#mmd tips

[poriferathief]

Hoi i’m not a saint at mmd animation bUT

I know enough good tips so let’s have a lookie here (I’m like....120% not aware of any slang or terms in the MMDC at all so if I say weird things or use uncommon terms I’m sorry;; I was self taught mostly):

KEY FRAMES!! Know about them from like 2D animation? Do that with MMD frames. Basically, it’s just a bunch of poses you’re gonna thread together. I usually register all possible bones in them.

After you do the key frames, then worry about the in-betweens, then whatever next after the in-betweens, and more.

In general, staring at how people move is a good idea. Just don’t get caught looking creepy or anything!!

Watch 👏 music 👏 videos 👏 mang 👏

Speaking of the last link, this iconic MMD meme/dance was made from copying the dance of an already existing video. You can put AVI videos in the background of your workspace. I’ve never done it tho;;

hhhhhh here’s some more of those kinds of vids. They’re inspiring, huh?

“BOX-sel” isn’t really good unless you’re making new hand poses. It can catch bones behind the focus of your intended selection and ruin an animation fast.

Oh that reminds me: MAKE YOUR OWN POSES! The software comes with fist and 1/2 fist for L and R hands, but that’s it. Don’t be afraid to spoil your future self by making open hand poses for L, R and BOTH hands, relaxed shoulder poses, a natural starting pose, or even leg bend poses for the pesky legs. etc etc, go wild and make a nice catalog of bits of bones to use for Frankensteined key frames.

Facial expressions can only be saved by saving it as a motion data.

Hold SHIFT to select multiple individual bones!

“[select limb bone(s)] > copy > revers” in the bone manipulation box will save you time posing the second arm/leg/wing/eye, and give you a symmetrical pose.

“unregistered > register” in the bone manip box registers all unregistered bones into one frame at once. So you don’t have to worry about going back and forth and accidentally pressing “reset”.

“File > play WAV with frame”

The arrow keys, if you’re in the cell window, can scroll through the animation.

There’s also box selecting for cells.

YOU CAN SELECT AND DRAG CELLS ACROSS FRAMES! Made a great swing but it’s too fast? Started animating out of sync? Move the cells to fix it!

the play box has two empty boxes where you can put the range of frames you want to play. The check box “from frame” plays from the frame you’re on at the moment, and “stop frame” will go to the last frame the animation was on when you unpressed (???) play.

For bones, ctrl+z works, but not ctrl+y. Luckily there’s a sneaky box at the top of the cell window with a redo button. :3c

Speaking of: the program has tons of keybound shortcuts. Try learning a few combos so you can make things run faster. Personally I only use P for playing/stopping and TAB for switching between the models/camera data.

With big projects, it’s best to do smaller, easier things and thread the bigger, harder things together in the end. Wanna make a new motion data with lip sync and realistic expressions to a song that’s 4:30 mins? Personally I’d try to do lip syncing first.

Sliding the expression sliders midway and not all the way is good for mixed, unique expressions. Depends on the model, though (I’m working with models with very binary sliders, as in, the midways look ugle. So I can’t try mixed expressions like usual orz)

It’s okay to go back and redo things!

If you’re a babby animator, 🅱️LEASE 🅱️ON’T 🅱️TART with a 4:30min song if you know you can’t handle it. Each second is about 15~25 mins per unique animation depending on factors like familiarity with the model, desired level of detail, etc

Try doing small snippets of songs, or camera motion data if cells are hard to work with.

I’m...I’m avoiding talking about the Interpolation curve. It changes the transition between the selected set of bones. Group A and B of bones are registered on the cell window. They are the same bones on different frames. To use the IP curve you select Group B and just shimmy the line in the box and just click away. The line expresses a “speed” at which the bone pose in Group A go to Group B, and if you shimmy the line down, it goes slower, and up it goes faster.

The IP curve can help with “dramatic expressions.” That’s all I can say to explain it without having another point like the last one >m<;; The IP curve is definitely not needed to have a good-looking animation.

Download other peoples’ motion data and study how they did it. Dig through their stuff, it’s only happening in your computer. Don’t feel guilty if you cut out cells, reposition things, mess up the IP curve, etc. The creator won’t know or care, probably.

It’s 👏 gonna 👏 look 👏 doofy 👏 90% 👏 of 👏 the 👏 time 👏👏👏

Uhh I’m running out of tips, so this is all for now! I don’t even know if half of this is common knowledge in the community, but it would sure help a newbie out! Thanks for reading, here’s a cookie: 🍪 (I feel like I’m in 2010 again)

[lunathewafflelord]

MMD model making tip:

If you want your model to have pants or stockings, unless you want your model to have baggy pants or a specific pants shape (bell bottoms, cuffed jeans, etc), it's much easier to simply retexture the existing leg material rather than adding someone else's stocking or tight fitting pants model part to your model. You won't have to worry about the legs clipping through the pants when using motions, and you also don't have to manually fit the pants to the model's leg shape!

You can either edit the texture of the whole body using your preferred image editing software and retexture just the leg part of the texture, or you can separate the legs from the main body material and edit them separately.

I recommend the second method, as it'll make editing the textures simpler. You don't have to worry about the pants part of the texture spilling (for lack of better wording) onto the rest of the body, as the pants have their own texture. It's also better for when you're making renders of the model, you can give the pants a different shader from the main body, useful for when you want to apply a cloth/fabric shader to the pants but not the skin.

I see SO MANY models with stocking and pants related clipping issues which could easily be fixed by simply retexturing the legs rather than fitting pants or stockings to a model. I'm guilty of this, and after learning this life hack making models wearing pants or stockings is much simpler!

This method is also useful for things like gloves and some shirts, assuming you don't plan on having any 3D added details to the gloves.

If you want your model to have baggy pants or cuffs on the legs then this method won't help as much, but for tight fitting pants and socks such as stockings it'll make things much simpler!

Will update with images when I get my computer back from being repaired!

[mmderproblems]

What graphic card can you recommend for MME?

Honestly, it really depends what effects you want to use, but for MME and MMD in general, it’s actually more about RAM and overall processing power than the graphics card. AMD makes good cards though- my laptop loads all the effects I currently have and use even though MMD runs slow on it.

~Mod Dweeby

[s-ephiroth]

Some MMD'ing tips for you guys

Feel free to reblog and add your own tips as well.

While making a .sph file, if you leave the picture kinda transparent and save it as a .png instead of a .bmp and then, change it's extension to .sph, you'll have a transparent .sph file. It's really useful to make glass, plastic or crystal like .sph files

You can cut parts from a base, edit, put the parts back on the base, make some adjusts, add accessories and you'll have fitting clothes for your model. This works nice if you can also make addons like buttons, zippers and stuff like that in other programs or if you can add these things from another model.

Editing parts like shoes, pants, skirts, etc, to make totally different stuff can be creative and will give that "exclusive look" to your model. E.g: Editing boots into Heeled Sneakers, by adding straps from other shoes or keeping the ones with came in the boots, but shorter.

While making an OC, try to draw it first. Yet that you don't draw that good, it's nice to develop the character's design better. It's better when searching for parts, also.

Try to combine more than two parts for the top if you can. This can make the whole thing look more creative. But, be careful about chest physics when doing so.

Try crazy things, but be careful to not go extreme crazy.

Pose the hands, even if you do that with the default hand poses that comes with MMD.

Don't overuse pose packs.

If a part is overused, try to make it look more original with editing, texture-editing, accessory adding. Changing the eye file already changes the look on the model.

Color the eyebrows properly. Except if your character / self model has dyed hair.

Be polite while asking for anything.

Being nice gives you popularity slower, but it's better than being a douche.