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  • Please see the most recent updates in the "Where did the .com name go?" thread. Posts number 16 and 17.

    Post 16 Update

    Post 17 Warning

Some nice NZ airports

S

SeanTK

Charter Member
Just thought I'd highlight some excellent freeware (and a couple payware) airfields in New Zealand!

The latest is the beautifully located Milford Sound Airport:
http://nzff.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=16426
Real image:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...Sound_Airport_-from_an_aircraft-18Feb2008.jpg


Creator2003 also has many other excellent freeware sceneries and some nice payware ones as well, such as Mt. Cook (freeware)
http://nzff.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=16358

...and TaupoX (payware), and HamiltonX (payware)
http://www.fs-creations.org/catalog...id=32&osCsid=9e7ab2084829fd85481bdcc9e79bcb8c

http://www.fs-creations.org/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=31


They all work great with Vector Land Class (VLC)
http://www.vectorlandclass.co.nz/

^^ A big recommendation if you fly at all in NZ and want accurate scenery for the entire country!



There are a number of other NZ scenery developers out there too, check out recently released Nelson, NZ!
http://windowlight.co.nz/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=27



A happy New Zealand flier that's hoping to spread the word of this excellent area to fly in FSX!
 
Wow! Spectacular scenery Sean, thanks for sharing. Will this be compatible and complimentary with Orbx's pending NZ release or are they both attempting the same scenery details? I guess what I'm trying to say is si this an either or purchase? It looks absolutely fantastic and have no qualms purchasing, but am also a huge fan of Orbx and their attentiveness to details, albeit at times with an FPS hit.


Matt
 
Every airport linked there is compatible with VLC, and as of yet, I don't think we're sure what will or will not be compatible with Orbx's NZ interpretation.

Take a look at VLC though...it covers the entire country of New Zealand, is made by New Zealanders (Kiwis) and is designed to be very, very accurate in regard to land/waterclass, roads, terrain details, and many other facets of terrain. (farms here, villages/cities there, etc.)
http://www.vectorlandclass.co.nz/

If you're talking about VLC itself...that's an either or thing from my understanding. Either use VLC, or wait for OrbX if you like their interpretation more.
 
Thanks Sean for the update. I hadn't thought much about getting NZ specifically until Orbx announced their upcoming release and knew nothing at all about VLC, so thank you for sharing. I now have to look into the best bang for the dollar. Do you know if the cities used within this class are much more frame rate friendly than some of the Orbx releases? I have pretty much most of the NA scenery and all of the Australian stuff and love the attention to detail, especially PNW where I reside. I figure with all of Australia, NZ and Antartica (soon from Aerosoft) covered, will be conducting many flights to explore the southern hemisphere in more depth. Now, if we could get TacPack and harpoon the whaling fleet as well as the Green Peacers and have fantastic scenery to land back at......nirvana.

Matt
 
I've not had any major frame rate issues on my system from using VLC.
I don't know how Orbx does it, but VLC does not re-model cityscapes using a ton of new, custom objects.
I'll get some more members of the New Zealand Flightsim community to chime in here.....

That being said, this is from the FAQ on the webpage:

Q: How will this addon affect performance generally?
A: There a few considerations here-
Framerates- Overall frame rates should not be adversely affected by the landclass/vector/mesh part of this addon- at some locations performance may reduce, at others it may increase.


Autogen objects, a real frame-rate hog in FSX may be more dense in areas due to the higher fidelity of the underlying landclass. For example, the default landclass data is dominated by a very bland ‘desert’ texture which has only very sparse autogen on it giving quite good performance (albeit incorrect). VLC replacement data may draw textures with denser autogen placement (depending on what is actually there in real life) such as forest or bush. The more autogen features in a scene, the more work your computer has to do and the less your performance may be.


Night lighting along urban roads and highways will have an effect especially in larger urban areas. These lights have been compiled in a way that the number of lights can be controlled with the Scenery Complexity Slider so that performance should be acceptable on a wide range of systems. Furthermore, the user can choose which class of Lights to display, or disable them completely using the VLC Config tool.
Freeway traffic can be another hard hitter on frame rates- VLC freeway data covers a far greater number of roads which means traffic will be visible in more parts of the country. However, when combined with the replacement population density layer, which lowers the overall density of traffic, frame rates should be more consistent.


As with any FSX configuration, it is up to the user to decide their own balance between 'eye candy' and computer performance by using the FSX sliders to control how objects are rendered.


Loading Times- Because this addon contains much much more detailed data, loading times may be slightly affected (both for the initial load and subsequent streaming of new data as the user flies around the scene). In house testing shows that load times are no worse than loading photoreal imagery. In general, for best performance in FSX, it should be installed on a high RPM or solid state SATA HDD.



Q: Will VLC work with other ‘Ground Texture’ replacement packages (such as FScene, Ground Environment Extreme)?
A: VectorLandClass is first and foremost a Landclass and mesh package and apart from replacing a few key textures ourselves, we rely on default ground textures. The various landclass definitions have been chosen so they best represent New Zealand using the default texture sets and for that reason, some global texture replacement packages may result in less than ideal texture placements. Unfortunately, some 'regional' landclass and texture replacement packages overwrite default textures kept in the global repository rather than placing them in their own regional folder. For best results, disable these before using VLC.




Q: Will VLC work with other Landclass replacement packages (such as Orbx, Ultimate Terrain)?
The majority of textures included in this addon are installed in our own subfolder and will be used exclusively by our addon. However some textures, such as autogen vegetation, need to be installed into your FSX root texture folder and overwrite default files. The VLC installation process will make backups of relevant textures in the root texture folder before adding VLC replacements. This means that other landclass packages which replace default textures (such as Orbx) will need to be turned off using 'FTX Central' or equivalent program before installing VLC to avoid making backups of non-standard textures.
 
Sean , wicked feed in , VLC , Vector Land Class , Lotta KIWI,s seem to have plopped their heads in the sand ? scrub ? just the general get in the back country and bury , example like every country as with the real world do disappear in the Southern areas or , but many have poked there unpainted eyeballs out and started to look ! .

What VLC has to offer is the complete country including mesh and supremely accurate land-class , this also includes Islands further out with custom built airports to offer based on photos .

The one thing i have said to many when flying is the study , use your eyeballs , people get on a plane , New Zealand we are so lucky it so small your general commute flight would only last 30 to 60 minutes and on superb day can see coast to coast .

The other bits and pieces to this addon is the freeware ... It grows every couple of hours with new and geo-placed towns and targeted to match not only to blend in with the VLC but are photo colored towns ( gone the horrible default in-accurate MS-FSX and mis-alined AGN ) - typical still a work in progress but is moving very quickly making it unique , least if you ever come to New Zealand you wont get lost .
 
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