Aven Ven

Description
RogueCruiser's "Aven Ven" is his first foray into the mapping world - and it does a lot, in that it tries a lot and makes some very noticeable "first map" errors.

Aven Ven is set on a snowy(?) planet, although it has patches of Yavin IV grass and temple stones. It is a very large map and a very open one. I applaud the author for trying as many new things as he tried for a first map, but it has a lot of small bugs and errors.

First of all, there are new sides added. I can only really comment on GCW, as that's all I tried (perhaps there are fewer bugs in CW?). They remain pretty similar to stock sides, although most of the units do have new textures. This is fine normally, but the units' texturing is haphazard and none of them feel like they really match. One might be white with a design and blue highlights while another unit is red - there's not much organization to be found. Also, some of the texturing looks pretty sloppy (e.g. helmet recolors for Tantive IV troops - just flat paintbucket). There are also a number of sounds missing. Also, the Jedi for the Rebels uses a mismatched combo and animationbank, which makes him deform on some of his animations. Finally, the droid used in GCW uses the wrong skeleton and as a result the model is deformed.

The map itself tries to do a lot, but it also has a number of issues. First and foremost, it's just too big. There are huge distances between command posts and very little to even try and make them look different along the way - almost everything is flat. There are a few command posts that move towards a Hoth-style tunnel system, but there the problems intensify. Object placement here is sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. Almost none of the objects are aligned; you can see gaps between almost everything (even between some of the bunker exteriors and the terrain). The terrain itself could use a little work, too much of it is jagged and missing the smooth brush.

It's not too bad a first attempt, and as mentioned above, I do applaud the author for trying to do several things - however, a lot of the things that were tried weren't done very well. I would suggest touching up what's mentioned above, maybe unifying the map a little (instead of the choppy Yavin IV - Hoth mixture it is now), and working on a version two (or just a new map entirely).

-Mav