UMEMARO 3D

The name UMEMARO 3D is usually used to refer to two things: UMEMARO 3D, the dojin circle, and UMEMARO, the man behind the dojin circle.

UMEMARO 3D, the Circle
UMEMARO 3D (梅麻呂3D) is a dojin circle that specializes in CG-animated hentai. Its first release was Aya, in 2002, and the circle has released eighteen "mini-movie collections," two "Project Works," and two 3D comics since then, the most recent collection being Mari's Sexual Circumstances, released in December 2020. UMEMARO 3D projects are released primarily through DLsite and DMM, with additional websites carrying his work after a period of exclusivity on DLsite and DMM.

UMEMARO 3D releases have been self-published by UMEMARO through his company Arcadia Ltd. since 2005.

Staff
UMEMARO 3D is, for the most part, a solo project - UMEMARO is generally responsible for every facet of production, from scenario writing to 3D rendering. For a period of time from Lewd Consultation Room through Work in Progress, however, UMEMARO enlisted outside help for system programming and scenario writing, as well as crediting several "special advisors" in certain games.

HIROBON
From Lewd Consultation Room through Work in Progress, HIROBON, reportedly a former employee of forester, is credited as the "system programmer." Given that this credit coincided with the introduction of Mackyplayer, it is likely that HIROBON was responsible for the system's implementation. After Work in Progress, however, UMEMARO shifted to a different version of Mackyplayer and later abandoned it entirely, and HIROBON has not been credited since then.

Akiwo Watanabe
Akiwo Watanabe was apparently hired after UMEMARO posting an open job listing for a scenario writer prior to the production of OMEGA. It is not known how involved Watanabe was in this process, whether he simply assisted with script writing or was in charge of the entire scenario. He is credited in this role in Game of Lascivity OMEGA, Pizza Takeout Obscenity, and Game of Lascivity OMEGA 2.

Release formats
Aya was released as a set of disconnected .AVI clips that could combine into a full video, with bonuses such as wallpapers and concept renders included. Releases from Kasumi to Lewd Bomb Bust Female Teacher expanded on this distribution method, funneling the components of each release through an HTML document to be opened in a web browser. Lewd Consultation Room introduced Mackyplayer, a program that acts as a more sophisticated form of the HTML document, with the side-effect of locking the individual clips in a format readable only by the Mackyplayer container. This program, despite the DRM it instituted, allowed for more complex releases with interactive elements to them, and paved the way for two full-featured, text-based adventure games (identified as Project Works) - OMEGA and OMEGA 2. Mackyplayer was succeeded by Clickteam with the release of Cheeky Girl in 2016, featuring similar DRM restrictions.

Each UMEMARO 3D mini-movie collection since Work in Progress has been ported to Android, with the exception of Semen Analysis.

UMEMARO 3D expanded into non-animated comics with the release of The Chiropractor in December 2014, distributed in both PDF and JPG formats.

Most UMEMARO 3D releases are available to buy through a physical DVD containing the game files in Japanese stores; additionally, DMM has released several reformatted versions of UMEMARO 3D releases, reshaped into two-issue (or, in the case of OMEGA 2, sixteen-issue) comics. These are adaptations of the games that use screenshots from the games (or, in the case of the comics, cropped panels) overlaid with speech bubbles to convey the game's narrative.

UMEMARO, the Man
UMEMARO (梅麻呂) is the founder and sole member of UMEMARO 3D. He is in his 50s (having previously mentioned being 46 at some point in the late 2000s), and has been working in the 3DCG industry for most of his professional career. He identifies his hobby as being "DVD watching." His pre-UMEMARO 3D work was with forester, a 1990s 3D CG eroge company. He worked on every forester release until 2002, when he began working solo instead. UMEMARO once noted that the OMEGA duology was his "revenge" for having worked on Gakuen Z, a forester work with similar themes.

UMEMARO maintains a blog that is used to post production stills as work is done on upcoming UMEMARO 3D releases, as well as discuss other things that have been occurring in his life. He has been plagued with health issues relatively frequently; these health problems are often cited as a contributing factor to the subpar nature of OMEGA 2, and they have resulted in delays in production several times since.

According to the main UMEMARO 3D website (whose profile section, prior to its deletion following a website redesign, had not been updated since the late 2000s), UMEMARO uses LightWave 9 and 7.5, the FiberFX add-on, Adobe Creative Suite 3 (specifically Photoshop, Premiere, and After Effects), and Real Flow 4. His workstation setup as of March 17, 2015 included four computers: a primary PC running Windows XP for the bulk of the animating work, a second PC running Windows 7 for additional work and rendering, and another two exclusively for rendering, one running Windows 7, and the other running Windows Vista. UMEMARO also keeps a laptop in his room for web browsing when he takes breaks, and a sixth computer used exclusively for Internet-connected TV.

According to his November 1, 2014 blog post, prior to upgrading, UMEMARO did all of his rendering work on Windows XP, up until Microsoft's extended support for XP ended in April 2014, likely leaving Work in Progress as the last work rendered on Windows XP. UMEMARO's January 21, 2015 blog post revealed that he had upgraded to LightWave 11 for Semen Analysis, after his ten-year license for LW 7.5 expired. However, on March 22, UMEMARO announced that he had reverted back to LW 7.5 on an older computer, as his attempts to make LW 11 work for Semen Analysis had failed.

UMEMARO replaced his primary rendering computer with a high-end Windows 7 tower in late 2016, after his previous computer suffered from a catastrophic motherboard failure that left it completely unusable. This failure resulted in the delay of Cheeky Girl's production and release, and there was a brief data loss scare before UMEMARO discovered that the motherboard was the problem with the computer.

On June 13, 2018, UMEMARO revealed that he had upgraded to LightWave 2018.