Tigger's Little KiSS Page

Variations on a theme

There are several different variants of the basic KiSS definition. These differ in two main ways - their treatment of colours, and the sophistication of any animation.

Colour models

There are (currently) 5 distinct colour models used. These are:

KiSS/GS1
The original (1991 vintage) colour model. Dolls are built from a 16-colour 12bpp (bits-per-pixel) palette.
KiSS/GS2
The "Standard" colour model. Dolls are built from a 24bpp palette with up to 256 entries.
Extended Palette
An extension of the standard colour model. Each cel (the smallest graphical element) uses either a 16 or 256 colour palette, but the total number of colours may exceed 256.
Cherry KiSS
True colour. Each pixel of the doll uses 32bpp, using 24bpp colour and 8 bits of transparency. The basic 24bpp colour obviously allows considerable flexibility, but the greatest strength is the subtle shadowing effects that can be generated from the 8 transparency bits.
Hybrid
Although Cherry KiSS offers much to the artist, it has high memory and processor demands. Hybrid dolls try to minimise this strain by mixing true colour and paletted cels in the same set.

Animation

Most, but by no means all, modern dolls use the French KiSS scripting language that permits animation of varying complexity, sound, etc. The table below gives a brief overview of the facilities available in the different versions, and the availability of programs and dolls.

Version Programs Dolls Facilities

FKiSS Most players Common Basic animation and sounds; detection of mouse click on cels.

FKiSS2 Most players Common Collision detection; animation conditional on doll state.

FKiSS3 PlayFKISS (Windows)
DirectKISS (Windows)
!PlayKiSS (RO 3.5+) Now quite common. Variables and simple arithmetic, if/else/endif, subroutines, unselectable cels.

FKiSS4 DirectKISS (Windows)
PlayKiSS (RO 3.5+) Still rare, the last time I looked Better variable and structure handling than FKISS3, arbitrary grouping of cels in actions and events, keyboard and mouse events, attached objects.

Version	Programs	Dolls	Facilities
FKiSS	Most players	Common	Basic animation and sounds; detection of mouse click on cels.
FKiSS2	Most players	Common	Collision detection; animation conditional on doll state.
FKiSS3	PlayFKISS (Windows) DirectKISS (Windows) !PlayKiSS (RO 3.5+)	Now quite common.	Variables and simple arithmetic, if/else/endif, subroutines, unselectable cels.
FKiSS4	DirectKISS (Windows) PlayKiSS (RO 3.5+)	Still rare, the last time I looked	Better variable and structure handling than FKISS3, arbitrary grouping of cels in actions and events, keyboard and mouse events, attached objects.