World of MMD

Well so far I've only been posting up my schoolwork here. I thought I might branch out and put up some things I've done in my free time. Wait, FREE TIME? What is that? Well believe it or not, I have it. Sometimes. Mostly on the weekends. How? I'm amazing. Oh, and I take a pretty good pride in time management.

But aside from that, there are little side projects I work on sometimes. Mostly for a program called "Miku Miku Dance." It's a program used to create 3D animations. Along with two more programs, Metasequoia and PMD Editor, you can create models and animate them in MMD. I don't know, it's something I do for fun and practice my 3D modeling. The models I create in Metasequoia or usually very simple and require little UV unwrapping and texturing, so I can rig and finish them must more quickly. So here are some things I've done.

Last weekend I made a model of "Kirby" based on the little pink fluffball from the Nintendo games. A while ago, I guess that'd be my high school years now... wow, has it been so long that I can look back on those and reminiscence? I guess so. Anyways back then I had made a human variation of him. A very simple and cute design.

The desu

Well for fun I decided to model him in the Metasequoia program. It is a 3D modeling program, much more simplified than Max or Maya. That makes it both easier and harder to work with at the same time... I mean that because there are some functions missing that I am use to, but it's also easier to work with some things. The interface also took a long time to get used to.

Orthographic drawings

My main problem with metasequoia is that the UV unwrapping isn't very intuitive... or at least, I haven't found a way to do it well yet. the best option I've found is just projecting the UVs. There is no pelt, relax, or unfold options. So I don't know a better way to do this.

Anyways, finish modeling in Metasequoia, and export the model. Then I load it into PMD Editor. This creates a PMD, the type of file used in MMD. In PMDe I rig the model with bones, and add facial expressions. In MMD there is a physics engine which actually takes care of all the secondary and overlapping animation, if applied correctly of course. It took a while to figure out the physics engine and I'm still learning. But I applied physics to Kirby's hair, hood, and the pullstrings of his hoodie. So when he animates, those parts move automatically! It might not sound convincing.

Anyways, after the rigging is done, I can load the finished model into MMD. And now I can have all the fun I want with it. Though MMD is an animation program, I don't find it very intuitive. There is no way to "scrub" between frames, or at least I haven't found a way. As of now I have no worthwhile animations, but thanks to the community surrounding the program, people will animated models and give out the "motion data." Most models are rigged to a uniform skeleton, so this motion data can be shared easily!

So far, that's what I've done. I will apply motion data I like to my models and they will animate, and well, helps me show them off. Here's pretty much the end product.

I would like to restate that I DID NOT animate the model! I created the model. I used the motion data used by someone else to animate it. But here you can see how the physics work as secondary animation. It's pretty neat.

Anyways, I'm fairly fascinated with MMD and the other programs I use with it. I like doing these kinds of things for fun. Now that I've explored it here, I might add more production images of while I'm creating models in Metasequoia.

On a final note, MMD, PMDe, and Metasequoia are Japanese programs. They originated in Japan. So yes, that is the kind of thing they are gears towards.