Category Archives: Companion software

By accident I found the freeware MMD to DAZ, v2 (2019) plugin. May require Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable installed in Windows, which all but ancient dinosaur PCs should already have. Lets you import .PMD (older MMD) and .PMX (newer MMD) Miku Miku Dance figure files, apparently with the proper textures and bones, shaders, and toon outlines. You can also apparently drag and drop .PMX files onto the DAZ viewport.

Basic tutorial video: MMD Importer for DAZ Studio.

The other MMD option is said to be: Blender importer > FBX export (optionally also with dance motions) > Poser 11 import > save as .CR2 from which you can also take it to DAZ Studio. There may be other, perhaps better Blender importers by now, I haven’t made a huge search for them.

I cleaned my Kindle Fire HD (2017) tablet. In fact, a new fresh OS install and start over again. The Home tab’s Carousel is gone now, removed by Amazon. But it was jammed anyway, which was part of the reason for the fresh OS install.

New discoveries…

* DroidEdit. A Python code-writing tool for Android, with coloured text theme etc. On the Kindle Fire tablet version of the app store there’s only a paid version. The free version is only to be found on the Web Amazon app store, and once ‘purchased’ there it appears to be sent to your Kindle. But it never is. Oh well. No worries, as Archive.org has a Droid Edit Pro as a free .apk file to manually install. Not that I want to write code on a tablet, but if I gaze long enough at a script I can start to understand how it works. And in such a situation, I need the script to have pretty and consistent colour-coding. I’m a Brummie tinkerer who learns by looking at something that’s actually working, not from abstract ‘first principles’ and theory.

* The free Autodesk Sketchbook appears to be gone from the Kindle app store. But I had it in my Cloud library at Amazon in its £2.50 form and got it again from there. It’s also on Archive.org’s .apk stash as Autodesk Sketch Book Pro v4. Untested from Archive.org, but my old version works.

* No Clip Studio on the Kindle app store, but Archive.org has a 447Mb(!) archived copy of the app from November 2021. I assume this is the free .apk version, and you may well need to sign-in on loading it. Untested as yet. Can it perhaps be less annoying and fiddly than the desktop version? Let’s hope so.

* MediBang’s comics layout-maker MangaName is gone from the store, but can be had here. Although it may make a difference that I had it in my Amazon app library from years ago.

* No Krita on the Kindle app store. I vaguely heard they now have an Android version? But I’m not sure that would run on a Kindle Fire.

* No ToonArt on the Kindle store. I’ve only just discovered it. Such a pity it appears to require ‘face/head and shoulders’, and can’t toon-filter other things. Why is there no Photoshop desktop equivalent, I wonder? Perhaps there are software patents on the AI.

* No AIMP on the store, for playing audio and easy playlist assemblage, but that can be had free from the website.

* In Web search, I found that eTools has a dedicated app on the Kindle store. It’s getting to be better than Google for some types of search, especially hobbyist and professional technical information.

* Microsoft Teams was briefly available for the Kindle HD 10″ toward the end of 2021, but it’s now gone. At least, gone from the my model (2017). The page listing for it can no longer be found when you search the app store from the Fire, only Skype. Microsoft Skype installs, logs in and works fine. Of course, many workplaces now fetishize Teams, but you’ll just have to firmly tell them that you’re ‘Microsoft Skype only’.

Also of interest and found over at the Archive.org .apk stash…

* Pose Tool 3D. Definitely not Poser, and has ugly icons. But it works.

* LongShot, a long-scrolling screenshot maker + stitching app. Works, has a discreet narrow ad at the bottom of the main screen which is easily dismissed. Nothing more worrying than that from it, so far.

* Both Pose Tool and LongShot may benefit from the Open Source Media Merger app which automatically… “moves ../sdcard/DCIM/* and ../sdcard/Pictures/Screenshots to user specified folder”. Works fine. Takes a moment before the file is transferred to your chosen folder. Can be turned on and off.

* Four ‘vintage camera effects’ apps were tried, but all failed. The Open Source VectorCamera also failed, even the latest from the maker’s site. Wrong type of camera?

* The old Samsung Paper Artist app also failed. But it’s from a decade ago, now.

* I couldn’t find a free pixel-art / voxel-art app that also offered an isometric view/grid. Just ‘icon-maker’ type apps.

* Surprisingly, nor are there any fractal creation apps on the Archive.org .apk archive. Possibly they’re too computationally demanding for Android? Or maybe they just have the sort of obscurantist names that the desktop software has, so I can’t find them?

* No Carousel replacement, that simply does “Newly-arrived documents + cover thumbnails + sliding carousel” and then launches the selected item. Such a thing does not seem to exist.