Body Pillows: A Guide

In this guide I cover how to create your very own body pillow for Garry's Mod.

Introduction

In this guide I will be taking you through the step by step of how to make your very own Waifu Body Pillow. This guide should also help you to learn how to create models for the game, if you're not a weeb.

There is also a google docs version of this guide available here: Link[docs.google.com]

In order to add your own body pillow design you will want:

• The dakimakura model and UV Map reference (Download them here[drive.google.com])
  
• Blender 2.9 (Other versions and programs will work, but am using this version)
  
• Crowbar (Get it here[github.com])
  
• Garry’s Mod (Or a compatible source game)
  
• A photo-editing program (e.g. Photoshop, GIMP)
  
• An image to use on the pillow
  
• VTFEdit (Get it here[gamebanana.com])

For this tutorial I will be using the following image of Asuna from Sword Art Online:



Now, onto the guide:
(If you don’t have blender installed skip to step 3)

Step One - Setting Up Blender Source Tools:

The first step is to install blender source tools. I am using v3.1.1. After downloading the .ZIP file, you will need to go to “edit > preferences” in Blender. A tab will appear, looking similar to the image on the right.

You then need to click “Install…” and find the location you downloaded Blender Source Tools to, I put mine on my Desktop. Double click on the file and the file window should close. Now you will want to search for “Blender Source Tools” in the “Add-ons” tab of the preferences window, tick the box next to it.

With this, Blender Source Tools should now be installed.

Step Two - Changing the Material:

To change the material name so that the model is compatible with others, you will need to import the dakimakura model into blender, in order to do this go to “File > Import > Source Engine (.smd, .dmx, .vta, .qc)” This should open up another window.

After downloading and extracting the Dakimakura Files, navigate to the location and double click “dakimakura.smd”, ensure that “Create Collections” is disabled. The window should close and you should see something similar to the following:

Click on the pillow, ensuring that it has an orange-yellow outline, then navigate to the “materials” tab in the outliner.

Double click on “dakimakura” near the top, and rename the material to something relevant to your character (I will be setting mine to asuna_ordinalscale). Then go to the “Scene Properties” tab in this same area where we will export the model.

Click on the folder icon to the right of the red box called “Export Path:”, navigate to the folder you extracted the dakimakura files to then click the blue “Accept” button.

Then click the “Export” button, just above where the export path now is, making sure that “SMD” is selected for the format.

Step Three - Compiling an MDL:

In order to have a model that GMod can use, we need to compile it. Within the Dakiamkura Reference folder you will find two “.qc” files, open them up in Notepad++ (Or another text editor). The “dakimakura_static.qc” will be used to create the solid version of the model, whilst the “dakimakura_floppy.qc” will be used to create the, as the name entails, floppy version.

Firstly, you will probably want to change the “$modelname” line in both of these files into something unique, for my model I will be using
“$modelname “props/asuna_os_static.mdl"” and
“$modelname “props/asuna_os_floppy”” accordingly. Try to keep everything lowercase, both for good practice and as it can cause issues with uploading to the workshop with some utilities.

The next lines you will need to change are:
“$cdmaterials "models/props/dakimakura/character/””
This line controls where we will be putting our material and texture files so is important to set it correctly. Following my naming convention, I will be setting this lines to:
“$cdmaterials “models/props/dakimakura/asuna_os”. In both .qc files.

Step Three ½ - Setting Up Crowbar:

In order to compile the model we will be using Crowbar, however, we must first set it up for use with Garry’s Mod.
These are the important boxes:


I have installed Garry’s Mod into a location different to the default, the default directory is:
“C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\GarrysMod\”
You should be able to find the required files from there, you can quickly select the files using the “Browse…” button to the side of each box.

Step Three 2: Electric Boogaloo - Actually Compiling this time I swear:

You will want to navigate to the “Compile” tab and fill in the boxes.

The “QC input” should be the Folder where the .qc and .smd files are.
The “Output to” should be a new folder within your Garry’s Mod “addons” folder.
The “Game that has the model compiler” should be set to the Garry’s Mod you created in Step Three ½.

After setting these, click “Compile”, once the console stops moving, clicking on the long drop-down at the bottom should show the paths of two models. If both are not present, an error has likely occurred, you should read through the log to see if it mentions a possible solution or cause.

Step Four - Making the Texture:

In order to make the texture for the model we just created, you will want to open up the UV map file in an image editor of your choice. If compatible, use the “uv.psd” file, otherwise you will have to utilise the “uv.png” image which will be slightly more difficult.

The following instructions are specific to Photoshop, but should be similar in other programs:
You will want to open up the body pillow image you have decided to use then copy it into the “uv.psd” file. If you’re lucky, it may line up well already, however, you will likely need to tweak it a little. I recommend using the “Liquify” mode for this; press “Ctrl+Shift+X” to quickly enter this mode. (Alternatively use “Filter > Liquify”). Make sure that the layer with your design is selected, and that the “uv” layer is above it.

You will want to have “Show Backdrop” enabled so that you can see where the UV Map for the pillow is. Using the top-leftmost tool, you should be able to move sections of the image until it looks reasonable. This Asuna design worked well, so I only did a little bit of tweaking. You do not need to stick within the lines of the UV map, as designs tend to not seamlessly loop around anyway. If the liquify method doesn’t work for your image, experiment with other tools until you find something you like.
Once the design fits, you will want to export the image, I generally use “.png” for this. In Photoshop go to “File > Save As” (or press Ctrl+Shift+S), select “PNG” as the file type using the dropdown, then save the file to an accessible location with a reasonable name. I tend to use the same name as I set in Step Two (“asuna_ordinalscale” for me).

Step Five - Setting up the Material:

Now that we have an image we can use as a texture, we need to convert it into a material format that Garry’s Mod can use. In order to do this, we will be using VTFEdit.
Once you have opened VTFEdit, click on the “Import” button in the top-left corner, it looks like a piece of paper, then select the image you saved during the previous step and click open.
A window similar to the following should appear:

Change your settings so that they are the same as above, then click ok. Your design should now be visible.
Save this image (Using the save icon or Ctrl+S) to the relative directory you set in the “.qc” files during step three.
Mine was: “models/props/dakimakura/asuna_os/” so inside of the folder in my addons directory I will have some new subfolders, creating a path of:
“Dakimakura Tutorial/materials/models/props/dakimakura/asuna_os/”.
If you changed the material name in step two, then set the “.vtf” file’s name to be the same, otherwise just set it to “dakimakura”.

Saving our image here will allow us to create a VMT using VTFEdit’s built-in tools. In VTFEdit, go to “Tools > Create VMT File”, a new window should appear.

In this window you will want to go to the “Options” tab and set the options to the same as I have here:

Clicking “Create” will allow you to save the “.vmt” file, it should be saved to the same location as the “.vtf”.

YOU MUST MAKE SURE THAT THE NAME OF THE VMT MATCHES THE MATERIAL NAME SET DURING STEP TWO. IF YOU DID NOT PERFORM THAT STEP, MAKE SURE THAT IT IS “dakimakura.vmt” EXACTLY.

The Finale

The models should now be ready, so load up Garry’s Mod and have a look!
If you decide to upload your custom dakimakura please credit me and link this guide





This is the first guide I've ever created, let me know if you think anything could be improved. Thanks for reading and I hope that you have managed to create something!

[dfullington]

@timendirk black impostor (fnf) in the flesh, or rather, in the cotton

[ShuItachi]

[Anothuor]

step 1 dont

[former president george w bush]

why is this a guide tho

[timendirk]

Gordon Freeman in the flesh, or rather, in the cotton

[Nova]

ehehehe

[Maygik]

You are playing god as they are not a waifu

[Nova]

can i do this with gordon freeman

[okuphelele]

hey where is rick?

[former president george w bush]

why is there no rick astley in this guide