model to talk in time to the music.
Practice … practice!
I am working to make a model “speak” in sync with the Ievan Polkka. No luck yet! One trick to creating a good lip-flapping motion might be to use only one “Mouse” move at a time. I played back the Sample dance frame-by-frame while keeping an eye on the Mouse panel. I advance the frame to a Diamond in the Facial row and then I click through the various Mouse selections to see which ones are activated and by how much. Doing so, I find that only one attribute is activated at a time in that Sample dance.
If you can load your music as a WAV file, you will be able to see the music on the oscilloscope. I find that the view is too complicated to see much more than the beat of the song. Trying to time mouse moves to the music by matching the mouth action to the visual waves on the screen doesn’t look to be possible. You can click “Play WAV with Frame” in the FILE Menu and then you can here the sound made in each frame. Play a short section with PLAY and then click through those frames one at a time and here the tune almost note by note. That may help you to sync the mouth to the music.
One trick I am trying to exploit is the idea of narrowing the PLAY frame range to only the part of the song I am trying to “mouth”. On my Polkka, the Voice starts at frame 500. I set the Play Range as 500 – 550. Then I repeatedly PLAY the animation for just that 50 frames and adjust the mouth settings until I am happy with the result. Then … set the Play range as 550 – 600, and work on just that next little section.
ALSO … I find that when I click PLAY … the animation skips some of the fast movements that I built into it. Almost like a blur, the mouth averages the tight shapes that I registered. I output a test to AVI and played it as a video and it looks like all of my movements ARE in the video. SOOO … what you see on your screen in MMD during PLAY is not as sharp as what you will see after your animation is rendered to AVI. That makes it tough! You just have to register the frames and know they are there, even when you can’t really see them during Play on MMD.
Good luck! … It is all just experience gained through practice.
Crystal wrote: What’s the best way to Render TO AVI? There are so many choices.
Hi Crystal! Thank you for writing! I use the Cinepak Codec by Radius option as my AVI file. If you are planning to edit your video in another program, you should save the AVI as RAW AVI. That creates a huge file that gives your editing program the cleanest images and the best chance for success. I will write more about the video aspect of MMD as I get deeper into it. I have saved your email and I will reply to you when I have a better answer.
SarahP wrote: How can I change the clothes on my models?
Using MMD, alone, you cannot change the clothes on your model. The models are designed as single units. They seem to have fabrics, belts, and chains that could be exchanged for other elements … but the models are actually only one piece. There is now software, just recently available in English, PMD Editor, that let’s you modify your models or even create a new one! Also called PMDE … PMD Editor is getting written-up in the pages of LearnMMD.com. Check it out!
Send Reggie an email to get your questions answered:
I just reset my laptop and most of my effects doesn’t work when i’m loading them, is there anyway to fix it?
“reset my laptop”. … did you check to see that the proper C++ and DirectX DLLs are still there? Go to Add/Remove Programs to see if the C++ are still installed. … You may need to add them, again… or redownload MikuMikuDance again. … I am just guessing… You are saying that MMD is still working but that MME is not… ? …
I’ve tried all the ways, but the effects still don’t appear when I load them. This issue often happens every time I reset the laptop, and sometimes it suddenly works back to normal (?). Btw, thanks for your time to answer my question.
Hi, I’m having some difficulty with MMD just recently. Every time I go to save an image it doesn’t work and says the file is either renamed or moved. I have no idea how to fix it or why it’s doing it too. It literally just started and I have no idea why it started.
(sorry I posted this in the wrong area before, new to this site in posting)
Hello! You can leave a comment on any page… they all come to my desktop. … Sorry that I do not have a solution for you. Maybe try downloading a fresh copy of MMD. Why it should “used to work but now it doesn’t”… I have no clue.
— Reggie
I am having a HUGE issue with MMD no matter what I do I can not fix this issue
do you know how i can make the kirakira have that hexagon looking effect when you zoom in like on this video? https://youtu.be/m-zN27c8gnU
KiraKira uses an image file to shape the “look”… I believe you create your own image file and keep that name: particle.png
when I go to try to open my MMD, nothing happens, when I click again on the MMD nothing happens, it only opens when I take it from its root folder, can you help me with this error?
I think you have solved it, yourself. Do not try to install MMD… just run it from inside its original folder.
Ultimately I found out that it’s perhaps because when MME finds effects it could not read file locations that are too long
So putting it in /desktop/MMD/UserFiles/Accesories/Effects works,
but putting it in /desktop/folder1/folder2/folder3/folder4/folder5/folder6/MMD/UserFiles/Accesories/Effects does not work.
Mystery solved for me I guess
That’s great news… I have had readers who had similar issues… and now I can report your success with having a shorter address chain.
Thank you!
— Reggie
https://learnmmd.com/http:/learnmmd.com/ray-mmd-demonstration-battle-stations-all-hands-on-deck/
Hi, just a simple question about Ray MMD, what is the “Bokeh Depth of Field” that the author keeps mentioning? I can’t seem to find such a slider in RayMMD controller. Thanks.
Here is the earliest Trackdancer tutorial that mentions it. … And then Search LearnMMD for Bokeh to see all of the mentions. The Search is that Magnifying Glass in the upper left corner of every page on LearnMMD.com
Oopsie! I ended to spam here with a single comment. I thought it didn’t went through ^^”’
https://learnmmd.com/http:/learnmmd.com/best-way-to-run-mmd-on-a-mac/
No worries… I have forwarded all of your comments about Linux / PMXe to Parkeerwacht (the author)… I hope he is able to get back to you with some answers.
Thank you!
Hi guys, I’m having the problem below, https://learnmmd.com/http:/learnmmd.com/fix-post-effect-cannot-be-specified-error/ I’ve installed MME properly and it can load stuff like G-shaders properly. However, all autoloading of .fx files is not loading. I tried loading ray.x but ray.fx will not get autoloaded into the MME panel, I tried loading o_SSAO.x but o_SSAO.fx will not get autoloaded into the MME panel. I followed the instructions from the page above, placed everything in the Effects folder, but I still cannot autoload .fx effects. What else could I try to do to troubleshoot?
Hello… I have no idea what you problem might be… but I wanted to say that with Raycast / Ray-MMD you do not simply load ray.x… There is an entire system for Ray-MMD that you have to use. See the many nice tutorials about Ray-MMD.
My problem is that when loading ray.x, ray.fx does not get autoloaded, but it was miraculously solved! I downloaded a MMD version 9.31 from this website and it started autoloading properly : ) I don’t know why but I’m glad that it’s solved now
MMD 9.31… interesting… thank you for that note!
Hi guys, I’m having the problem below,
https://learnmmd.com/http:/learnmmd.com/fix-post-effect-cannot-be-specified-error/
I’ve installed MME properly and it can load stuff like G-shaders properly.
However, all autoloading of .fx files is not loading.
I tried loading ray.x but ray.fx will not get autoloaded into the MME panel, I tried loading o_SSAO.x but o_SSAO.fx will not get autoloaded into the MME panel.
I followed the instructions from the page above, placed everything in the Effects folder, but I still cannot autoload .fx effects. What else could I try to do to troubleshoot?
Hi, it’s me again, I’ve got two quick questions. I might have reposted because I couldn’t see my last one, sorry.
So first, it’s impossible to get two MME effects on one single material, but you can get one global and one material effect on MME?
Like, G-shader and Ray MMD cannot be used together, but you can use SSAO with Ray MMD?
And secondly, the action smoother doesn’t seem like working for me.
https://learnmmd.com/http:/learnmmd.com/make-smooth-motions-using-multiple-keyframes/
I successfully unzipped the file and loaded a small VMD data with only minimal arm movement into it for testing, however, the out.vmd does not load into MMD because it says “This is not a VMD file!”. I’ve seen many comments with similar problems but I haven’t seen a solution.
Your kind help is much appreciated.
I want to ask is there something like a general and comprehensive list of MME for renders to look more real? I couldn’t find one on learn mmd, but there are indeed a lot of helpful and specific tutorials about these on learn mmd.
I already read about shaders, raycast, diffusion 7, object luminous, O_ global shaders and SSAO, but I’m not sure where to find them, and is there anymore more MMEs that are commonly used to make renders more realistic? Would appreciate any recommendations.
Hi again!
So making realistic renders with MMD is usually a little more difficult, as MMD is a stylised software. However, it is possible to make renders look *fairly* realistic if you use an effect system such as raycast. I recommend checking out Dendewa on DeviantART, they make some super realistic renders using raycast and some high quality stages such as here: https://www.deviantart.com/dendewa/art/Countach-Terzo-1-871847010. He has some effect downloads and a couple of tutorials which explains how he sets up his environments.
Hope this helps!
~chestnut
Many thanks for your recommendation, his works are impressive indeed, but I don’t see a lot of tutorials from him.
OK… when I am ready for another “New Model” story, I will pick the next one to enjoy… Thank you for your hard work/gifts to the MMD community!
You ask an open-ended question… and say you read about the answers, already… not much more anyone can say…more. See the wonderful articles by Trackdancer… his older posts discuss shaders and mixes of shaders that he can use to get just the visuals he wants. … See THIS one… and then See his whole catalog of articles… Trackdancer is a master of lighting and shaders… and his articles are chock-full of examples and details. Trackdancer has a huge following on Deviant Art… and 68 articles published, here, on LearnMMD.
Hello! I’m new to MMD and I recently found a game model I like on devianart but the problem is that it has in game bones which aren’t setup to be used with motions and I’m not sure what to do. I’ve tried looking up ways but most of them don’t answer my question, what do I do?
Hi there! If a model has no bones in MMD, or has a different bone structure to the models made for MMD, you’re probably going to need to re-rig the model. This will involve at the minimum weight painting, and physics if you want that too.
We have a helpful collection of tutorials all about rigging here: https://learnmmd.com/http:/learnmmd.com/category/rigging-models/, and there are also some video tutorials on YouTube if you wanna watch someone rig a model in real time. Hope this helps!
~chestnut
Hi, I was trying to download and use beamman’s effect (手動粘液エフェクト ManualLotion), but nothing except some bones showed up in MMD. I tried to open it with pmx editor but an error X3025 (error X3025: global variables are implicitly constant, enable compatibility mode to allow modification) showed up. I read a lot of pages about how to fix it but my programming skills isn’t good to fix the errors. I wonder if it’s a problem about reading the shader and .fx files.
Is it that I’m missing some shader software or some downloads like direct x or something, or I have to switch shader files to compatibility modes? I have no idea how to fix this.
Would really appreciate your kind help.
Hiya!
To get Manual Lotion to show up, you need to first register ‘Null_06’ to 100%, if you’re using English MMD (if you use JP MMD its the ‘太さ’ morph). This makes the lotion thicker and visible. you can then use the 3 bones to adjust the positioning of the effect. The other morphs will adjust colour, opacity and further positioning. Hope this helps! ᕕ( ՞ ᗜ ՞ )ᕗ
~chestnut
Thanks for the answer, but no, even when sliding Null06 to 100%, nothing shows up. I’ve ultimately discovered that the issue lies in that you must apply the .fx to the manual lotion through MME. Is this normal that we must manually load .fx? I’m really new to MMD so I’m not sure. Thanks for the help anyways.
Hi again!
So that is unusual at least for me, as the .fx loads up automatically when you load the model. But if manually loading it gets the effect to work that’s ok! Just requires a little bit longer to get it working, especially if there will be other effects where you have to do the same thing.
Glad you got it working tho!
~chestnut
In rough terms, there are two types of effects. One’s .fx loads automatically when an .x with the same first name is loaded as an accessory. The accessory itself is usually invisible and serves only as an anchor for the effect. These effects usually address the whole scene, like SSAO, for example (unless otherwise is specified). Another – yes, it has to be applied directly to a model through MME and affects specifically that model’s looks. ManualLotion is exactly that type.
that really clears things out.
thanks for the help
I want to use the Koharu Rikka MMD model, but most the joints are NULL, and the ones that are labelled are in Japanese.
Is anyone up for translating/labelling? I’ll pay for your time (assuming it’d take you a couple hours).
Reggie, are you up for it, or do you know anyone who might be? I’m not sure where else to ask…
Dude… it’s easy enough to do when you use PMXE (Here’s the version we recommend… v0254f_EN)
… and here are several articles on how to translate your models… easy-peasie.