Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Why is (model) not downloadable?

If a model is not downloadable, it could be a combination of factors, such as:

• •its not finished yet,
• •an error was discovered and the model was taken down for fixing,
• •its an old model and i feel embarassed about the quality
• •the model is an original character and i'd rather not have random strangers have the model,
• •i've used a part that can't be distributed freely,
• •the model is for friends only,
• •or i just don't feel like putting a download up.

The file is a .zip or .rar, how do I use it?

its kind of shocking to me that i have to answer this question now (back in MY day they taught us how to use these!! i dont know what schools are doing nowadays) download the file to wherever you want to store the model, right click and choose extract all (or it may appear as 'unzip' or 'unpack'). if you're unable to do this with a default program, you can download programs such as bandizip, winrar, 7zip, etc which are programs designed to handle zipped archives like this.

I downloaded a model, but it turns up white in MMD, what's happening?

Your download may have gotten corrupted in some way, try deleting and redownloading the file. If that doesn't fix it, send me a message and I'll look into it.

A model I want has been taken down, can I ask for a download?

No.

I want to use this model for VRchat/game mods.

well i got a word for ya!
dont.

I'm having an issue with the model.

Please send me a message and be as detailed as possible about the issue, and I'll do my best to help.

How do I use a customizable face model?

Sorry that this'll be a little long winded.
Step one is to open the TransformView window in PMX. Use whatever face shape sliders you want, and finish with eye sliders. I like to write down each slider I use somewhere and the value used on it. Once you have the face shape you want, save the model via TransformView as a new model. DO NOT CLOSE THE WINDOW YET.
Step two is to reset the eyes to their original shape. This is where it's useful to have your sliders and values written down!!!! The reason we're resetting the eyes is to save some facials so you don't have to edit them by hand.
Once the eyes are reset, use the blink slider and save it as a separate model (I usually save these files as (character name)_BLINK.pmx, or something similar). Now reset the blink slider, and use the smiling eye slider to do the same. Do this for every eye slider that would be heavily deformed by the edited eye shape; the ones I usually do this with are blink, smile eye, doubt, and any 'gag eye' slider. You don't have to worry about winks and left/rights, as you can create those from blinks and winks. To create winks from blink/smile eye sliders, you can refer to this tutorial by Nintendraw.
When you're all finished, you can load the edited face. Then navigate to the blink/smile eye/etc in the facial window, select Edit, and then you can load the PMX files of the 'corrected' facials that we made earlier.
I hope to make an image/video tutorial of this someday, but for now I hope this explanation works!

Can I request a game rip?

only if it's from the games I can successfully rip from: Time Princess, Zepeto, Koikatsu + Koikatsu Sunshine, Honeycome, Summer Vacation Scramble, Aicomi, or Abyssarium/Tap Tap Fish. If an FBX or XPS model exists somewhere, I can convert that, too.

What are the rules for using a game rip?

First, please understand that using game rips comes with its own risks. Legal action has never been taken as far as I've been made aware, but that doesn't mean it never will.
Game rips I post aren't very strict on rules, because I didn't make the item. What I ask is that you credit the original game/developers/etc, but you don't have to credit me. Don't use rips to make money of any kind, monetization is what will get you in legal hot water. I don't care if you reupload or repost game rips that I post, so long as you understand that you're taking a risk. That's about it.

Illusion/Illgames rips have these black and green textures. How do I use them?

How I use them requires Paint.NET (a free program) and this Make Transparent plugin.
I select one color (for example, black in an image that has only black and green), use the plugin to make it transparent, then use brightness/contrast and black and white filter to make the remaining parts completely black. Add a new layer, fill in with white, move underneath, merge, and then copy + paste that image into Clip Studio (other art programs will work too, so long as they have a "Brightness to Transparency" or similar filter). Then using the Brightness to Opacity option, the background becomes transparent, and the part I want can be freely recolored using clipping layers.
When working with one of these textures that has more than two colors, you'll need to isolate each color. When doing so, make sure the saturation and brightness on the color you choose to make transparent are both at their maximum; using pure red/green/yellow etc will work much better with the plugin than a color that's slightly off.
This is another thing I need to make an image/video tutorial on, but again, hopefully the wordy explanation will work for now.

What program do you use to model?

I used to use Metasequoia 3.1.6 until very very recently (don't even come for me, I didn't like meta 4 when it was first released but its tolerable to me now). I currently use Metasequoia 4 for most modeling, Blender for UV mapping and a slight few other models (such as ruffles and placing said ruffles and lace), and Clip Studio Paint to draw textures. I also frequently use Paint.NET with specific plugins to assist me, you can find a list on my about page!
Sometimes I may use textures purchased from other artists on Etsy or Ko-fi, if these textures are used they will be credited in the model's readme and publishing post.

How do you learn to model?

Honestly? It's a lot of 'fuck around and find out'. I frequently throw a random primitive and test a bunch of tools on it to get an idea of how they work. Back when I first started modeling, there weren't many tutorials or resources out there for Metasequoia at all, much less any in English, so FAFO was the main method a lot of us learned. Even though there's plenty of resources out there today, I highly reccommend the FAFO method on occasion! Just set aside half an hour or so and throw a bunch of tools and options at it and see what happens. If you have questions about anything specific, you're more than welcome to ask me, and I'll do my best to answer when I have the time.

These are words you'll need to know to understand what I'm talking about. :) Note that I am not a very elegant dictionary, if you want to know more about these terms I'd suggest searching them on your own. This is just a basic rundown.

MESH: What makes up the appearance of a model. A mesh is made up of triangles and quadrangles, frequently shortened to tris and quads.
TOPOLOGY: How the geometry of a face is made, basically. Topology is basically a 'structure', how the polygons that make up a model are arranged.
GEOMETRY: Referred to similarly as mesh and topology, the geometry of a model is the tris and quads that make up its parts.
UV MAPPING: the 'map' of a texture on a model. Mesh can be 'unwrapped' to allow images to be projected onto it. You can't really just throw any old image texture onto a model, if it's not UV mapped, the image won't appear how you want it to.
TEXTURE: Images projected onto a model's surface. The easiest example of this is eye textures, which come with basically every model.
BONES: A 'skeleton' that allows a model to move and be posed and animated.
WEIGHTING/RIGGING: A kind of "mapping" that tells a model which parts of a mesh to move with a bone. A model can have mesh and bones, but if it's not weighted/rigged, nothing will happen when manipulating bones.
RIGID/DYNAMIC BODY: Types of physics bodies. Physics in MMD are represented by simple shapes that act as a sort of hitbox for the mesh attached to bones. A rigid body is a solid body that does not move when physics are turned on, dynamic bodies are the physics that are set to move. For example, a model's arm physics will be rigid bodies, but the hair physics are dynamic bodies.
JOINTS: Anchors that attach physics together. These are required for dynamic physics to work properly. For example, a chain of hair physics needs a joint in between each body, usually placed on top of a bone. Clothing whysics also frequently have additional joints that attach bodies together in between, to keep circular physics connected in a circle.
FACIAL/MORPH: The options that appear in the morph manipulation window in MMD. These are things like blink, smile, angry brows, etc. When someone says 'morph', it's the same thing as a facial. They are interchangable terms. These are also referred to as shape keys in blender.

(wip)