IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THE BONE FILES, 3D DANCING CHARACTERS WILL NOT WORK.
THE BONE FILES ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED WITH ANY VERSION OF STEPMANIA/sm-ssc SINCE
THEY CONTAIN COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL NOT MADE BY US. IF WE COME UP WITH DATA LATER,
COOL. IF NOT, SO BE IT.

http://stepmaniathings.com/downloads/characters/-required-bones-and-helper-files.html
EXTRACT THE FILES IN THIS FOLDER SO THAT YOU SEE tons of _DDRPC_*.bones.txt files.

THEN 3D CHARACTERS WILL WORK.
JUST DON'T SPAM THE FORUMS AND BUGTRACKER ABOUT IT.
THE INSTRUCTIONS COME WITH THE PROGRAM. YOU'RE READING THEM RIGHT NOW!!!

oh and for compatibility, you will want to perform the following renames:

old name          | new name
------------------+--------------
 DancePad-DDR.txt | DancePad.txt
DancePads-DDR.txt | DancePads.txt

a bit presumptious, but anything in the name of keeping it safe in regards to
copyright, yeah?