Custom Animations in The Sims 4 are on their way to becoming a reality, and community member Malike Hatsune is here to tell you a bit more about what animations he’s working on.
Hello everyone! My name is Malik Hatsune and you might know me from deviantART, YouTube, Twitter or FaceBook. As you might have guessed my last name isn’t really Hatsune, but that’s what I go with online.
Hatsune is based off of the Japanese Vocaloid Hatsune Miku. You might have seen my latest video “The Sims 4 Model Animation (Alpha Testing)” and wondered “how does he do that?” Well I’m here to explain to you all how I’ve achieved this and what I plan on doing in the future.
It all started October 19, 2012 when I officially decided to join a website called deviantART. It was filled with other artists similar to myself who like to create 3D models and be able to animate them and create videos or pictures. It was mainly projected around the animation software called MikuMikuDance. MikuMikuDance is an opensource program programmed by Yu Higuchi that allows users to import their own model data and share it among the community.
DeviantART is one of the larger sites where MMD data is shared. I first started editing other models, maybe changing the color of a shirt or hair, but then I wanted to create my own. I discovered a game called Project Diva Dreamy Theater, it was popular around the MMD community. Dreamy Theater (referred as DT) was a relatively big part of the MMD community (MMDc) and there was many artists who created these models.
Dreamy Theater is a game from SEGA and features the characters of the Cryptonloids. We’d be able to extract the model data and add their bones, physics, and expressions. That was my main focus for a while, I absolutely loved the way the models looked.
Now I started working on Sims 4 models by Electronic Arts. I was able to extract a model and I imported her in the PMD/PMX format (the file type that is accepted by MMD). I loaded an animation created by another user and decided I wanted to add physics. I’d always loved hair physics in the Sims 2. I added additional bone values to the character allowing the hair to swing and move like in real life. The modes bones are coded in Japanese because MMD relies on the Japanese characters for the the animations. I uploaded a video on YouTube and to my surprise it got a great amount of love! I was really shocked when it was noticed by major FaceBook groups and Twitter handles.
My future plans are to be able to create more models for the MMDc and continue to add physics, expressions, and everything of that nature. Being only 15 I still have a long way to go in experience but my dream job would be one day to be able to work for Disney’s Animation Studios. Ever since I was little after watching a Disney movie I would say to myself “One day I want to be the one making a movie like this.” Hopefully one day I’d get that chance!
I would like to thank you for taking the time to read this and I would especially like to thank Alexis and SimsVIP for allowing me to share my backstory with all of you! I hope you guys follow me throughout this journey and continue to give feedback! As a special treat, Check out my latest work “The Sims 4 Hair Physics Animation“.
I’ll leave links below featuring some of my proudest work, and be sure to read the descriptions so everyone who helped me make it possible gets the recognition they deserve! Have a good one!
-Social Links-● deviantART: http://malik-hatsune.deviantart.com/
● YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOPpslZ_Asszyw1878djCBw
● Twitter: https://twitter.com/MalikHatsune
● FaceBook: Malik Hatsune
-Some Of My Work-● http://youtu.be/Mu9ZG7TF_HE?list=UUOPpslZ_Asszyw1878djCBw
● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2MBg8xbFUc&index=7&list=UUOPpslZ_Asszyw1878djCBw
● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5IFylo3qns&index=29&list=UUOPpslZ_Asszyw1878djCBw
