Satisfy your Kario-sity with the new male mesh body from Inithium

After the incredible runaway success of their Kupra body, Inithium have spent months working on a new male mesh body, which goes on general release on Thursday November 18th. I was lucky enough to get into the limited 500-person pre-order list, picked up the demo on 11th November, and on the 12th I made it into the pre-order location to buy the full version.

Kario is a BoM-only HD body that comes in two versions – Fit and Flex – with both meshes in the same body, and body selection made via the Configuration HUD. I will be mainly focusing on the slimmer Kario Fit for this review, which is the out-of-the-box setting when you first add the body, but will also be showing some previews of the far more muscular Kario Flex.

If you want my brief initial impressions, before you get to the details, they are as follows: this is a fantastic body, which – with a bit of work on the shape – can go from the lean musculature of Jake, through the slightly more gym-ready Gianni, and all the way up to the bulk of Aesthetic. It’s fully-BoM (Bakes on Mesh) and HD, but its complexity is surprisingly good, considering it’s two bodies in one.

In all honesty (and regular readers will know me by now; I don’t beat about any bushes here) if this takes off like Kupra did, then I predict that it will swiftly dethrone the Aesthetic bodies, which don’t even have BoM capability, and it may even (whisper it now) give Signature Gianni a solid run for its money.

What do you get?

Inside the folder you will receive:

• The body itself (remember: both bodies are included in this single add-on)
• A simple to use Configuration HUD for the body
• A user manual in the form of a HUD that attaches to your screen (make sure you read this; it tells you exactly what each HUD button does!)
• Three shapes for Kario Fit
• 7 BoM body skins for Kario Fit
• Three shapes for Kario Flex
• 7 BoM body skins for Kario Flex
• A pack of basic starter clothing and accessories, including pants, tank tops, sneakers, flip-flops, underwear, shorts, rings, tintable BoM body hair, and BoM tattoos
• 3 BoM hairbases
• 2 BoM tanlines
• There will also be some BoM head skins by Not Found, but those were not ready by the time of the pre-release. They should be ready by the time the body goes on general sale. UPDATE: These have now been added. Note that they are only for Lelutka EvoX heads, so if your head is in Evo mode it may be time to switch it over to EvoX. If you use any other brand of head, you will not be able to use these particular Not Found skins, as EvoX uses an entirely different UV map. However, you will note that throughout this post I’m using a Catwa head, as the body’s skins match well to certain other skin brands that have options for Catwa etc.

The included body skins are created to work with Not Found BoM head skins, but the way the body skins are created (we’ll get to this in a bit) means they will work well with other brands, such as Stray Dog (whose ‘Andrei’ BoM skin I’m using throughout this post).

The body is created for heads with the Universal Neck option (for example: Lelutka Evo, and Catwa HDPRO) but throughout this post I’m using my Catwa ‘Skell’ Bento head, which doesn’t have the Universal Neck, and I found the neck fit to be so damn good it’s practically seamless.

EvoX users, please note: At the time of pre-release the creator has told me that “EVOX need a fix we will add as tatto in the next days,” so I would expect this to be ready by the time the body goes on general release. The advice in the Discord channel for EvoX users is to use an Evo BoM face skin that’s as close as possible to the body skins. As mentioned before, this may not even be an issue, as hopefully the EvoX tattoo layer will be added before general release. (UPDATE: This has now been added.)

How much does it cost?

The pack containing both Kario Fit and Kario Flex costs L$3,999.

Where can I find clothes and skin etc for it?

Since the body is (at the time of writing this post) not even on general release yet, there is limited stuff available for it at the moment. The dev kit has gone out to a number of creators, though, so expect to see more. In the meantime, check out the following:

Flickr Gallery for Inithium Kario releases (this is for store ads only; if you want to show off your Kario body, add it to the Inithium Kario Lovers Flickr group)

Inithium Discord server (dive into the ‘Men Stuff’ channel to see new releases and also access help and support in the General Rooms channel. You don’t need Discord installed on your computer; you just need a Discord account and can then use the web version)

SL Marketplace (link goes directly to a search for Inithium AND Kario, with all maturity ratings checked; ensure that you’re logged into the Marketplace before you click, in order to see any content rated moderate or adult)

Inithium Event (link goes to the Seraphim page for the inworld Inithium Event; click the most recent entry to view a gallery of items available. The event opens on the 20th of each month)

Inithium inworld group

Inithium inworld store (click the teleport pad for the male bodies area)

The body comes with some starter clothing and accessories, too. At the point of pre-release I believe there is still one more pair of pants to be added, but at the moment you get:

• tintable BoM body hair (arms, butt, legs, torso) by Nexus
• a tattoo by Amuni Tattoo (intense, light, normal)
• Havataras (flip-flops) by Guilty (with a huge recolour/texture HUD)
• a set of rings by L’Emporio&PL
• swimwear by Legal Insanity (the shorts I’m wearing throughout this post)
• black pants, plus sneakers in black, red, and white from Lybra
• a patterned tank top (both Fit and Flex options) from Cox
• black shorts and white tank top (both Fit and Flex options) by Mossu

Screenshots of some of these items are below:

Is the HUD easy to use?

Yes, it’s incredibly easy! In fact, once you’ve chosen which of the two body options (Fit or Flex) that you want to use, selected your preferred nail type and colour, and your preferred nipple type and colour, you don’t even need to touch the HUD again if you don’t want to. It’s the simplest body HUD that I’ve ever used (and believe me, I’ve used pretty much all of them) so it’s going to appeal to a lot of guys who don’t want to faff around with all that stuff.

Screenshots of the HUD:

How to wear the body

First of all, before you do anything else… you have tried the free demo of the body, right? If not, go to the Inithium store and pick it up. Never, EVER drop a large sum of money on a mesh head or body without first getting the free demo and giving it a trial run, to ensure that you like it, feel comfortable using its HUD, and that it can give you the kind of look and physique you want.

If you’ve tried the demo, liked it, bought the body, and now want to know what to do with it, read on.

Wearing the Kario body and getting it set up is a simple process. However, you may need to do a bit of work with the shape, if you decide to use one of the included shapes, especially if you’re also wearing a Bento mesh head. I’ll go through that shortly.

Kario is a BoM only body. This means it will not take appliers of any kind. You must use BoM (system layer) skins, body hair, tattoos, etc on it. If you’re wearing any alpha layers (the inventory icon looks like a white t-shirt with a grey grid on it) then those will hide all or part of the body. You may have noticed that the body’s HUD has no ‘alpha cuts’ tab. This is what makes it lower in complexity, since it doesn’t need to be cut up into hundreds of separate linked parts, so you’ll be using alpha layers to hide sections of the body under clothing.

I’m going to begin by assuming that you already have a Bento mesh head (e.g. Lelutka or Catwa) and you want to keep the face on that, so for now we’ll ignore the included shapes for the body.

Steps to wear Kario:

1. Remove your alpha layers
2. Add the body
3. Add your BoM head skin
4. Add the Inithium BoM body skin
5. Add your preferred BoM hairbase, body hair, facial hair, tattoos, etc

It’s that simple, but ensure you work in exactly that order. The body skin must be added after the head skin.

The reason for this is that Inithium have been very smart with how the body skin is created. It doesn’t stop at the neck, as most other skins do. Instead, it goes up and over the back of the head, under the chin, and over the ears, and blends nicely where it meets the underlying head skin. This means you can wear a different head skin (as long as it’s a similar tone) underneath the body skin, and you won’t have a mismatch at the neck. Any differences in tone will be mostly hidden by your hairbase, or the shadow beneath your chin.

You can see this best if I demonstrate with a much darker skin over my Stray Dog face skin:

Using a much lighter body skintone, you can see how well it’s hidden by my Stealthic hairbase:

Can I wear my old favourite body skin with Kario?

You can, but be aware that – although the UV map for Kario is the SL UV map – you may find issues around the ankles and toes, and between the fingers. The nipples and belly button may also appear a bit blurred or stretched, as Kario is an HD (High Definition) body. I tried several BoM body skins from several stores – body skins that were created for Legacy, Belleza Jake, and Signature Gianni – and they mostly had these issues. Below is a body skin for Legacy, from Stray Dog:

I fully expect that – given how wildly popular Inithium’s female Kupra body became, so quickly – some major male skin creators will be working on body skins for Kario, so try the included skins for now, and wait to see what’s released in the future. However, if you’re not planning to go barefoot and bare-chested all the time, and will be covering up with clothing, go ahead and wear your usual body skin, as it will only have the above minor issues, as far as I’ve been able to tell in my testing thus far.

I tried the included shapes and they did weird things to my mesh head! Help!

Heh, yeah. You and me both! There’s an easy fix for this, and it’s to make a copy of the shape that you use with your mesh head of choice, and transfer the slider numbers from the Kario body shape that you like onto that new one, then save it with a different name.

To do this, put the body’s shape back on, and write down all the slider numbers in the Body, Torso, and Legs tab. Then put the head’s shape on, change the Body, Torso, and Leg sliders to the ones you wrote down, and save that shape with a new name. Once that’s done you will then be wearing a shape that has the ideal head sliders, plus your preferred body sliders. I did exactly that for the images below, where I show the different shapes.

So let’s see those shapes, then

Below is a composite image showing the three default ‘Fit’ shapes, from left to right: 1, 2, and 3. Followed by – on the far right – my own edits to one of those shapes. I like to be tall and lean, so with few simple tweaks here and there I have a shape that I’m very happy with:

In the above images I’m wearing the Kario Fit body skin, in the ‘hinti’ tone, which matches perfectly to Stray Dog’s head skins in Tone 04. However, you don’t just have to wear the Fit body skin on the Fit body; you can wear the Flex skin on the Fit body and vice versa, giving you even more options.

Yeah, those shapes are too skinny for me, dude. I wanna FLEX!

And you can do that with this body, like crazy! Kario starts out as the Fit body, but one click on the HUD will give you the Flex body. As with the skins, you can mix and match body types with the shapes. For middling muscle, try a Fit shape under the Flex body type, and for maximum pump, use a Flex shape under the Flex body type. And don’t forget, you can edit all of these shapes to tweak them to your liking, and try both types of skin.

The main changes in the Flex body happen on the torso. Switch from Fit to Flex by clicking the torso on the right of the Body Type section of the Body Accessories tab on the included Configuration HUD.

Please note: the only shape slider I had to change on the Flex shape was the Neck Thickness one. In the included Flex shapes that slider is set to 96, which made my neck bulge out terribly. I already had my head size maxed out at 100, so I couldn’t increase it. Therefore, the Neck Thickness slider in the below included Flex shapes has been reduced to 62. I was also wearing the Fit skin, so if you want even more muscle definition, wear the Flex skin instead.

How do I work this tinting thing on the HUD?

There are several places on the HUD where you can tint parts of it: the shine, the body colour (useful for matching to head skins), and the nipples. There are three stages to tinting, and one to saving the tint, as per below:

1. First, select the overall tone you want from the ‘rainbow circle’
2. Then click around in the central box to find your preferred shade and intensity of that tone
3. Fine tune using the RGB controls. To change each number, click either the top of it to go up or the bottom of it to go down. For example, to change 255 into 369 click the top of the ‘2’ once, the top of the middle ‘5’ once, and the top of the rightmost ‘5’ four times
4. To save your preset, click and hold for 2 seconds on the button indicated with a 4 in the image above

I have nipple options?!?!

You sure do! You have four nipple options on the HUD, from small to large (the latter being perfect for the super-pumped look if you’re wearing the Flex option), as well as the option to hide the nipples if you want to use the ones on your skin, or third party rigged nipples (someone’s bound to make some!) or a BoM layer t-shirt that you don’t want mesh nipples sitting weirdly on top of ;-)

You can choose from one of the preset nipple colours, then use the tinting option, as shown above, to fine tune it for your skin. For the ‘hinti’ skin that I used in this post, I opted for the leftmost nipple option on the second row, then tinted it to RGB 204,200,192 which felt the perfect colour for me.

Bits of me are poking through my clothes! How do I fix that?

Kario is a BoM body, and it doesn’t have ‘alpha cuts’ on its HUD to hide sections of the body. (This is why it’s possible to have two bodies in one attachment and it’s still low in complexity; because it’s not had to be split into lots of pieces, which can really ramp up the triangles and vertices on a mesh object.) To hide sections of the body that might poke through from beneath your clothing, you need to add alpha layers.

You can find a great pack of tons of alpha layers for just L$1 in the male section of the Inithium store, indicated below:

There are also lots of other alpha layer pack options on SL Marketplace, but the above should give you a great head start.

Dat butt, tho…

Mmm, yeah. Some of you ain’t gonna like the arse on this body. In the below image I have the butt slider zeroed and it’s still a bit of a Jake-like bubble butt:

The butt is high and tight and rounded, and if you’re coming to Kario from a mesh body like Gianni (which has a much flatter backside) then you might be side-eyeing your bum with no small amount of wariness. People in the Discord channel are suggesting that perhaps some of the butt deformers created for the Kupra body will reduce it, but I’ve not had time to check this. However, I would expect that there will be someone out there who will end up creating a deformer specifically for the Kario butt, so keep an eye out for that. If I spot one anywhere, I’ll try to remember to come back and edit this post to include it.

What else?

On the Miscellaneous tab of the HUD, you have some useful options. You can disable the HUD sounds if they bug you, you can click the ‘Redelivery’ button to get a fresh copy of the body (useful if there are updates, which there doubtless will be). You also have four poses to help you when styling your avatar. Click the pose button once to enable it, then again to stop it. Pose 1 is a classic T-pose, poses 2 and 3 are nice style poses (useful if you don’t have any poses but want to take a decent ‘fashion shot,’) and pose 4 is… well, I’ll leave you to find out what that one is ;-)

The Miscellaneous tab also holds the Recorder Disk option, which is a way to save your presets. I’ll admit that I did have difficulty with this, and have reached out to Inithium Support for assistance via Discord, as I couldn’t get the HUD to save and reload the changes I’d made to my body (primarily the nipple base colour choice and tint). That may just be me using it incorrectly, but I followed the guidance in the included manual, and didn’t get the results I’d expected, so that may be a bug that needs to be squished before the body is released. (UPDATE: This was indeed a bug that needed to be squished. An update has been sent out to fix it.)

This tab also includes a really nice Bento hands AO (the blue button). To animate both hands you’ll need to click each side separately. Note that if you’re using a Bento AO that already includes hand animations, this may override the included animations. The addition of this button is a nice one for those who don’t use a Bento AO; be that because they have an older one they like, or they don’t use AOs at all. The animations are just natural flexes of the fingers. As with the poses in the HUD, click each side once to start the animations, and again to stop them. You should see the following text appear in local chat:

[INITHIUM] KARIO BENTO HANDS RIGHT: Cycling animations… Touch me to stop!
[INITHIUM] KARIO BENTO HANDS LEFT: Cycling animations… Touch me to stop!

Note: You will need to keep the Configuration HUD attached (you can click the ‘power button’ at the top to minimise it) if you want the hand AO to continue running. The creator has confirmed in Discord that the animations are in the HUD, not in the hands, so the HUD must remain attached if you’re using the hand animation.

Lastly on the Miscellaneous tab, you have clickable links to the Inithium Marketplace store, inworld store (the SL ‘hand’ icon), Flickr (‘two dots’ icon), Facebook page, YouTube channel, and website. The Discord server link can be found in the included ‘[INITHIUM] KARIO QUICK INFORMATION’ notecard.

Don’t forget the included illustrated manual, if you want a refresher on how to use the body.

For those of you who are interested in the triangles and vertices of your mesh bodies and heads, here are the Kario ones:

General CI (Complexity Index) of the body is 4,016 and the scripts, as detected by my Firestorm viewer are: Script info: ‘[ INITHIUM ] KARIO V.01.5’: [1/1] running scripts, 64 KB allowed memory size limit, 0.000993 ms of CPU time consumed.

Final impressions?

Exactly as stated at the start of this post. This is a fantastic body, and from the brief conversation I had with the creator after picking up the full priced pre-release version, there are some exciting things to come. I don’t want to give too much away, as I don’t know how much of our conversation was common knowledge and how much was given in confidence, but Inithium are looking to create add-ons for Kario (one of which has me super excited!) and there will be much more from them down the line.

Satisfy your Kario-sity, and try a demo ;-)

Credits

Body: Inithium – Kario (Fit option shown)
Boots: L’Emporio&PL – Cryptor Boots (Kario)
Rings: L’Emprorio&PL – Kario Rings (included with body)
Head: Catwa – Skell* (Bento)
Hair: Vango – Ray
Pants: Toksik – Leather Leggings (black – BoM)
Jacket: Toksik – PVC Jacket
Tattoo: Letis Tattoo – Zazil (BoM)
Earrings: Artificial Hallucination – Loke Rigged Ear Piercings (Catwa)
Face skin: Stray Dog – Andrei (T4 – Catwa/BoM)
Body Skin: Inithium (hinti – included with body)

*review copy

Notes

• The jacket is not a Kario rig, but the M2 size fitted my slimmed down shape nicely
• The belt is a very old sculpted one from Lapointe & Bastchild, and I doubt that it’s available anymore