I have just been using placeholders until now.
But this is a key piece of the level and I couldn’t just but a grey box there.
So here is the first asset of hipster axe. The bridge over Newtown Creek

And here it is inside the engine.

Here is another 3d concept model. But I am not sure this guy is annoying enough.

For the main character I like the idea of a little girl with a huge axe. Here is the first crack at concepting out a high poly model. It still has a long way to go, but this is the basic idea. I got my inspiration for the character from the puerto rican day parade.

Google Satellite Image to UDK Grid

After a few attempts in max to align up diagonal streets in a way that they would eventually snap to udk grid, I realized that this approach was insanity. Maybe I am missing something, but I think the grid is a lot easier to use with right angles. I suppose I could build some things on it at right angles and rotate them later. But while building this approach seems to make more sense.

So I scrapped my previous work and started again this time first aligning my satellite picture to photoshops grid. There happened to be a few blocks that fit almost perfectly. So that is going to be my playable area and starting point for the map.

Once I got the idea out of my head of diagonals, I was able to use swift loop to get in and chop things up really quick.

here is the playable area in white without the background image

I also decided to further reduce the ammount of playable blocks I needed to build. My first draft called for 23 blocks, running at all kinds of different intersections. This latest versions reduced the number to 11. I could increase that number a little. But 11 is sounding pretty good. It will take about 30 seconds to go one block. So 11 blocks is 5 minutes to explore the whole level if it is empty. Probably a lot more if it is filled with enemies.