Spreading free KISS software since 1997 what's KISS? KISS is an acronym for KIsekae Set System. In Japanese, kisekae ningyou refers to changing doll clothes, which in Japan is a widely known cardboard game for girls. KISS refers to a specific computer implementation of this childhood pastime, an appealing Japanese graphical time waster which most often features anime characters. history The KISS format was crafted together in 1991 by Japanese programmer MIO.H for the NEC PC-9801. Twenty years earlier folks at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Laboratory) in California had built up a graphical user interface (GUI) technology with handy stuff like a pointing device (mouse), pre-defined palette transparency and multiple image layering. These were among the things implemented in the NCSA Mosaic web browser, which was in development at about the same time MIO.H put them into a purpose-built KISS viewer. Like a web page, the sundry graphics files gathered to form a KISS doll are configured with markup language (though not HTML) in a text file. KISS does something which might not be very helpful on most web pages but is the pith of kisekae play: A user can click and drag on images with a mouse and move them across the screen as she pleases. By 1993 KISS viewers and files had gained some sway in Japan's anime community. Over time the format was ported as freeware to other computer platforms such as Unix and the BSDs, IBM (OS/2, DOS & Windows), Mac and even Sony PlayStation. The development of KISS peaked in the mid 1990s. The format is still in use as a kisekae game, mostly among otaku people in Japan, North America, and France. less is more The multimedia capabilities of PCs grew quickly during the early 1990s and a few extensions of the KISS format threw in animation and sound calls (French KISS 1 & 2) and later, 24-bit colour (Cherry KISS, which was unsteady on some hardware). Sometimes less is more. This page is rather hardcore and goes by the 1994 KISS General Specification v1.0 (rank GS3 with 8-bit 256 colour palette) as the lasting path to KISS happiness. However, any kisekae graphics set or software implementation that includes support for this core standard is called KISS. but a wee slice One way or another, it's rather stark why KISS dolls never quite wriggled out of their wee slice of the anime world. Even in Japan they were daunting to sell and big outlays were needed to build a sellable doll with licensed character art and dozens of clothing items drawn, layered and crafted by skilled, paid artists. Hardly any KISS dolls ever made it into the shops. Meanwhile fans have thrown together thousands of freeware slash and kisekae files but truth be told, sets with even fleeting artistic appeal are hard to find. These have wontedly been done by software developers and graphic artists working on spec in their spare time. dolls Here are some rather fetching spins of KISS art. |
 | Mai by Mio.H (15.5KiB), who developed theKISS format and made this doll to show it off (notice the red star on Mai's shirt). |
 | Battle Girl Ai! by Yukako Iisaka (78.8KiB), an early, thrillng take on what anime KISS could have been. Wicked craft. |
 | Neko by KFR01536 (39.6KiB), made during the format's initial flurry in Japan. The artist's name is a Niftyserve/Hobby House user ID. |
 | Tankgrrl figure by Jamie Hewlett with clothes by Emby Quinn (14.4KiB), slash KISS from the mid-nineties based on Jamie Hewlett & Alan Martin's edgy comic strip character. |
 | Nina by Eph (132KiB), late nineties Euro-anime slash KISS by a German artist, based on a video game character. |
 | Technophonix by Technophonix (15.1KiB), a later photographic KISS set made for the Swiss techno group. |
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freeware Download a KISS viewer (77.2KiB), FK's sleek 1996 GS3 freeware viewer (WKISS ver2.36a w0.68) for Windows 3.x, 95/98 & NT in a self extracting archive. After downloading put it in a new directory and double click on its icon. Then download Lhadll.exe (47.9KiB), which handles the LZH compression of kisekae sets. After downloading put lhadll.exe in the same directory as WKISS and double click on its icon. This will allow WKISS to spin kisekae sets directly from their LZH archives. Get help in English for the viewer (77.2KiB). WKISS comes with a standard Windows helpfile, in Japanese. To get the most out of WKISS, you may want to download this illustrated English language help document, which is in HTML format. Freeware Viewers for many other platforms from Yav's Kissin Institute of Softwear (Japan). Includes viewers for NEC-DOS, Human68k, Towns-OS, IBM-DOS, UNIX/BSD X Window, Mac-OS, Windows, Windows 95/98 and Sony PlayStation. You may want this LHA utility (36.6KiB) to directly explode KISS graphics files and view them. Tiny LHA (for Windows) is self-extracting and easy to use. diy? Maybe. Making an appealing KISS doll calls for an artistic knack, learned skills and some technical understanding of computer graphics along with the steadfastness and heed which are wontedly so helpful in both software development and animation or cartoon production. Some fans make sets from downloadable doll bases or scanned art but the building of a deeply layered and play-stirring KISS wardrobe (the game's pith) can be fraught with steep artistic and technical tasks. This KISS construction set (291KiB) is in a self-extracting freeware archive with software a graphic artist can use to transform bitmapped images into KISS data. A Windows (3.1x or later) platform is required. The package includes an applet for viewing individual cels, the KISS compiler WSVC and a standard LHA archiving program, along with full instructions and example graphics.  Site ©1997-2007 KISSxpress 2007 3 |
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