MMD

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WHAT IS IT?

In short, MMD or MikuMikuDance is a free program originally made for Vocaloid characters that allows the user to create all kinds of performances themselves. These presentations can use either ready-made motion and character files or create everything yourself from scratch. The presentation can also be rendered and shared on Youtube, for example.

So in its simplest form, MMD selects a pre-modeled character, soundtrack, and background, loads the motion data for the character and the “camera” that describes the show - and launches the show!

We recognize that similar software with VR extensions have now been launched by commercial operators, but in this article we will ignore them and focus only on open source MMD software. As a side note; amazing similarities can be seen with the features and functionality of MMD and these commercial programs, from which everyone can draw their own conclusions.

MikuMikuDance or MMD

MikuMikuDance is a free 3D program that allows anyone to create performances either from scratch or using ready-made character models and choreographies.

With a separate VR extension, the user can “dive” into a presentation made in the MMD studio!

A few things about use

MMD is of Japanese origin, and although there is an English version, it is not always able to communicate smoothly with a Western computer - the program itself usually works without major problems, but content made for the program in Japan, for example, may not load correctly.

For maximum compatibility, the user must first install the full Japanese language and character set on their computer's operating system. After this, the computer will no longer Convert the hiragana, katakana, and kanji characters in the files to the herring salad of the Western “romaji character set”, but will save them in their original form and MMD will be able to read them correctly.

Related to the former, a common problem is the “lack” of textures in some of the character models downloaded from the web as zip files, which in turn leads to “all-white characters”. Textures aren’t actually missing, but they don’t load / merge into the character. This is due to the most commonly used decompressor that has not been able to decompress the kanji characters in files correctly. An .pmx or older .pmd file that contains character data will look for textures with exactly the names specified by the author of the character, and the decompressor must not “apply” to the file names at all, but must extract them exactly as they were entered in the character. One program that is able to extract files is ZipExtractor. (Another option, of course, is to open the .pmx file with an editor and manually enter each texture to be outlined with new names, however, I personally do not prefer this because there are a considerable number of filenames to change.)

To avoid compatibility errors, you should always run the MMD application with “Japanese localization” - this is done with a separate program that “sits” between the MMD and the operating system and tells MMD that it is a native Japanese operating system.

Finding content

The most significant resources for character, motion, and camera data are arguably Japanese niconico. It’s social media that could perhaps be compared to Youtube. Users upload their works to the service, and often the description of the videos includes a link to the characters and other files used. The site is in Japanese throughout, and full access is often required to log in (register). Sometimes the video description has a link to an external file storage service. Another popular site among character creators is DeviantArt. The latter is basically in English.

Authors often set password protection for their files, who wants to figure out the password first before they can download the files. In practice, this usually means following the instructions in the description of the video.

Character data cannot generally be shared on this site or anywhere else without the author’s permission, and their producers have almost invariably prohibited sharing. Files must be retrieved from servers specified by the authors.


Oletko löytänyt jotain MMD:hen liittyvää minkä haluaisit jakaa muiden harrastajien kanssa?

We would love to hear about it! E-mail or fill out the contact form on the website and let us know!

PROGRAMS
Links lead to sites outside of this site - downloads at your own risk!

MikuMikuDance / VPVP
MikuMikuDance / LearnMMD
Microsoft AppLocale
Locale Emulator / Paddy Xu
ZipExtractor / Vector Inc
MMD VR extension
DATA
Links lead to sites outside of this site - downloads at your own risk!

Niconico
DeviantArt
Bowlroll

ZIPEXTRACTOR
Here are a few illustrative pictures of using ZipExtractor.

File name difference

Be sure to choose the correct character set!
Selection & Destination folder

Thanks for the .vpd files used on the site:

[DeviantArt] - Xinxhin, MaiCroft, Nessa-sama, Snorlaxin, Carl-Olof and Brytevere.

All characters used are the copyright of their respective owners.