Intro The Dire Avenger is character from the popular table top wargame Warhammer 40K. A member of the graceful and decadent Eldar race, this warrior is clad in ornate and brightly colored armor, helmet crested with a mohawk, and armed with the deadly Eldar shuriken gun. Originality
Although obviously not an original design, this is the first WH40K ppm that I've seen so far, and I expect more to come (I make make one myself). The Model
This model is flawless, and a dead ringer for the original character design. I knew exactly what it was supposed to be the very first time I saw a preview pic of the model without a skin. The poly count is just shy of the acceptable 800 triangles, and the polys are well used to bring detail to the individual armor pieces, the helmet and mohawk, and a detailed weapon with a hose. The Animations
The animations are also flawless, and very fitting for the Eldar subject. The motions are very graceful and exaggerated- just the type of dramatic movement I was hoping for, down to the taunt sequence where he arrogantly strokes the mohawk crest of his helmet. The only thing I would have added would be some subtle waving of the mohawk in the wind and with the motions- it comes off like a solid block because it doesn't ever move. Still, it's 5 star work all the way.
One of the best technical jobs of skinning a new model that I've seen yet. Of course, I'd expect no less out of NPherno :) This is one of the first models (besides my own most recent 2) that uses a 256x256 square skin (for those who don't know, anything above this size will get scaled down by 3d cards, resulting in distortion of the skin in the game) (also, 256x256 is actually MORE pixels than 320x200), and maximizes space used very well, even using a technique that I've found quite useful- mapping symmetrical mirror image pieces on the model to the same mapping vertices. ALPHAWolf did an excellent job with the skin art itself, rendering a very convincing and appropriately bright colored Eldar warrior. The only thing lacking was that there was only one skin, and no CTF skins. So (with permission) I've created an additional skin (from scratch), and a pair of CTF skins derivative of that. I wouldn't even bother to do this if it weren't for the excellent job of skin mapping on this most excellent model. (people ask me all the time why I don't do any Crackwhore skins...terrible skin mapping would make it a waste of time) Sounds
Dire Avenger comes with no sounds. Visible Weapons Support None. Pack Inclusion This was originally a problem because the height was a huge 34% taller than the male model. None of us want to see a 5 star model go to waste, so we've gone to the trouble of rescaling it to 15% taller than the male to meet the pack eligability requirements.
review by Dan Bickell
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