Review and Screenshots by Jon Murchison
 

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Overview & Background
 
Wellington is my home town, and in the days I ran FS2004 the original release of Real NZ Wellington was one I gleefully installed. With FSX things changed somewhat, the early days saw performance being an issue for many meaning sceneries like Real NZ Wellington struggled on machines that were able to run it well in FS2004. Initially a patch was released that would allow the FS2004 version to work in FSX, however working in FSX and taking advantage of the improved visuals FSX has to offer are two different things.
 
With the release of Real NZ Wellington International Airport & City X, Wellington has finally been given the opportunity to be seen in its true glory. The large triangular photoreal area seen in the FS2004 version remains, this covers the Wellington region as far north as the Kapiti Coast, and across to Upper Hutt. The resolution of this has been doubled to bring it in line with Real NZ Marlborough. Wellington City has had additional scenery items added and now includes the Beehive, which for our international visitors is the iconic looking building that houses the executive wing of the New Zealand Government. The major new addition to the scenery is Paraparaumu (NZPP). This is a small but busy airfield about 45 minutes drive north of Wellington City that featured on the photoreal textures in the original release, but no runway or buildings were ever added. Wellington Airport itself has been upgraded to now feature spec and bump mapping to make it a true FSX scenery.
 
In this review we will look at the new features the scenery provides with particular focus on the photoreal textures, the upgraded NZWN and  newly added NZPP.
 
Installation
 
The scenery comes on a single CD in a professionally presented full sized DVD case, you can also get the scenery via download if you wish on SimMarket. Like all of Godzone's scenery, installation is as simple as loading the CD into your drive and then using the auto-run menu to select what you want to do. If you run Vista you will need to give the auto-run permission to do so. The CD has both the FS2004 & FSX versions so make sure you install the correct one, and for FSX owners you also have the option of installing Paraparaumu, which is not installed as part of the main scenery install. If you have an earlier version of this product installed you will need to uninstall it first before proceeding, this along with other information is contained in the small full color manual that comes with the CD. I'm use to installing Flightsim products so tend not to look at these, but if its your first scenery purchase I would encourage you to read through this before you start the install process, it does contain useful info particularly if your copy of FSX is not installed to the default C: drive location. I also encourage you to read the PDF or WORD Manuals that come with the CD, these have additional information you will find valuable. Total hard-drive space used for both Wellington and NZPP is about 340MB, and once installed you will need to manually activate the scenery from the FSX main menu, and then you are ready to explore the Wellington and Kapiti Coast regions!
 
The system I am running FSX on is as follows:
 
  • Intel Quad Core 3.2
  • 2 Gig DDR 3 Ram
  • 8800 GTX Graphics Card
  • 10,000 RPM HD
  • Windows Vista Home Premium
  • Sony wide screen TV
 
Its a Photoreal World, Baby!
 
Real NZ scenery has always featured a combination of Photoreal textures and a high detail airport, and with Real NZ Wellington International Airport & City X this is no different, just as the original release was. For this upgraded version the aerial photoreal textures that have been used are 2.5 mtr/pixel, effectively doubling what was possible in FS2004. The result of this is photoreal you can actually recognize from lower altitudes, with VFR flying at around 2000 feet possible without distortions. Lots can be written and said about photoreal textures, but pictures really say more so here are a series of photos from around the Wellington region that highlight what this higher resolution photo scenery looks like. For this review I am running FSX default mesh, Godzone recommend at least the free 75 mtr mesh supplied on the CD, so you can expect your results to look different if you use the 75 or 100 mtr mesh available.
 

 

 
Performance is always a key consideration with photoreal scenery. Because of the resolution it is possible to reduce the autogen settings which can certainly increase FPS, but even then I found performance to be pretty good with frames consistent around the 20-25 mark across the region, dipping into the teens when over the city due to increased scenery. I certainly found all the key locations across the city to be easy to recognize and was able to navigate very easily visually, even down to seeing the house I was born in, as well as those of my sister and mum around the region. We've seen an increase in photoreal replacement sceneries released that come with nothing else other than the textures, given the photoreal really is the icing on the cake for this scenery, its inclusion is very welcome and makes VFR flying and exploration lots of fun. One thing photoreal scenery does do is bring the scale of autogen into focus, typically it would appear autogen is twice the size of real buildings, this can be seen very clearly in the last screenshot to the right above, where individual houses are almost as big as school buildings on the textures, this is certainly not a criticism of the scenery as there is nothing anyone other than ACES can do about this. Regardless of this the autogen is well laid out and I pity the poor bugger who had to do the annotation work as its quite detailed across the region.
 

NZWN - Wellington International
 
For me Wellington International has been the airport I grew up with. From the heady days of the 1970's when you effectively had unlimited access to the ramp and could watch the brand new Boeing 737-200's operated by N.A.C (National Airways Corporation) start-up and taxi from what was then a walkway that split the ramp in two, and had a great open air viewing ramp to boot, to the modern and highly security conscious airport it is today. The airport has come a long way since it first opened in 1959 after Paraparaumu was no longer deemed appropriate to take the 'larger' aircraft of the time, and Wellington became the regions official international airport. I still clearly remember the original terminal, which was then a converted de Havilland Tigermoth factory, it was draughty, it leaked and was cramped with very limited facilities, but as a kid it was a playground. Pan Am flew their 747-100 that was visiting New Zealand over the airport in the very early 70's, but due to Wellingtons runway length a landing was not possible. The runway has always been the challenge for aircraft operations over the years, limiting it to Boeing 737 and 767 types in the main, and in more recent years the A320.

 
Godzone has captured Wellington International Airport as it appears today. The 'new' terminal with its International and Domestics piers, along with the smaller southern pier used by Air NZ link and smaller operators such as Sounds Air are present and well modeled. Behind this is the iconic Hangar that is the last building of the original airport left standing other than the Cargo area to its west. The extended GA facilities on the western perimeter are present with Life flight, the RNZAF hangar and the Wellington Aeroclub buildings to name a few all accurately presented and appropriately detailed, and opposite these on the eastern side is the fire station and Aviation Security facilities. Throughout the scenery numerous vehicles such as the fire tenders and aviation security vehicles can be found, as are baggage trolleys and the electric and gas powered tow vehicles. These are all governed by LOD (level of detail) which means things appear the closer you are to them, filling in the detail and ensuring the scenery is as frame rate friendly as it can possibly be. All the building feature spec mapping and bumpmaps. Recent upgrades to the southern end of the runway which included safety areas being added are in the scenery, with the fairly new tunnel running under this modeled.
 

 
The quality of the building models is excellent, I wasn't able to fault any of them design wise and everything has its own light mapping during the evening and nighttime hours. Unfortunately the air bridges don't operate, while those modeled are accurate representations of those at NZWN, having these move would have completed the scenery and are a notable exclusion. The textures are all photo based ( this can be seen in many of the reflections on the windows such as a Qantas 737 tail clearly visible at the Qantas gates , even when no 737 is parked up), this ensures accuracy yet I do wonder if some of the more obvious reflections could have been removed. Overall texture quality is good though some I found to be a little grainy, I appreciate texture size has an impact on frame rates, so finding the balance is always going to be a challenge for developers.
 
Two runways operate at Wellington, these being 16 and 34. Wellington is known for its wind so full ILS facilities are included to assist instrument approaches. Using the ILS I found it had me touching down on the centerline at about where you would expect so you wont get any nasty surprises in rough or visually challenging approaches.
 

 
The airport comes with an AFCAD file that ensures correct parking across the airport, looking into this I noted Godzone have gone as far as defining the airline parking areas, so if you have AI appropriate for New Zealand you should find Qantas aircraft park at the Qantas gates etc. The level of detail across the entire airport is very high, and like the FS2004 version before it, Real NZ Wellington International Airport & City X has taken a leap in technology to bring this airport into the new flightsim age for FSX.
 

NZPP - Paraparaumu
 

Paraparaumu is a small airfield on the sunny Kapiti Coast, and as I said earlier is located about 45 minutes North of Wellington city. NZPP caters to the Kapiti Aero club and Helipro helicopter training school, as well as being home to the Wellington gliding club.  For many years NZPP was the only airport servicing the Wellington region and was the centre of domestic DC-3 operations for N.A.C until 1959. Its runways have diminished over the years, at one stage 3 operated but this has now been reduced to 1 with the other restricted to emergency use only. Commercial aviation operations continue at the airport with Air 2 There, a small operator using Cessna grand Caravans between Kapiti, Wellington and Blenheim, being based on the northern side of the field.  The Godzone rendition of the scenery, which has also been released as a Freeware download, covers the area with high resolution photoreal textures, and on top of this the runways and taxiways have been overlaid, much the same as has been done at NZWN. All the major buildings from this airport have been included, with the level of detail achieved being very good. Near the Air 2 There buildings you will find the old tower, which is now shut down and harks back to this airports heyday in the 50s. Next to this you'll find a memorial to the passengers and crew of an NAC DC-3 ZK-AYZ that was lost in the Kaimai ranges further east of the airfield in 1963, and across a path the Museum of Aviation (Kapiti), located in what was the old Meteorological building, its small but has some great memorabilia if your ever in the area. The memorial highlights the bump and spec mapping incorporated in the scenery, as you'll swear you are looking at an embellished copper plate rather than a texture when you view this up close. All the buildings feature bump mapping and spec effects, with Paraparaumu being unique in terms of this is the first Godzone release that was designed for FSX from the ground up.
 
 
 

The airport is well worth exploring, the level of detail around the Helipro hangar is quite superb, and if you have shadows turned on, and this scenery really does beckon you to do so, then you'll see some quite stunning effects depending on what time of the day you are visiting the airport. The higher resolution ground textures make this airport stand apart, and really starts to demonstrate what New Zealand scenery can look like.
 
 

Like Wellington a quality AFCAD accompanies the scenery that includes generic GA parking but unusually no helicopter starting points, with Helipro a big presence on the field I would have thought this would have been included. I also noted that runway 29/11 is open for business, in reality this is now closed and as mentioned earlier only used for emergencies. Other than that AI GA traffic will operate quite happily in and out of the facilities, and true to life no ILS is provided for NZPP, this is an uncontrolled visual environment.
 

Wellington City
 

Real NZ Wellington International Airport & City X has the same buildings featured in the original FS2004 version, with the inclusion of the Beehive, which was always a strange emission given its unique design and significance in the region. Like the airports these have all been upgraded for FSX and include a good level of detail, some having landable helicopter pads on top such as the Wellington Hospital building. The Helipro base on Queens Wharf is very handy for central city visits and to base any chopper flights around the region you may want to make, with an upgraded Te Papa across the bay heading south, and the Wellington Stadium to the north.

 
 

A few notes on the city scenery, in general this is great, the buildings are where you would find them in real life, their textures are all photo based and the attention to detail is very good, I particularly like the detail you'll find in the Beehive, its well worth a close look. All have appropriate night lighting, spec maps etc. The only thing I saw that was out of place was one of the freighters sitting at the quay, either he's unloaded his freight and is sitting very high on the water, or their is a slight glitch with the ship.
 
FINAL WORDS & RATING
 
Like all Real NZ titles that have come before it, you cant beat Wellington International & City if you want to improve the look of your FSX world. The combination of higher resolution ground textures, enhanced buildings across Wellington Airport, the addition of the Beehive AND Paraparaumu Airport included make this very hard to beat. Overall quality is excellent, the scenery performs well (naturally that needs to take into consideration your machine specs, if you struggle to run FSX default scenery then this title wont improve on that) and embraces the visual enhancements FSX offers flight simmers. This is a must have for kiwi pilots and earns an X-Rating of 5!