Stephen Posted December 8, 2018 Report Share Posted December 8, 2018 Scenery Preview: GCRR Lanzarote, Canary Islands by MK Studios FlightSim developers discovering X-Plane has been one of the stories of the 2018 year in scenery. We call them conversions, it is taking the original FS/P3D scenery, stripping them out and then rebuilding them from the ground up to the X-Plane laws and layouts, and then you add in the X-Plane11 dynamic features as the icing on the cake, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. The main reason it doesn't is that the original scenery used as the host is usually already out of date, so the conversion is behind the 8 ball already, but with many conversions were as the host is already a quality and successful scenery the conversion to X-Plane and can and even be an enhancement of the original. MK-STUDIOS was founded back in 2008 is a Polish based studio, so they are already an established scenery developer in FS land, and this is their first foray into X-Plane with this GCRR - Lanzarote scenery. The conversion is courtesy of Emma Bentley and Ashley Jones of Windsock Conversions, and Emma who is a well known established X-Plane member. GCRR - Lanzarote (also known as Arrecife Airport), is the airport serving the island of Lanzarote and is located as part of the Canary Island chain . The airport is located in San Bartolomé, Las Palmas, 5km (3.1mi) southwest of the town of Arrecife. GCRR - Lanzarote Lanzarote AirportAeropuerto de Lanzarote IATA: ACE - ICAO: GCRR 03/21- 2,400m (7,874ft) Asphalt Elevation AMSL14 m / 47 ft First to note is the large size of the scenery, altogether (four files) and it is a whooping 7.54gb of mostly photographic terrain that covers the whole island of Lanzarote. The runway 03/21 looks newly laid, as does the taxiways and aprons. The real 03/21 is more darker grey than the darker brown here but it is a darker texture than most runway surfaces, but it looks and feels nice close up... ... textures are nice and so are concreted areas and the markings are nicely worn in as well. Note the excellent RAIL approach lighting on RWY03 Approach and the only runway at GCRR with an ILS (IRR - 109.10) installation. Many pilots note it as a difficult approach, but it looks like an easy over-water approach to me, my guess they are confusing GCRR with Fuerteventura airport on another nearby Las Palmas island. The aprons are well done and with good navigation signage, so it feels nice on the ground. Lanzarote is a very white airport in a moroccan sort of way... ... so the only way to break out of that 3d blank modeling feel is to have some clever texture detail. There is some here but not enough raw detail to overcome the modeling aspect, so it feels of what it is and that is an FS/P3D scenery. Control tower is well done, but you don't get to feel that depth of realism. Glass is not see-through, but looks good and brings a lot of life to the buildings. Tower view is set and gives excellent coverage of both 03/21 approaches (below). Landside car/coach arrival and carparks ground textures are a bit of a mess... over-saturated, low resolution they look totally disconnected from the terminal and surrounding photoscenery, and it doesn't even try to matchup, twice? The original passenger terminal (1946-1970) which is now Aeronautical Museum, is well presented. The newer (above) terminal was opened on 3 March 1970 and international and domestic flights began using the airport on that date. Clutter is very good and correctly branded, not too much and not too little, gives the airport the right coverage. There are no animated vehicles (traffic) and the airbridges are solid. Custom buildings There are provided custom personally placed 3d buildings to cover Arrecife and the surrounding Lanzarote area... .... custom building design is quite generic, basic and only a few different styles. But there is an issue that the objects have a very poor LOD (Level Of Detail) distance at X-Plane's Field of view setting 73º. And even on final approach to the runway the mesh can be flat one second and start filling out (popping up) of 3d objects the next.... but closer to the ground level and the flat bland ortho textures do tend to flatten everything out? From an altitude point of view the islands features are however very good photographic wise. You get the same LOD issue at the airport itself, noted here by the airbridges that pop-up even when you taxiing in on the taxiways and aprons. So all round the LOD's are quite poor. GCRR Lighting The scenery lighting is actually quite good. 03/21 approach lighting is good, but the off runway taxiways don't have any green taxi navigation lights? The Main taxiway R (sections 12345) does have the green navigation lights, but they are rather dim and hard to see from the cockpit. Ramp lighting is excellent and highly workable, with the old original terminal (Aero Museum) and north cargo area the best. Landside lighting (different tone) almost hides the over-saturated textures, almost... but it all looks good. The night replica glass is very good, certainly on the welcoming original terminal, that almost glows. Tower glass is lit, but doesn't need to be or needed just a little lighting to make it realistic. Preview Notes: Any new to X-Plane user from the FlightSim world would probably feel right at home here. It is a classic early FlightSim scenery crossed over to X-Plane complete with over-saturated textures as well. Modeling is very basic and a throwback to the good olde days of early FSX design. You do get the full island photographic scenery, which could be seen as a bonus (if you like that sort of thing) or a backward step as it flattens out the landscape at ground level. LOD (Level Of Detail) for custom scenery and airport objects is poor in a few areas (objects pop up). All custom buildings are quite generic with no local landmarks, if you don't count the revolving pylon generators. Ground runway textures are very good (if a little too brown and not dark grey) with great signage, and have X-Plane dynamic runway features to represent different weather conditions in say the rain, but you won't get to use the feature a lot as Lanzarote only has seven days of rain a year. Dynamic night lighting is very good, with nice glass lighting features. Features noted are: High quality rendition of Lanzarote airport and ALL island, Accurate and detailed airport infrastructure based on real sizes and dimensions High resolution ground textures, Photo real terrain coverage of all island Hundred thousands of custom placed autogen buildings all around the island 3D night lightning, Very realistic airport night lighting, based on real pilot’s point of view Optimized to take advantages of X-Plane features. WT3: No WorldTraffic GroundRoutes are provided, and the ground routes are not built into the scenery either, hence the lonely B738 on the ramps. MK Studio's note the ground routes are coming soon. Positives: Very FSX, if you like FSX scenery in X-Plane, full island photographic coverage and extensive custom buildings and nice lighting and good branded clutter. Negatives: Very FSX in a X-Plane world, so it feels a little dated in design and textures, LOD is poor and custom buildings are very generic with no customised Lanzarote landmarks. Landside textures are over-saturated and poor resolution. Not many X-Plane11 dynamic features including autogates and animated traffic. ____________________________________________________________________ Yes!... GCRR Lanzarote, Canary Islands by MK Studios is Available from the X-Plane.Org Store here : GCRR Lanzarote, Canary Islands Price is US$19.99 Requirements : X-Plane 11.26+ Windows, Mac or Linux 4Gb VRAM Minimum - 8Gb+ VRAM Recommended Download Size: 5Gb and installed is 7.54gb Warning: The download size is indeed 5Gb. If you do not have a fast, stable internet connection, please do not buy. MKStudiosLanzarote1Airport MKStudiosLanzarote2Overlay MKStudiosLanzarote3Ortho1 MKStudiosLanzarote4Ortho2 Extras and Documents: - Manual ______________________________________________________________________ Preview by Stephen Dutton 8th December 2018 Copyright©2018 : X-Plane Reviews (Disclaimer. All images and text in this preview are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions) Review System Specifications: Computer System: Windows - Intel Core i7 6700K CPU 4.00GHz / 64bit - 16 Gb single 1067 Mhz DDR4 2133 - ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 8Gb - Samsung Evo 512gb SSD Software: - Windows 10 - X-Plane 11.26 Addons: Saitek x56 Rhino Pro system Joystick and Throttle : Sound - Bose Soundlink Mini Plugins: Environment Engine by xEnviro US$69.90 : WorldTraffic 3.0 Plugin - US$29.95 : BetterPushBack - Free Scenery or Aircraft - Boeing 737-800 - default X-Plane by Laminar Research (Free) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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