♪  Lesson 1--Programs and How to Set It Up

Hi! Let's get right down to it. If you're using a Mac computer, I can't help you. I don't own a Mac. I'm not allowed to make KiSS dolls on the Macs at school. Sorry. You can find Mac tutorials on other sites; see the previous page.

And, when I change programs, I'll put the font in different colors. (Most of the time.) It's easy to get lost here.

Programs I Use:

  • Notepad [pink]
  • Windows Paint [dark green]
  • PlayFKiSS [cyan]
  • WSVC [dark red]
  • Picview [brown]
  • WinZip [dark lavender]
  • LHA

    My notes [black]

    Chances are you've never heard of WSVC before. You might, you might not have. It's available at the Big KiSS Page. So are PlayFKiSS and LHA. If you can't find them I'll send them to you. Picview is just a JPG-GIF-BMP viewing program; there are many alternatives. WinZip can be downloaded from www.winzip.com.

    Anyway, turn your practice doll into a .bmp file. [BMP stands for bitmap, by the way] If you have Picview, go to 'File', 'Convert To', then slide down the menu until you get to Windows BMP. Then open the file with Paint.

    This is Blobby. Blobby looks neater in BMP form; this is a JPG screenshot. I apologize if you can't see the colors here; try saving the JPG and opening it in a program that lets you zoom in, like MS Paint.

    Pretend this is your practice doll.

    Now put a black rectangle-type box around the doll. Leave one pixel space between the edge of the viewing frame and the doll's outermost edges, like so.


    pixel: one unit of color; pictures like Blobby are made up of many pixels. When you use the pencil tool on Paint and make a tiny little dot, that dot is the size of one pixel.

    Go up to 'File', 'Save as', and save it as a 256-color bitmap. This might mess your colors up a bit. It's okay.

    Now open Notepad. It should be blank. Save it as some filename, no longer than 8 characters, and then at the end put '.cnf' instead of '.txt'. If you just type the filename it will save itself as a .txt. This doesn't work. Example filename: blobby.cnf

    Open WSVC. Go to 'File', 'Open', and use the directory to find your doll with the rectangle edges and lovely 256 colors. It should appear on your screen with no problems at all. Then go to 'Edit', 'Cell Name', and name your .bmp file. I named mine 'basedoll'. You don't have to add anything at the end, the WSVC automatically adds the '.cel' part. Hit OK.

    Then go to 'Edit', 'Color Palette Name', and name your palette. I named Blobby's palette 'blobby.kcf'. You don't have to add the KCF part either, it does that for you. Hit OK.

    Then go to 'File', 'Make All', and hit OK. On to Lesson Two!