HOME | DD
Trackdancer — MMD Tutorial - Skydomes Tips and Tricks
#mmd #skydomes #chibiia
Published: 2015-07-29 21:42:05 +0000 UTC; Views: 10774; Favourites: 154; Downloads: 108
Redirect to original
Description
Someone wanted more info on skydomes and I thought about it more and realised that they might have a point so I had Chibi IA do the rest ...Related content
Comments: 69
What .fx file goes where after loading the skydome and ray.x file in the mme tabs? I'm unfamiliar with the file names.
sky with box blur wsith rotation.fx
sky with box blur.fx
sky with box with rotation.fx
sky with box.fx
sky with box.pmx (I know exactly where to load this one - models XD)
sky with dome with rotation.fx
sky with dome.fx
sky with lighting fast.fx
sky with lighting with rotation.fx
sky with lighting.fx
I know in your tutorial you suggested using sky with lighting.fx in envlightmap tab, but what's "sky with lighting with rotation" used for?
And does anything go into fogmap, lightmap, main tab, etc? Asking cause file names differ significantly from included skyboxes in raycast like Time of Day/Night
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
In the Main tab you can replace the regular Sky with Box.fx with sky with box with rotation.fx (I never use the blur one). If you use the Rotation FX file in the Main tab, then you also need to change the the FX file in the EnvLightMap tab to sky with lighting with rotation.fx. So both the Main tab and the EnvLightMap will have Rotation. Like the name suggests, this allows you to rotate the skydome, and the lighting will rotate along with the skydome.
To be perfectly honest, I do not know why there are sky with dome.fx and sky with dome with rotation.fx options. They do the same thing that sky with box.fx and sky with box with rotation.fx do. As far as I can tell, all of the sky "boxes" are actually domes. Real skyboxes are used in video games, but MMD uses domes.
In the FogMap tab you may have three options (depending on which skydome you are using):
Time of fog.fx (For most skydomes you would use this)
Time of fog with godray.fx (use this if it is available)
Time of fog with godray with cloud caster.fx (I think this is only in the Time of Day skydome)
God Ray creates shafts of light to be visible in the fog. It looks very cool if setup properly. You may need to adjust the position of the lighting to see it.
You do not need to do anything in the LightMap tab.
Make sure the MaterialMap tab is set to material_skybox.fx (this is in the Material folder).
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
******Hmmm.. The template folder in tools of raycast don't have time of fog .fx files. Can I copy and paste "time of fog" "time of fog with godray" and "time of fog with godray with cloudcaster" into the folders of other skyboxes and use them?
And to be clear
Under EnvLight tab Use
sky with lighting fast (dunno when to use)
sky with light (to make that skybox radiate light)
sky with lighting with rotation (to be able to rotate sky dome - use in conjunction with sky with with rotation in main tab)
Under Main tab Use
Sky with box (normal use and default)
sky with box with rotation (to rotate sky dome)
sky with box blur (both with or without rotation - never used so dunno)
Under fogmap Use (NOT INCLUDED IN TEMPLATE FOLDER)
Time of fog (
time of fog with godray ,(use when possible)
time of fog with godray with cloud caster (only with Time of Day skybox)
sky with dome and sky with dome with rotation are unknown so don't use
Update:
In regards to question in first line, I copied and pasted the three files and used "time of fog with godray" from time of day skybox to aokcub's skybox. I then used "time of fog with godray" in the fogmap folder and it was a no go
Error: Failed to load effect file
I guess I can't do that then? To just copy and paste Time of Day's fog fx files into other skyboxes and use them? Cause raycast's template folder didn't come with fog.fx files.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
The Time of Day / Night FX files are specific to those skydomes. The Time of Day skydome has moving clouds that need to be present for the cloud caster to work.
If there are no fog options for the skydome you are using, then just leave the fog off. There is a separate Fog folder in Raycast, so you can manually add the fog if you wish.
Everything else sounds correct. Keep in mind that radiant skydomes (which are .pmx files) are different from regular skydomes (usually .x files). If you want to use a regular skydome with Raycast Shader, I recommend converting it's texture file into a radiant skydome using the tools that Raycast provide in the Tools folder.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
XXD Thank you for clear up!
I found the godray in Fog > Atmospheric Fog folder
atmospheric fog with god ray high
atmospheric fog with god ray low
atmospheric fog with god ray medium
Can I copy and paste these over to the skydome folders?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
>> Can I copy and paste these over to the skydome folders?
No, those effects are specifically for the AtmosphericFog.pmx in the Fog folder. If you use the PMX file, the skydome does not need any fog FX. AtmosphericFog.pmx creates much more fog than the skydome would create.
For more info on the fog models watch this video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZhzCy…
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Is there a clearer explanation for which tool does what anywhere? I see the readme images, but it's a little hard to tell exactly what each tool makes.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Raycast wasn't around when this tutorial was written.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Oops. Sorry. I did not notice the date on it.
👍: 1 ⏩: 0
question: umm how exactly do u set the time when the next dome appears? do you just simply set it to 1(on) and 0(off) on frames? i dont know how to transition them. thank you
👍: 0 ⏩: 2
Example:
You want something to display 30 seconds later.
Note: 30 seconds at 30 fps = 900 frames.
So at frame 0 set the display control variable to 0.
Set this to 1 at frame 900.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Shouldn't you also put 0 in the display control variable in the frame right before 900 at 899 to stop the slow progression from 0 to 1 over multiple frames? Ex: @ frame 0 set 0, .1, 0.2, @ frame 300 reaches 0.3, ...., @ frame 900 reaches 1?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Putting a 0 at frame 899 and and a 1 at frame 900 results in an instant switch from transparent to translucent; or am I misunderstanding your question?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yeah you understand it correctly. Isn't that what lemi wanted? Instant switch? Or did lemi want gradual?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Man, LOL, Lemi asked that question 2 years ago; re-reading the original question, I read it back then that they wanted to know how to transition.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
*scratches head and sweatdrops* lemi's original question is misleading.
Say I need help on endibell's model and how it interacts with raycast
Specifically TDA Cross Haku 1.03 version
The top blouse turns transparent, and I tried all the skydomes I had, set the main.fx in the main tab, appropriate material in material tab, sky w/ lighting in envlight tab, and it turns transparent on me....
Everything else looks fine tho.
The skybox used in there is one of aokcub's, hdr turned into radiant skybox using raycast tools using this tutorial
👍: 0 ⏩: 3
oh that's really odd, had you set a material for that part yet, or just the main.fx?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
yes to both main.fx and material. Endibell got back to me, and basically said the same thing as Trackdancer.
Go to materials tab on pmxe/pmde, click materials 6 and 7 and set the transparency to 0 or opaqueness to 1 depending on the version of pmxe/pmde you have. It worked!
👍: 1 ⏩: 0
OK; I got hold of a copy of the edit and ran into the same problem. But it is an "easy" fix. You will have to edit the problematic materials in the PMX editor. These materials have been set to be partly translucent; to fix the issue, make them opaque.
So for example, the top blouse area is material number 7. Setting the opaque value to 0 will solve the problem; however, this edit has a lot of translucent materials so you will need to go through the whole list to fix all the issues; also the sort order for this model's materials is a big mess and this is part of the problem, but the quick fix is to kill the translucency.
Anyway, if you want to take the time to fix up the model it will work well with RAY-MMD. The screen grab below shows the potential for this model with the effect but as you can see (since I only fixed one issue) there are still problematic issues with the translucency.
👍: 0 ⏩: 2
I found this
So make the non-transparent value into 1?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yes, making the "non-transparent" value 1 will make the material opaque. 0 will make it completely invisible and in-between values determines the degree of translucency.
Note: In my version of the PMXe this field is labeled "opaque".
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you! Hehehehe, Um how do I get to the translucent part in pmxe to fix? Like what do I click?
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I'll grab a copy of that model to look at; need to see it to figure out what the problem is, but it looks like it should be an easy fix.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
oh nvm i finally get it 
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I've downloaded all of these skydomes from a specific creator, and while the files are pretty big, they're still jpg files. Whenever I open them in pmd (either as pmx or x files) they look completely a-ok, but turn up blank when I load them into MMD.
Do you know if there's a general cap on the sizes of the jpg files for this to work?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Did you localize your PC to recognize Japanese characters?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yes, completely so ;v; I even have several programs that are fully in Japanese because of it.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Usually, if your models are displaying as white in MMD, it is because MMD cannot find the texture file or it has problems with the names of the texture files.
Solution:
1. Using the PMDe/PMXe check that the material is referencing the filename or path to the file correctly. Fix if either is incorrect.
2. Rename the texture file and change the references in the PMDe/PMXe.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I found solution in a strange place. Upon reloading the pmm file in MMD it suddenly shows. If that stops working I will consider this as an option 0:
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
This also happened to me briefly. Here's another solution especially for skyboxes/domes when using raycast.
The .fx file for the sky dome after loading ray.x and the .pmx/pmd file for the skydome itself in the main tab has to be there. If it isn't then it's usually the name of the .fx file and the skybox itself don't match. If they do, mmd will automatically load the appropriate.fx file into the main tab of mme.
An example of this would be when you load the included Time of Day/Night in the raycast suite. Try changing the name of the pmx/pmd skybox model, that effect ain't gonna load..... You can still select that .fx manually tho by doing select effecet file in mme XD
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Hi! I was wondering if you've ever encountered the problem of skydomes appearing as blank.
When I open a skydome in pmxeditor or pmdeditor, their textures will show up fine.
When I open a skydome in MMD, it will be blank and I don't know how to fix it.
Help, please? Thanks in advance <3
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
You write that you can see the texture fine in the PMDe/PMXe but not in MMD suggests to me that the file size of the texture file might be the issue here.
Most likely, the texture file is a HD file and if this is the case, the solution is actually very simple. Texture files for sky domes don't need to be HD type files - it's nice that they are made this way since this lead to the best results of high end video cards.
For more pedestrian video cards, these might be a little too much and will lead to them appearing as blank in MMD.
There are two fixes:
1. Hardware solution: increase the amount of available video ram your PC has or even better, upgrade the graphics card and increase the amount of video memory it has access to.
2. Software solution: reduce the resolution of the texture file. Easiest way to do this is to convert the graphic to JPG format. Then in the PMDe/PMXe just assign the material to the new JPG texture map; you won't even have to remap. Quality will be affected going this route, but honestly, because the sky dome is a background feature, no one will notice. Also, thinning it down like this could lead to some loss of saturation; if this bothers you just apply MMEs to correct the saturation.
I have run into similar problems with sky domes that use heavy duty texture maps. I used solution 2 to resolve the issue and honestly, in practice, no one ever notices the marginal loss in saturation and sharpness when I go this route.
👍: 0 ⏩: 2
I have the same problem and I can't solve it 
👍: 0 ⏩: 2
This also happened to me briefly. Here's another solution especially for skyboxes/domes when using raycast.
The .fx file for the sky dome after loading ray.x and the .pmx/pmd file for the skydome itself in the main tab has to be there. If it isn't then it's usually the name of the .fx file and the skybox itself don't match. If they do, mmd will automatically load the appropriate.fx file into the main tab of mme.
An example of this would be when you load the included Time of Day/Night in the raycast suite. Try changing the name of the pmx/pmd skybox model, that effect ain't gonna load..... You can still select that .fx manually tho by doing select effecet file in mme XD
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I've tried tto reduce the resolution of the texture file, I've converted the graphic to JPG format but it didn't work help me pls D:
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
THANK YOU ! I actually have a relatively good laptop, but I love running shaders like raycast and nchl2 so I can understand why it might not show up. I appreciate this so much <3
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Thank you so much for making this! It was VERY useful!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
thank you very much for this tutorial!!! I'm a beginner to MMD, so honestly I had NO clue what a skydome even was. This tutorial was very easy to understand and explained all I wanted to know lol. 
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
You're very welcome and glad to hear that this has been helpful.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
*reads first panel* I can probably guess who complained about Chibi IA's language use...
Anyways, this is a VERY helpful tutorial.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Oh those people were ... banned. I so love the DA ban hammer feature.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Well that's actually pretty helpful. Pretty sure they were your garden variety SJWs, who are pretty much hypocrites. *shrug*
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
| Next =>