> The Creamy Goodness Quake2 PPM is my alter ego of the Quake arenas, one that I've wanted to do for several years, but a combination of other projects plus real life got in the way. This model was to be part of an animated fantasy story I abandoned, be it did get some air time in my old Jatoten and Brandy's Quake2 Tactics project. After I get the model into Quake2, I probably won't do any further work on it. Now that I finally have the time to convert this model into a working Quake2 PPM, I'll try to do a little bit of work on it every week. The model used to be called the Jatoten Rascot Quake2 PPM, but I changed it to Creamy Goodness to reflect my new standard online name.

> The weapon models will be complex and highly animated. This is by far the most difficult VWEP I've ever worked on. Originally, I wanted to finish all 11 weapon models before releasing the model, but this plan is one of many things that held the project back. For now, I'll try to include only about six weapon models in the first release of the PPM, and work on the rest of them for later releases of the model.

10/22/2004 - After four years of working on the Jatoten Rascot Battle Mage, aka Creamy Goodness model, I've finally decided that it's time to call it quits. I'm already working on the final touches of the Dib Quake2 PPM, and I think that doing more than one model at a time is just a bit out of my league. Besides, I've come to realize that the Creamy model is far more trouble that it's worth, between the complex animated VWEP, and the clipping of the skirt. If I ever decide to pick up this model again in the future, I'm going to have him dress more like my real life self, pants and all. Also, I'll probably modify him for a game other than Quake2, just so I won't have to deal with that damn VWEP. I apologize to anyone who was looking forward to this model's completion, assuming such people exist.

5/8/2003 - I optimized the Gwahrai Sling three days ago, cutting its patch size from 285 patches down to 112 patches. Here's a quick AVI which shows Creamy's new and improved Hand Grenades VWEP replacement...

4/6/2003 - Three days ago, I completed the Gwahrai Sling, which is Creamy's Hand Grenades replacement. It weighs in at 285 patches, which is far more than I'd like it to be, so I'll probably optimize it a bit further before I release it.

> I don't know why I didn't do this in the last update, but here's a short idle animation of the Ethereal Shortsword. Oh, and I forgot to mention this in my last update, but the sword weighs in at 253 patches.

> By the way, I couldn't re-order AM2000, because Hash no longer sells it. So I'll either have to find a crack for it somewhere, or find out how to edit channels with AM2002. Goddammit. :(

3/20/2003 - Here's the mesh of a new weapon model I finished four days ago. It's called the Ethereal Swortsword, and is Creamy's replacement for the Rocket Launcher. This is actually the second mesh I've made of this model; the first was lost when BOTH of Candybox's hard drives failed. (My 40GB Western Digital was in particularly bad shape, because when I opened its cover, I saw the insides were covered with some kind of a fine black soot, and the head had scratched the surface of the disks.) And that failure happened just before I could finish the last animation of the model. If I could have finished the model sooner, I would have backed it up to my Polycount cottage in time so I wouldn't have to start from fucking scratch. I blame Animation Master 2002 for the loss of the sword, because half the time I spent on this model was spent on figuring out the interface. Which is why I'm going to re-order AM2000 (Version 8.5) today.

7/19/2K - A few hours ago, I got the skeleton and Smartskin done. The skirt was especially tricky to smartskin, as it took me three days and two attempts to get it right. Finally, at long last, my Jatoten Rascot Battle Mage model is finished! Below is a toon render of JRBM in an Egyptian Walk sequence. The animation is from the AM2000 action library, and was originaly meant for anatomically correct models. As a result, there will be severe clipping in the arms. The animations I make for JRBM will be exclusive to the model, so such problems should be kept to a minimum.

> Although this task is now officially behind me, I am now eight days behind schedule, and still have to finish eighteen weapon models in twelve days. To make matters worse, I'm not sure what most of them will look like, and the ones I already have done will need at least some reconstruction. Oh well then, better get cracking.

7/15/2K - I finished the AM2000 textures for the model of my alter-ego yesterday, about an hour ago.

> This is a toon render of the model, and shows the result of my work in 3D...

> I've decided to try a new trick with the Smartskin feature. I created a bone for each eye, neither of the bones having any control points associated with them. On each of the eye-bones, I set the Z-axis to 180 degrees, then moved the eye to its fully open position. In order to test the Smartskinned bones, I opened a new action, and when I rotated the pivot of the bones, the eyes opened and closed smoothly. I can now use these Smartskinned eye-bones to conveniently set how open I want each eye during a choreography, and when I create the action sequences for the Quake2 version of JRBM. Damn, I love learning new things. :)

7/13/2K - In the earliest hours of this morning, before the sun came up, I finally finished the mesh of my Jatoten Rascot Battle Mage model. Yes, he's a beauty, but the way I designed him makes him look like Malcolm-X as a kindergarten schoolteacher, IMHO. Check these out and judge for yourself...

7/8/2K - I took the liberty of optimizing the head of my Jatoten Rascot Battle Mage model today, and managed to reduce its patchcount by more than a quarter. The once 468 patch head now stands at 332 patches. Why don't you take a look...

7/7/2K - Yesterday, after four days of some pretty tough spline weaving, I was able to produce the head of my upcoming Jatoten Rascot Battle Mage model. Here's the result...

6/23/2K - Yesterday, I completed a concept sketch for the model of my alter ego. I based this sketch on photos of myself, and Tish from The Weekenders. I will use this very sheet as a rotoscope in order to make the building of the Jatoten Rascot Battle Mage model easier.