Tutorials

  
  Tutorial: How to find and use Anime hairstyles for your anime models like Aiko! Also works for any other PMD objects too.

      Hello there! Today we'll be talking about what to do when you find yourself with exemetely limited opitions for your anime model, espeically when it comes to hair and the like.

    If you're new to Daz, or simply is just a cheapstake like I am, then that means you very rarely buy 3d models and objects to use in your renders. If you're like me, then that means that you rely exculsively on free downloads  provided by very talented creators on places like ShareCG here.

    But of course... this also means that you won't have things like hair for every occison. Espeically when it comes to anime-like hairstyles... everyone always uploads and share realstic-looking hair.. but they don't do much in the way of good anime hairstyles.  And you know how it is...photorealstic hairs don't always look right on anime models like Aiko.

  However, I came across the answer to this problem. Namely, importing things meant for a progam named Miku Miku Dance (or MMD for short). MMD is a lot like poser and Daz studio, with the difference being the focus on animating rather than making 3d images. Here is a example of what MMD does: http://youtu.be/Uwtr5HRD-H0

  To learn more about MMD, you can go here: http://learnmmd.com/about/

   The nice thing about the MMD community, is that even though you can use any models, inducing photo-realstic models, they tend to stick with mainly anime models... and so the community is often very deciated to making animequse stuff, inducing hair!

 Which means that if you're ever stuck on being unable to find hair for anime models like your hirtmoi, Aiko and Hiro models... or just plain sick of constantly using that Mistu hairstyle because it's the only one you have..... you can basically head to any MMD community and browse their hairstyle cagetory to find the hair you want!

  But you do need to covert the hairstyle into an OBJ file in forder for it to work on Daz Studio. So I'll tell you what you need:

•  3D max, hexagaon or any other 3d modelling progam that has both PMD and OBJ support.
• PMD Plugins for those progams if they don't have pmd support built in. I use a plugin for 3d max.
• (optional) A PMD editor or the MMD progam itself, just in case.

  You can find it all at the following:

http://download.cnet.com/MikuMikuDance-MMD/3000-2186_4-75872484.html

http://ibozo.deviantart.com/art/PMDEditor-0139-and-0219-english-translation-375517501
http://starsneverstop.deviantart.com/art/PMD-Editor-English-Download-434539339  PMD Editor, english verison

http://www.maxplugins.de/max2012.php?search=PMD&sort=Author  PMD plugin for 3d Max, which I use. for other progams you should be able to google it... if you can't find it on google talk to me and I'll do my best to help you. more information on your needs can be found here too: https://sites.google.com/site/mikumikubeat/tutorials/makemodel/01

http://www.oogtech.org/content/tag/import-from-mmd-to-blender/

 Okay, now we need something to pratice your importing skills on... how about this anime hair here?
http://amiamy111.deviantart.com/art/MMD-Crazy-Twirl-bun-updated-214474972

  Notice, if you use that hairstyle you have to follow the rules for using it as set forth by the creator.

 Here's the steps for using it in Daz studio:

1.  Okay, so we'll download that hair, and then unzip it into a folder where you can find it easily.
2. (optional) view it in PMD editor or in your MMD progam to see how it looks,  and this way you can view it from all angles to see if there's some problems and or defects with it.  If you like it, procceed with the next step in coverting it to a OBJ file.
3. Close PMD editor, open your 3d modelling progam. If you use 3d max and installed the PMD progam correctly, then a new popup menu should appear alongside your usual stuff, with the ablity to import or export pmd models into the progam. Here's a video showcasing this. the video is in japanese, but it still shows you the gerenal idea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMfIoBIM7_U
4. If it's textureless in some parts, don't panic... this is normal. We can add the textures back in when you've imported it to Daz studio.
5. export to obj file the usual way you do in your 3d progam of your own choosing. That's it, you don't really need to do anything  to the hair model. close the progam afterwards.
6. open up daz studio, and then go to import under file menu... go to the folder that you exported the obj file to... which should be in the same folder as the pmd hair, in order to find it more easily. import that.
7. Now you have new anime hair to play around with for your model! Just remember to save this thing as after you've done re-adding the textures or colors back on that hair.. this way you can reuse it again and again instead of importing it again every time.

    Thats' it! The best thing about this is that there's a lot of hair resources for your toons on places like deviantart, so you can download all the hairs you want to your heart's content. The downside though, is the lack of rigging for some long hairs once you've imported it into a obj file... but that can be easily fixed in your 3d progam, whenever it be in 3d max, blender... you can even add the bones/rigging in Daz studio directly once you've imported it there.

   But that's another issue for another day. Just know that you're no longer limited in your hair choices. or even for cute anime accessories.... I've downloaded a pair of cute bunny headphones using this method as well.