NEW VERSION 1.2 ! Compatible with World Update 12 - New Zealand
NZKI - Kaikoura; South Island, New Zealand
Version 1.2, March 2023
Installation:
Just copy the tgd-nzki folder into the community folder of Microsoft Flight Simulator
About this scenery:
Custom made scenery for Kaikoura Airport, located on the east coast of New Zealand´s South island about halfway between Christchurch and Blenheim. I visited the airport in January 2020
and took a whale watching flight there with my family; Kaikoura is one of the best places in NZ to see large whales like sperm or blue whales. We were captivated by the beautiful
location that is Kaikoura, with the beautiful coastline of the Kaikoura peninsula and the towering mountain ranges just a few miles behind. I took a lot of photos around the
airport (though not specifically for scenery creation purposes) and so it was a logical step to try to create a rendition of this airport for Flight Simulator.
This is my second scenery after the release of my NFTO scenery in October last year. The project was considerably larger than my previous effort, and took a lot more time to complete
than I initially expected. I originally intended to create custom models only for the main buildings and use default objects for the rest of the scenery, but it just didn´t look right
this way so I also modeled a lot of smaller objects and assets to recreate the overall look and feel of the airport, and though there is still room for improvement I think I largely
succeeded in creating a scenery that is relatively close to the real world.
Features:
- complete rework of the default airport with aprons, runways and parking
- custom models and textures for the main buidlings and some smaller assets (fences, signs, clutter objects), combined with some default objects
- some custom ground materials for runway decals and walkways
- extensive rework of the vegetation around the airport (removed unrealistic high trees and replaced by small trees, bushes and shrubs as in the real world)
- some minor adjustments to the Kaikoura peninsula (some elevation corrections and removal of trees on the tidal pools and flooded rocky coastline
- Animated whales, dolphins, seals and whale watching boats (all custom models, no additional libraries needed)
Known issues and limitations (to be improved in the future)
- some texture flickering / aliasing of the high detailed fences and balcony railings from further away, gets better as you get closer
- secondary grass runway immediately adjacent and parralel to the sealed runway not included as a selectable runway because the two runways are so close together that it´s nearly impossible to select the correct one on the world map screen. Grass runway however is still visually represented by marker boards, cones and some subtle marks and tracks on the grass
- some signs where not readable from my on-site photos and thus I head to guess what they might read ;-)
- only default windsocks so far, to be replaced by custom (pure white) windsock as soon as I learn to export animations and conditional behaviours into MSFS
- some minor buildings and assets not featured due to missing resource photos (not clearly visible on my photos and those I found on the internet)
- only rudimentary night lighting. The real airport doesn´t allow for night operations (no runway or taxiway lighting according to original charts) so I decided to not spend too much time on tweaking the night lighting, which admittedly is not the strongest part of this scenery
I hope you enjoy this scenery and I will continue to improve it in the near future as my skills and knowledge of Blender and the SDK improves.
Charts for reference:
Kaikoura Aerodrome operational charts: http://www.aip.net.nz/pdf/NZKI_51.1_52.1.pdf
Koschi
fabs79
Hello everyone, one of my Betatesters informed me that the windsocks at NZKI have fallen victim to the Infamous 180 degree Bug, meaning that they are facing in the exact opposite direction than they should. I must habe overlooked that when I released the update. Anyway, I already corrected this in the next build, which I will release in a few months with additional content, but if anyone is in dire need of correctly facing windsocks just leave a comment and i'll Release an interim update just for the windsocks
OjisanAlpha
Phantastic stuff! That new version is great work again! 😊
chiggs
Awesome thank you so much for updating.
franzfalckenhaus
new update - all good - no square "mesh hole" near the Wings over Whales building on my end.
fabs79
!!! IMPORTANT NOTICE !!! Hello everyone, I just downloaded the new World Update XII - New Zealand and checked my scenery, unfortunately the new aerial has caused all objects and ground polygons to be displaced by a few metres. I´ll correct this and release an update for NZKI within the next two weeks. Until then, I´d recommend removing NZKI from your community folder cause it will look terrible at the moment.
Red_Ronnl
Hi Fabian, do you use ORBX New Zealand mesh? Give it a try without it!
1 years ago
dresoccer4
This was such a fantastic airport to fly in to. The attention to detail is astounding. Please make more NZ airports!
fabs79 author
Thanks, working on my home airport in Germany right now which is a whole lot more work than I ever expected and will probably take another few months. After that I'm planning a large update for Kaikoura. More NZ airports not planned at the moment because I don't have any reference photos beside the few ones available on Google for any other airport than NZKI which is the only one I visited myself. If anyone can provide on site photos I may consider doing more, however my time is very limited so anything larger than Kaikoura would be too much. Cheers, Fabian
2 years ago
spas3man
This has to be my favourite mod ever. The animated whales and dolphins are fantastic. Brilliant for low level whale watch vfr flights.
fabs79 author
Thank you, I'm finishing another scenery right now but after that I'll get to work on a major update for Kaikoura. I've got tons of ideas to further improve the scenery, the only thing thats really disappointing is the low quality satellite imagery for that region.
3 years ago
Scotty
Now it works;thank you!!
Bluebear
Yes, i can confirm, i had also CTD with the scenery v1.1. Runtime error.
fabs79 author
Thank you for the feedback, I'll have to check this out. I have a vanilla MSFS installation on my development desktop so I cannot test against other addons there but I'll try to track down the problem on my flightsim pc with other NZ addons installed. Do you have other addons for the region that I might check against?
3 years ago
Scotty
Starting a flight at NZKI gives me a CTD.Any known incompatibilties?
fabs79 author
Thank you for the feedback, see my comment above. I'll also recheck the vegetation polygons for those where all labeled unknown after the last sim update I thought I had updated all of them but maybe I missed one which could cause such an error. I'll report back once I had a chance to investigate.
3 years ago
trevg
You can't improve this much more, great work
fabs79
Just to inform you, I just uploaded V1.1 of my Kaikoura scenery, adding some animated sperm whales and dusky dolphins and Whale Watching boats. As in real life the whales can be pretty hard to spot, I recommend flying low between 500 and 1000 feet AGL and choose a weather setting with relatively calm winds (below 10 knots) and only few or scattered clouds. They are roughly located east and south of the Kaikoura peninsula (Northeast of the airport) and their starting location along the path they travel is randomized so they will show up in a different location every time you start a flight, though they will travel along the same path each time. In the future I will add more marine animals and I also plan to make their visibility dependent on time of day, year and weather conditions and also make the boats appear only during daytime and not in heavy weather, but this will be another update. Have fun Whale Watching!
Socorrista22198
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Airfield request: https://flightsim.to/request/scenery/1307/ontur-airfield
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T0kenDesign
KJKerr
3 years ago