philematophobia. the big mac tutorial .12.05.01

12.05.01

this is how i make my KiSS dolls. this is basically a tools tutorial, not a "how to write a .CNF" tutorial-- you should be able to figure out how to do that by opening up other people's .CNFS. if you don't get that, KIY and dominatrix havea fabulous .cnf tutorial called "how to .cnf" which is in KiSS set form on the BKP. this doesn't tell you how to write FKiSS either. i do some pretty weird shit with FKiSS but you can learn about some of that in my little tutorials section OR if you prefer a chart, nick roberts has a great resource HERE . if neither of these help you, calezane maintains a big list of tutorial links HERE. hopefully i will be adding tutorials for different sets of tools.

tools you will need:
1) adobe photoshop
2) graphic converter
3) mac LHA
4) john stiles' french KiSS for mac-- NOT emk's.
all of the above tools can be downloaded for FREE or are linked from otakuworld, except for photoshop. graphic converter is a shareware program and if you use it beyond the trial period i suggest that you pay the shareware fee.

1) start in photoshop. first, draw a base doll. you want to make it on a new layer from the background. i suggest starting by using the line tool and drawing a rough outline of the entire body. then, color it in using the paint bucket tool. but you still have a rough drawing. use the magnifying glass at somewhere between 300% to 800%. now, use the pencil tool at the one-pixel size to smooth out your rough line pixel-by pixel. i also draw faces pixel-by pixel.

2) shading. i do shading a number of ways. but the easiest to start is to outline the part you want shaded with the magic lasso. make sure antialiasing is OFF. then use the paint bucket to shade that part of the doll. you can use this for clothing too. i usually use between 2 and four shades of a color for any given item, but you don't need to shade things if it doesn't go with your style.

3) now, draw clothing. make each new item on a new layer. just draw it so it covers the doll and any clothing that is supposed to go under it. i make my own life easier by drawing underwear first and coats and stuff last. you can keep as many layers as you like on or off at any given time.

4) that was quick! but that's because this isn't really a drawing tutorial. there are a lot of other people who you should be learning to draw from, not me.

5) now you are getting to the tricky part-- reducing colors for a .kcf. now that everything is drawn, pick a color that is totally different from anything in your set. use the paint bucket to paint the background that color.

6)SAVE YOUR FILE.

7) SAVE YOUR FILE AS... another name. you'll thank me later.

8) now go to image...canvas size. make the canvas size really big, like 10 inches by 10 inches. paint that whole background in your background color. now save.

9) drag all the layers (and i mean ALL OF EM) around until you can see a sizeable chunk of all the colors you've used. you want to see the background color most of all!

10) SAVE. then go to image...mode...indexed color. make sure the "preview button" is CHECKED. make sure dither is on NONE. then try any of the "local" color saves which you will see under the palettes pulldown-menu. look at your image and make sure it isn't changing any of your colors to something ugly. if it is, you can play around with it until you get it to look right. then click OK.

11) save this file AS a THIRD different name. now go back to mode... and choose "color table." it will show you all the colors which will eventually be in your .kcf. make sure the VERY FIRST color is your background color.

11a) if for some reason your top color ISN'T your background color, you need to change it. here is how to change it:

use your dropper to get the RGB color numbers for your background color. write them down. now go to image...mode...color table and select the first color in the top left corner. if it isn't IDENTICAL to your background color, write down the RGB numbers for this color, too. make a note of what color it is...if it's a light blue, remember that. you're going to REPLACE its rgb numbers with the ones you wrote down earlier, for the background color. now hunt through the other colors and find the one that IS identical to your background color. replace its numbers with the ones for the upper left color you erased.

12) now hit the save button that is in the color table dialog box. this will save JUST your color table. save it with a name you will remember.

13) go back to your very first version of your doll, the many-layered PSD version where all the clothes are right on top of each other. turn off ALL the layers.

14) turn back on the background layer with your background color. turn on one otherlayer at a time and do a SAVE AS...save each layer as a PICT, and save each one with a different name.

15) now you switch to graphic converter. open one of the picts. go to picture...colors... and choose the OPTIONS. you want to select the option that lets you save to a custom color table. it will prompt you for what color table you want to use. pick the one you just made.

16) crop your pict by looping it with the marquee selector and hitting apple-Y.

17) go to colors and choose 256 colors. it will save your graphic to the color table you made. if it makes your colors look funny, you can fool around with the picture a bit.

18) save the image AS A KISS CEL-- this is an option in save as... it will automatically save a .kcf for you each time. you only need one, so you can trash the others once you have one.

19) i like to draw my backs at this stage-- directly on the front .cel & then save as another name. this way i know they will all line up-- there isn't an easy way to do offsets on a mac as far as i know.

20)repeat this for every .cel.

21) write your .CNF. this is a complicated process on its own. i use BBEdit which is available from bare bones software in a paid version and a lite freeware version. it is important to include false coordinates to begin, otherwise your real coordinates won't save properly.

22) place your objects. to do this, you will need french KiSS for mac. import your set.

23) on the 0 screen, set ALL your items to the places you want them to be "stored" in every screen. go to advanced...freeze changes and freeze the changes.

24) export your set. find the USERDATA file and copy only the first set of object coordinates by hitting apple-c. paste this ten times into your .cnf.

25) import the set again, writing over the last import. now, move each object to the place you want it to be on each screen-- ie, dress up your doll. freeze the changes.

26) this time, export and get all ten sets of coordinates from the USERDATA file. paste them into your .cnf

27) now, when you import, everything should look right!

28) now you need to make an .lzh. open macLHA. go to file...new archive.

29) before you do anything else, make sure MacBinary is UNCHECKED!! this is very important, only macs will be able to read your file if this is checked.

30) now hit add... you can add an entire folder at a time.

31) it will ask you some funny question in japanese. what it is asking is if you're SURE you don't want macbinary on. hit the button to the far right! this is the cancel button.

32) when it's finished with all your files, hit save. now you have a finished doll!

33) CHEER!