map 01- Dead Place

Map 01- A Dead place

At the beginning of the movie we see the team landing at the edge of the city after failing to raise anyone on the radio, Miguel shouts down the bullhorn
" Hello is there anyone there?!", immediately the city is full of corpses traveling towards that sound.
the first level imagines that there were some survivors in that city, and they tried to fight there way to the chopper but couldn't make it in time and were
left behind by Miguel and the gang only to find themselves at the docks, they decide to steal a boat and follow the direction of the chopper..



Hows it coming along?...
Recreating the city from the opening of Day of the Dead poses a few problems, like most good film makers Romero filmed only the sections of the city he was interested in, and which projected the idea he wanted to communicate to the viewers, this scene in the film has only one sentence of dialogue but speaks volumes, as i rant to my friends when talking about this scene "Romero ends the world in under 10 shots".

So approaching how to create this city for players to navigate and experience is somewhat like a jigsaw puzzle, there are several clear images which stay with any fan of the film from this city, the Bank from which 2 corpses and a corpse alligator emerges, the Edison Theatre, the main streets and the newspaper headline "the Dead walk", i decided to embrace the jigsaw and create these areas separately first and with as much detail as I'm able, this has meant including custom textures and creating a few buildings purely with brushes.



after creating the bank and theatre i was left considering weather or not to leave them as mere display pieces or actually allow the survivors to enter them and have a reason for doing so, however with the daunting task of the entire project i have Little time for considering until the main body of work is done, and so i moved boldly forward onto the main streets, straight away i realised the streets were going to be challenging, the buildings are not like your average urban sprawl, they reek of the 50's and each building really seems to have its own unique idea, when trying to create everything with as much effort as possible this was a very demanding starting point to say the least.






The main street seen right is the first real wide shot
we see of the city, its an image of decay and
immediately we get the sense of an aftermath
of sorts, but also we see the street stretching off into the distance, i decided i wanted this street, the street we are shown Miguel and Sarah are looking down while shouting for survivors to be my finale area, the idea is that the survivors do not make it to the chopper in time so this gave me several things to play with, Miguel's use of the bullhorn is an excellent prompt for the a gauntlet event down the street towards the chopper and just as they reach the end they watch as the chopper flies off into the distance, so work on the street was vital and so i began!.

now as i say each building has its own design feel, so i embraced that and tried to match the feel for the street also making several shops enter able as i progress i will also have to decide whats in teh shops if anything, the shops will also make excellent spawn points for infected as well as the roof tops, though i feel the hunter will have the most fun with them.

where am i up to on this?...
i have created the final stretch section of the road and i intend to work backwards towards the T-junction and from there decide where the bank and theater locations should be, from there i should have a clearer idea where the survivors should begin and just what lies in-between them and the final stretch