Lake Okaro Version 1.0 for Flight Simulator 2002. 01-01-02
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Lake Okaro ( Ngakaro ) is a maori word which means Blue Lake or Shimmering lake.

NOTE: It is important that you read all of this readme.txtfile to ensure you install this scenery correctly and get the maximum benefit from it !!! I get many emails from people who have had problems with installation of my scenery only to discover !! they DIDNT READ THE INSTRUCTIONS!!
Nevertheless if you do find a genuine bug or want to suggest an improvement dont hesitate to contact me ( S.Reweti@massey.ac.nz )

This scenery ONLY WORKS with fs2002.... and works BEST with the default microsoft NZ scenery activated and the NZ 150 mesh activated .. NZ 150 mesh scenery is available from the following site :
http://www.geocities.com/ar_nz/
However it can work without either of these sceneries activated ...

Also you HAVE TO install the photorealistic trees scenery ( newtrees2002.zip ) which is in this zip file or you will get a 'missing objects error' when installing this scenery



New Scenery Developments

I visited this lake for a fishing expedition many,many years ago and when I found that the lake doesnt exist in the default microsoft new zealand scenery or the NZ 150 mesh I was strongly motivated to construct it. See rotorualakes.gif for map of the region
Another reason I did this small scenery was as a testbed for my development of water effects for created lakes in Fs2002. There are many beautiful lake sceneries available on flightsim sites. But many of them suffer one major problem! when you land your floatplane on them your aircraft doesnt float up and down or show the cool water effects of the Fs2002 default water scenery. This is a real pain and a number of scenery designers who are much better than me are looking at modifying the default mesh to try and solve this problem. Of course you could just use a default lake but there are also many missing lakes in the default microsoft scenery so how can build a custom lake with water effects. Well until someone produces a program to manipulate the mesh I have utilised a quick and dirty solution to mimic water effects on a man made lake . The downside is that the lake must be a polygon and therefore the edge perimeter may be a little crude but I have masked it with lots of trees and I hope you will agree that this limitation is compensated somewhat by the implemenation of the FS2K2 water effects. Again I will do some more research and try and improve my lake by utilsing a bitmap ( if possible ????) in Version 2.0.
If any other scenery designer has some information or ideas about water effects for Fs2002 I would be grateful to hear from you ( my email S.Reweti@massey.ac.nz )

Scenery Features

Features include Pilot Controlled Lighting ( frequency is 118.00 MHZ ) and this will light up the water buoys ( laid out in a runway pattern on the lake ) as well as the helipad and the windsocks.
The grass polygon is seasonal as well as the trees and also the water changes colour slightly with the seasons
The fictional NDB is set to 500 KHZ
I have also included a lot of nightlit textures to assist with night landings
Why not fly your floatplane down to the lake for a spot of fishing...




History

The Rotorua Lakes District is an amazing area of NZ and attracts thousands of tourists and fishermen from all over the world, Okaro Lake and the neighbouring lakes produce the greatest stocks of purebred rainbow trout and brown trout in the World ( way better than Alaska!! ). To top it off it has fabulous scenery and a tremendous amount of geothermal activity. See scenic pictures and fishing info included in this zip file.....
(Christian Stock is looking at simulating eruptions in the default NZ mesh for fs2002 which should be spectacular!!)
There are eleven lakes holding trout in the Rotorua area. Lake Rotorua is open for fishing all 12 months of the year, however the other lakes close for trout spawning from the 1st July and some re-open on the 1st of October whilst the remainder re-open 1st December.
Lake Rotorua is the most productive of all the lakes and is not restocked as trout regenerate naturally unlike the remainder of Rotorua's lakes that are stocked.
The lakes and streams in the region assist rainbow and brown trout to grow at an amazing rate of 1in per month in their second year. The trout feed on the native fresh water crayfish (kaoura) and smelt that are plentiful.
Lake Rotorua claims the greatest wild trout population per acre of any lake in the world.
Okaro Lake has an interesting history... the Reporoa Volcano blew up back in 1180 AD and left a crater lake which is now called Lake Okaro. However Lake Okaro is under threat as are some of the other lakes . A lot of runoff from neighbouring farms has increased the nitrogen content in the lakes which the algae feed off voraciuosly and occasionally they grow exponentially and bloom . This blooming effect creates too much algae which starts to decompose and then produces toxins which taint the water, kill the fish and can cause serious neurological problems with humans. In summer Lake Okaro has a lot of algae which i have represented in the water texture, and makes it somewhat un-attractive. Thankfully the local City council is realising the danger to tourism, is monitoring the lakes and is introducing stricter legislation concerning farm effluent..


Instructions
Unzip files into the addon scenery folder of Fs2002.

This scenery is dense and you may end up with unacceptable frame rates. I get about 7-9 fps which is flyable. If this is the case then scale your scenerity complexity down to normal or sparse.
There is a VERY LARGE amount of trees surrounding the lake ( you need to set the scenery complexity to very dense/extremely dense to see all the trees and all of my addon scenery macros )

Please give me feedback on frame rate as if it is too bad i will use 32x32 textures and reduce the trees to improve the frame rate in version 2.0.

Please note you dont need a flatten file for this scenery they are incorporated into the scenery bgl's

Also note the fictional NDB is set to 500 KHZ


If you wish to go to the lake you must copy the flight files from unzipped folder into your fs2002/flights/myflts folder. There is one flight which places you at the jetty and the other at the beginning of the water runway and the final flight location is the dirt runway. There is no goto airport option in this scenery......


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FINAL STEP : You must unzip the newtrees2002.zip and follow the instructions in the readme.txt in that zip file to install the new generic photorealistic trees into your scenery directory of FS2002. There is a tree bgl library + textures which must be installed as its own scenery with priority level about 7 or 8.If you dont install it the scenery will produce a 'scenery objects not found error' and will not work ...
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1. LEGAL

This scenery is freeware.

You may use this scenery freely, however there is absolutely no warranty or
guarantee of any kind, expressed or implied, for any problems arising from
the use of this scenery add-on...


Contact me straightaway if you have any problems with the scenery at S.Reweti@massey.ac.nz.


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge all those API designers who have made a myriad of APIS available to newbie scenery designers like me

A special mention to Gerrish Gray for his excellent generic trees upgrade...