NZKI – Kaikoura Airport (Custom-made scenery) v1.0
NZKI – Kaikoura; South Island, New Zealand
Version 1.0, March 2021
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
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 windsock 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
– no custom models beyond the airport perimeter. I want to create some wildlife and maybe ships aorund the airport and the peninsula region but I don´t want to use static assets from the available libraries because I think static people and animals look strange in an otherwise animated surrounding (like moving cars, waves on the ocean). This will take some time though because I need to learn animation and AI path creation first
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.
GPS Coordinates: -42.424460, 173.604630
