When Dancing In FFXI Isn't Enough...

You take it to MMD!

Not really sure why, but I felt like being random and posting this. ._.

This is a vid of my FFXI character and an LS member dancing just after I finished rigging his model and his automaton. /hides

You can watch it in HD on YouTube...

Oh, Para Para dancing.

Night of Fire!

very cute, did you rig and animate it in Maya?
I'm curious what program you used and how you extracted the model.

I rigged the models using a program called PMDe. I extracted the models using Model Viewer for FFXI. It extracted them into an MQO format, which I then changed to a .x format using Metasequoia. Once in an .x format, I could import it into PMDe and rig the model to a skeleton and add clothing physics and the like. Once it's all rigged, it is then saved into a .pmd format so that the MMD(MikuMikuDance) program can open it as a model file. From there you can use the timeline to animate a model frame by frame by moving the model's skeleton.

The particular dance shown in this video wasn't made by me, however I don't know who made it. I do have a few motions of my own, but I've never released any because my work embarrasses me, lol.

Once you've made a motion data in MMD, you can save it as a .vmd file and basically give it to anyone/put it up for download. Then anyone can basically load that motion data onto their model and have them replicate the same dance so long as the bones have the same names, which it is standard procedure for all models to have the same names for their bones.

Nice, thanks for the info!
I've extracted ffxi models and used metasequoia before, so I was mostly curious about the workflow when it came to the rigging and animating part.
I always wondered if people were using the same skeleton the game used or just made one from scratch and had to rebind+redo all the weighting which is alot more work.

A subligar would have made this all the shades of awesome. It's still awesome though :)

For the rigging part, you basically have to make a skeleton or import one from an existing model. For practicing's sake, when I first tried rigging I imported Miku's skeleton data (she comes with the program) to use on some first try models I converted from FFXI. Once you've got the skeleton made/imported, you have to go in an weight the vertices (all the little squares that make up up the model) to each corresponding bone. If you're familiar with VRS weighting, what I'm trying to say might make more sense... I'm not very good at explaining these sorts of things. <_<; But when I first started, I practiced rigging legs first because they're prolly the simplest part of a model to rig.

If you REALLY wanna learn how to do it, I could give a step by step sort of thing using pictures and stuff. (I'm a picture learner... <_<) Prolly would have to take that to private messages though or something.

But yeah, the models don't come with the FFXI skeleton, so you have to make them a skeleton and rig them yourself. I don't mind it so much cuz it means I can put pretty clothing physics and hair physics which kinda suck in FFXI for the most part.

I technically could get him in a subligar, but I think he might rage if I put his character in a subligar and had him prancing around. xD

Why can't Elvaan DNCs dance this fluidly?

all i could think about watching the video was my elvaan in a subi totally dancing, and yes i rock my subis well. just ask my ls we got alot of random moments when i strip down to it.

really like the video and the elvaan in the video is my same model

u just havent found the right elvaan then ^^

Love you love you love you. @____@;

Dem subligars, lol

A PUP and his automaton dancing? An elvaan PUP at that?

I greatly approve. ALL OF MY +'s!

subis rule but the choco-subi OMG they just make ur gil melt in ur pocket

kinda like M&Ms in ur mouth

Hot. Rate up /

Maybe I'll eventually post one of my motion data dances once I feel less embarrassed about it. One of the dances I have traced was the Flashback choreography from WAVEYA, but... it's one of those "Sexy" dances, and Firi isn't allowed to be "sexy." ; ;

Everyone views me as cute and innocent. Firi + Sexy = divide by 0 implosion. But... sometimes Firi wishes she was sexy...