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Tim Barnes has released a set of small scenery files for the Bay of Plenty (BOP) region in New Zealand. The BOP (See the area using the images at right) sits on the edge of New Zealand's volcanic region, close to Rotorua and the Volcanic plateau. With the higher res textures now available with FSX Tim has integrated photographic based textures, autogen and scenery to produce this fantastic addition to FSX. The scenery comprises four islands: Mayor, Whale, White and Motiti Island. We will take a close look at all three, but first here are extracts from Tims README files explaining each island. |
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| MAYOR ISLAND |
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Mayor Island is the visible portion of a 700m high, 15km-wide shield volcano located 40km north of Tauranga city in the Bay of Plenty region, New Zealand. The Island was discovered by Captain Cook on the date of the Lord Mayor's Birthday in London, England - November 3rd, 1769 so was named in honour of this. The Maori name for Mayor Island, Tuhua, is the word for Obsidian, a black volcanic glass found on the Island. |
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| MOTITI ISLAND |
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Motiti Island is an offshore island in the Bay of Plenty, 6 miles to the north of the Te Puke coast and 10 miles north-eastwards by sea from Tauranga. The island reaches an altitude of 186 ft in its southern half and is composed of volcanic rocks, mainly hornblende and pyroxene andesites, probably of Miocene age (11–25 million years ago). |
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| WHALE ISLAND |
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Whale Island – (Maori Name: Moutohora) is a small island located off the Bay of Plenty coast of New Zealand's North Island. It is located about 12 kilometers north of the town of Whakatane. A whaling station existed on the island during the 19th century. The 1.43 km˛ island is a remnant of a complex volcano which has eroded, leaving two peaks. |
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| WHITE ISLAND |
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| Sitting 48km offshore, the island has been built up by continuous volcanic activity over the past 150,000 years. About 70 percent of the volcano is under the sea, making this massive volcanic structure the largest in New Zealand. The island has a history of long periods of continuous hydrothermal activity and steam release, punctuated by small-to-medium eruptions. | |
| THE SCENERY |
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The scenery is great, it integrates well with the default scenery and shows of many of the new features FSX offers such as higher rez textures and the way add-on scenery will merge into what is already there, giving a smooth transition between the two. Autogen is used well, as is additional scenery items, visual effects and the flights included with Motiti Island for viewing the local sea life. This is an important FSX release because it heralds the start of some amazing work to come. Rather than say heaps about these sceneries we have put together a short video that will give you a good idea of how they look. The video footage was shot using real world weather on Saturday June 2nd around 12 noon over an hour or so. The machine it was filmed on has Thomas Tremains Mesh scenery installed, and all scenery sliders were set at MAX. The video footage was shot using Jon's repaint of the default FSX Cessna 172 of ZK-EJY owned by Air Discovery and is in fact an aircraft Tim fly's for real. |
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If you want to know more about the Bay of
Plenty region, or the Regional Council, check out there website
here |
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