MMD To Blender Tutorial!
Time to learn how to use MMD models in Blender! This tutorial will make it easier for you to import
PMD/PMX files to MMD! You’ll eventually end up with images like this!
Things you’ll need:
-
Any version of Blender, it really doesn’t matter!
MMD Tools Blender plugin
PMD Editor (for easy posing)
A model of your choice in PMD/PMX format
Before you do any of this, you want to apply a pose to the model of choice using PMD editor, just
click Transform View, then Edit, VPD-File related, then Reading Shape (Click T, then E, then V, then L
if you’re using the Japanese version of the editor). This’ll let you choose a pose to load onto your
model. Once you’ve found one, click File, then In Form Of Current Save, which will let you save the
model as it is posed (Click F, then S if using the Japanese version). Make sure it is saved in the same
folder as the original folder or it won’t read the textures!
Now to using Blender!
First, you’ll need to download your version of Blender from http://www.blender.org/
The latest version will do just fine for the thing we are trying to achieve. You’ll also want to
download PMD Editor (I don’t have a link for this) and MMD Tools (The link for this is here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBX7DHfQ9SU )
Once you have both of these downloaded, you need to unzip your Blender and put it on your
desktop for easy access! You should do the same for the MMD Tools folder. Once you’ve done this,
copy the MMD Tools folder (It should not be called blender_mmd_tools-master, if it is, you need to
double click it and the correct folder will be there, you need the inner folder) and paste the folder
into the Addons folder of Blender. If you can’t find this, the folders you need to click are the Blender
folder, then the fodler that is the version number (Mine is 2.74), then Scripts, then Addons. Just
paste the folder here, then open up Blender. It should look like this.
Complicated, right? Quickly delete that box in the middle of the screen by clicking Delete on your
keyboard, then hitting Enter. Now, you’ll notice MMD Tools won’t show up on the interface when
you’ve loaded it up for the first time (But it does on my example, as I already have it loaded). Well,
to make the MMD Tools show up, you want to click File, then User Preferences. It brings up this box
here
Scroll through this until you find Object: mmd_tools. Check the box, then click Save User Settings. It’s
important you click Save User Settings otherwise the tool won’t show up! Now along the left side of
the screen, you should have a tab that says mmd_tools. Click this and you get a different sidebar
show up, it’ll look like this.
To import a model, click the ‘Import Model’ button, then you can find the model you saved.
But wait! Before you click Import PMD/PMX, you need to uncheck a box. See this?
You need to uncheck ‘Rename Bones’, as leaving this will either cause Blender to take a long time to
load the model, or Blender will crash completely. Renaming bones has no effect on the model, so
unchecking this box will not cause anything bad to happen. Once you click ‘Import PMD/PMX’, your
model will appear! It’ll look something like this!
(I’m using TDA Hagane Miku by Kodd84 on DeviantArt)
To move the screen so that you can look at the model better, you need a mouse. Click and hold the
middle button (or roller) to rotate the view. Hold ‘Shift’ and click and hold the middle button to
move the camera. Now, to select your model, right click on it and an orange outline will appear
around it. You can click F12 to see a rendered result, so let’s see how it looks now!
Whaaaat!? This does not look good at all! We’ll need to edit the Camera angle and the Lamp to
make this picture look more effective! Press ‘Esc’, which will take you back to the interface, then
right click on the thing circled in red
This is your camera! Once you’ve selected it, and you’ll know when you have, it’ll look like this:
Recognise those arrows? They are just like MMD when you try to move a bone on something like
TDA Miku’s pigtails! The arrows indicate where it will move if you use them. To move the camera,
simply click and drag on the arrow, and it will move! To preview the camera angle, press ‘0’ the
numberpad of your keypad (If you don’t know what the numberpad is, it’s the little grid of numbers
on one side of your keyboard and the numbers are arranged like a phone). To rotate the camera,
you need to be in preview view, which will look like this:
Notice how my model isn’t in the orange frame? This is because I need to rotate the camera angle.
To do this, press ‘R’ once, which puts it into rotation mode. In this mode, you can rotate it around a
point by moving the mouse. To get it to rotate a different way, press one of these letters:
R – This will allow you to move the camera in any way you like, but this is very difficult to control.
X then X again – This will allow you to move the camera angle up and down
Y then Y again – This will allow you to move the camera angle from side to side
G then move the mouse – This allows you to pretty much do the same as what you can do with the
arrows when you aren’t in Preview mode, except it can be more inaccurate to some degree.
Once you have positioned the camera as you like, leave the preview mode by pressing ‘0’ on your
numberpad again. Let’s take a look at how it looks now once we’ve rendered it by pressing F12.
Still dark, right? This is because you need to change the positioning and strength of the lamp. To do
this, click ‘Esc’ to get your interface up. Now, see what I’ve circled.
This is your lamp, which is what controls most of the lighting in your scene. Right click on it to
highlight it and you’ll notice the arrows come back again. You guessed it, you can easily manipulate
your lamp like this! Once we’ve moved it, you may want to edit how the lamp looks! To do this, you
want to click on the icon I have circled in red.
It kind of looks like a little lamp, doesn’t it? On this tab, you can change the colour, intensity and
type of lamp it is. I recommend ‘Point’ for these kinds of pictures, but you can experiment with the
others. See the slider that says ‘Ener’? That stands for energy, and changing that value will make the
lamp either brighter or darker. Making the number bigger will make it brighter, and making the
number smaller will make it darker. You only need to make small changes to the number, like from
1.0 to 2.0, which will make it much brighter, or 1.0 to 0.5, which will make it much darker. The
number can only go to 10.0, and at this point, it makes the lamp so bright the details on the model
are not visible. That white bar I have circled in yellow is where you change the colour of the lamp,
just click on it and a colour wheel will pop up. Choose your colour then click elsewhere and it will
register the colour change. The shadow tab will determine whether the lamp causes a shadow to be
left. If you want it to look realistic, then leaving it on ‘Ray Shadow’ is the best option. If you don’t
want shadows at all, click ‘No Shadow’, which will stop shadows from being rendered. Once you’ve
fiddled around with these options a little, press F12 to see the rendered result.
Much better! See how the textures are already there? This is because of the MMD tool! Now, this is
something I like to do, I like to add a surface behind the model so that a shadow is cast onto the
surface. To do this, exit the render preview, then go to the tab on the left and click ‘Create’.
This is where you can create a shape to use as a surface. I use ‘Plane’, so click on plate and a flat
square will turn up. The panel I have circled in yellow will change once you have created a plane. You
can use the ‘Radius’ box to change how big it is, and the ‘Vector’ boxes can move it. The arrows that
appear also do this. Using the ‘Rotate’ boxes that appear will rotate the plane. Playing around with
these settings is the best way to find out what they do. Position and resize the plane until you get
this
Although this may look slightly strange, it will look like this once you have rendered it
If you want to adjust how the shadow looks, just move the plane back or adjust the lamp. I think the
shadow is a little big, so I’ll move the lamp back.
Done! Now the shadow looks proportional and, more importantly, it makes the image look more
effective. Once you’re happy with this render, click where I have circled, then click ‘Save As Image’.
Alternatively, pressing F3 will take you straight to the screen where you want to save it, so name it
and save it!
The handy thing with MMD tools is you can make a Cycles render easily and effectively with just a
few clicks! Normally, it would take hours to organise the nodes and load the textures, but with the
MMD tool, it does all of this for you! You can achieve an image that looks like this!
To make your model ready for a Cycles render, just press ‘ESC’ to leave the render preview, then
click on the mmd_tools tab on the left side of your screen. This should show up.
You need to right click your model, then click ‘Convert Materials…’. This will convert all textures and
everything else into nodes, which is what Cycles uses to generate the rendered effect. After you
have clicked this, just click F12 again, and it will look like this.
It doesn’t look much different right? However, the model has slightly more depth and the image is
slightly darker and grainy. We can sort the grainy part out easily. Just press ‘Esc’ to get this screen
again.
Click on the Camera icon which I have circled in red, then scroll down to ‘Sampling’. Look at the part I
have circled in yellow. You want the ‘Render’ box, which should be increased to 100. This should not
really be increased beyond 150, or it will take ages to render! If the image is a dark image, you
should go towards 150, as darker parts are more grainy, but if your image is quite a light one, you
can stick towards 100-110 for the number. Once you have changed the ‘Render’ setting, press F12
again.
See? No more grainy mess!
This is the basics of Blender, there is not much more to be taught apart from changing textures, but
this is something I do not know how to do well myself! There is a tutorial here on how to make
things shiny, although it is not extremely detailed http://baka-chanlove.deviantart.com/art/MMDBlender-Tutorial-Reflective-Areas-429175943
Questions I have seen asked many times:
Q: The MMD_Tools option does not appear in the User Preferences even though it is in the Addons
folder!
A: There seem to be many reasons for this to be honest, but the only reason I can find for this not
working is that you have not copied the correct folder. You do not copy the blender_mmd_toolsmaster folder, you copy for folder inside this!
Q: My textures don’t show up when I load the model!
A: The only explanation for this is that you saved the model you changed in PMD to a different
location to your textures. A simple solution for this is to move the model file back to the original
model folder, then reload the model in Blender. All textures should be present.
Q: How is the MMD tool different from the importPMDmodel plugin?
A: This tool allows you to convert the textures to Cycles nodes instead of you having to do it
manually, and it has other features as well, although I do not know the extent of these features
myself. All I know is that it saves you a lot of manual work when it comes to Cycles renders.
Credits:
PalkiaTheLegendary for the tutorial
Baka-chanLove for the shiny effect tutorial which I have placed a hyperlink to
Kodd84 for the AMAZING Hagane Miku model I have used for this tutorial! I would recommend
going to their gallery, they have made all of the Hagane models and a beautiful Zatsune Miku!
http://kodd84.deviantart.com/gallery/52747753/Downloads