Topic: LUMION 6: Quickstart Guide

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QUICKSTART GUIDE FOR LUMION 6.5.1


COMPATIBILITY
Please note that scenes and LS6 files saved in 6.x are NOT backwards compatible with earlier versions. If you try to load scenes or imported model files made with Lumion 1.x, 2.x, 3.x or 4.x, you will have to remove and re-assign all materials and Movie/Photo effects in Lumion 6.x.

MIGRATING SCENES FROM LUMION 4.5.1 AND 5.0
Lumion 5.3 and newer allow users to configure a different combination of effects for all individual photos in Photo mode. The introduction of this feature in 5.3 means that older projects load with an empty list of effects in Photo mode.



If you want to apply the same set of effects to photos in Lumion 6.3, simply save the effects in Photo mode in Lumion 4.5.1 or Lumion 5.0 and load the effect file in 6.x via the context menu button above the effect stack.


HOW TO IMPORT A MODEL

Click on the green button in Place Mode to Import a new model.



Import model -> Animation on/off button: This option allows you to import move/rotate/scale animations via FBX/DAE, for example from AutoDesk® 3D Studio Max® (FBX is the recommended format for animated models). It is not possible to import vertex or bone animations (for example animated people from TurboSquid or Axyz Design). See this Knowledge Base article for more information.




HOW TO RE-IMPORT/RELOAD A MODEL

METHOD 1: Build mode -> Re-Import Model button
1. Select the small circular Object Icon of an imported model. The original location and name of the imported file is displayed when the the mouse cursor overlaps the small circular Object Icon.
2. Click on the Re-Import Model button.



METHOD 2: Build Mode -> (ALT) + Re-Import Model button -> Hold down the (ALT) key and click on this button to manually select the location/name of the file. Use this method if the file name or location have changed.



METHOD 3: Edit Materials -> Context Menu -> Material Properties button -> Reload model: This function allows you to Re-Import/Reload the model that the material you are editing belongs to.



METHOD 4: Edit Materials -> Context Menu -> Material Properties button -> Reload model from a new file: If the name or location of an exported model file (SketchUp, DAE, FBX etc) has changed, this option allows you to manually select the location/name of the file to Re-import/Reload.




HOW TO ENTER POSITION COORDINATES
1) Select Objects Mode -> Select the Move mode tab -> Click on Move Object Icon.
2) Select one or more objects (Click on the small circular object icon of the objects).
3) Enter position values for the X, Y and Z axes in the fields.




HOW TO CHANGE PITCH AND BANK ROTATION VALUES
1) Select Objects mode -> Select the Move mode tab -> Click on Rotate Heading.
2) Select one or more objects (Click on the small circular object icon of the objects).
3) Double-click on a slider to type in an angle between -180 to 180 degrees.

Please note that the sliders will not appear when trees and plants are selected. This is due to a technical limitation which prevents Lumion from changing the pitch and bank values of these object types.




HOW TO CHANGE OBJECT COLOURS
The Edit Properties function allows you to change the colors of many of the Transport, Nature, Indoor and Outdoor models, e.g. furniture, trees and vehicles.

Objects -> Edit properties -> Click on a the circular object icon of a model -> Object Color



Note that you can also copy-paste a color from outside Lumion to any color selection window in Lumion. Simply press CTRL + C to copy a highlighted hexadecimal color in text format, eg, "ff0000" (red), and press CTRL + V to paste this color onto the solid bar at the right side of the color selection window.




HOW TO CHANGE STANDARD MATERIAL PROPERTIES



Color Map slot: This texture slot allows you to add your own Color Map texture to your model. A Color Map texture can include a socalled Alpha channel which can be used for a variety of purposes. Please see the section called Texture Alpha below for more information.
In the Color Map slot, you can also use an  MP4 video file (maximum 50MB per file). This allows you to display animated textures for things such as a TV or a video wall.

Normal Map slot: This texture slot allows you to add your own Normal Map texture to your model (Read this article to learn what a Normal Map is). If your Normal Map contains an alpha channel, it will be used as a Gloss mask. This mask type supports 8 bits, i.e. all 256 greyscale tones in the alpha channel.

Create Normal Map: If you add a new Color Map texture to your material, Lumion will automatically create a Normal Map and a Gloss Mask which adds depth and better definition to the material. You can click on this button to add a Normal Map manually.

Flip Normal Map direction: After Lumion has created a Normal Map based on your Color Map, you can invert the depth direction by clicking on this button.

Colorization: Between 0 and 0.5, the Color Map is tinted more and more by the colour in the colour selector. Between 0.5 and 1, the texture of the Color Map is replaced completely by the selected colour.  To lighten/darken a surface, change the Brightness slider (right vertical bar in the Color Selector).

Gloss: Reflection blurriness vs sharpness. If you use a Gloss mask in the alpha channel of the Normal Map, you should only use a slider value range between 0 and 1.0. Slider values over 1.0 will override the Gloss mask influence.

Reflectivity: Reflection amount. Between 1 and 2, the material switches to metallic reflections. For mirror-like metallic reflections, you should use a metal material such as chrome.

Relief: Material roughness (provided that you use a blue normalmap).

Scale: Material size. Set this to 0 if you want to use imported texture coordinates instead of automatically applied texture coordinates. Rectangular textures are always re-scaled so that they are square in Lumion.

More button -> Position module:

• X/Y/Z Offset: Adjust these sliders to change the position of the Color Map and Normal Map. This is only possible when the Scale slider value is above 0.

More button -> Orientation module:

• Heading/Pitch/Bank: Adjust these sliders to change the orientation of the Color Map and Normal Map. This is only possible when the Scale slider value is above 0.

More button -> Flicker Reduction module:

• Flicker Reduction: You should only use this module if overlapping surfaces flicker or disappear when you move the camera. Avoid extreme Flicker Reduction values - you should only adjust it a little bit, until the flickering stops (The best method is of course to make sure that your surfaces are offset a bit in your 3D modelling application, so that the flickering is less likely to occur in the first place).

More button -> Advanced module:

• Emissive: A low value brightens the material and a high value makes it glow.
• Saturation: A low value desaturates the Color Map texture and a high values makes it more saturated.
• Specular: This slider allows you to boost the specular highlights.
• Texture Alpha: The three buttons let you to specify whether the Alpha channel in your Color Map is used as a Reflectivity mask, a Clip mask or as an Emissive mask.
  By default, Lumion will set the second button - Color Map Alpha Clips Object - to On.
  Please note that the Standard material only supports a 1-bit Clip mask, so each pixel is either fully transparent (black) or fully opaque (white). If your Clip mask contains greyscale tones, they will be rounded up/down to pure black/white. Reflectivity masks support 8 bits, i.e. all 256 greyscale tones in the alpha channel.

HOW TO USE THE NORMAL MAP GENERATOR

The Normal Map generator automatically generates a Normal Map and a Gloss Mask when you add a Color Map to a Standard material. This makes the material look a lot better.

It is possible to flip the direction of the Normal Map by clicking on the Flip Normal Map direction button which appears after you have chosen a new Color Map.

You can also create a Normal Map if the imported model already has a texture by clicking on the Create Normal Map button.




HOW TO SAVE/LOAD THE MATERIALS OF A MODEL

You can save and load a material via the material panel:

Material Editor -> Context Menu (Wrench icon) -> Edit... -> Load/Save

Please note that textures that were added to models outside Lumion are not saved in or loaded from individually saved Materials.

You can also save all the materials of a model as a Material Set file, and automatically apply those materials to another imported model by loading the Material Set file - provided that both models use the same material names in your 3D modelling application:

Material Editor -> Context Menu (Wrench icon) -> Material Set... -> Load/Save

Please note that textures that were added to models outside Lumion are not saved in/loaded from Material Sets:




HOW TO WORK WITH SPOTLIGHTS



Cone Angle: This slider specifies how wide the beam of the light should be.
Show light source: This On/Off button shows/hides the spotlight mesh.
Night activation: All lights with the 'On' property switch on at the same time at sunset (which is ideal for streetlights for example). All lights with the 'Random' property switch on at a random time around sunset.
Optimize for: Choose the shadow types that should be used.

• Accuracy: The shadows are updated every frame (Slow!). Every time you add a light with Accuracy turned on, the entire scene has to be rendered once more. Add 10 lights and the scene has to be rendered 10 times more every frame. Each light uses a 1024x1024 pixel shadow texture.
• Speed: The shadow from the light uses a static 512x512 pixel texture which is not updated (Fast, moderate memory usage)
• Memory: The shadow from the light uses a static 128x128 pixel texture which is not updated (Fast, very low memory usage)

To reduce render times, we recommend that distant lights (e.g. street lights) in your scene use either the Memory or the Speed option, so that the shadows are not updated every frame. If your graphics card has enough memory, the best option is Speed. You would only ever use Accuracy for your lights if something that casts shadows is moving near the light (a car driving past a street light for example). Or if the light itself moves/rotates (stage lighting for concerts for example). Or if you need high-resolution shadows in certain areas (typically close-ups of interiors).
Target Light(s): Click on a surface that you would like the Spotlight to point at.

Please note that shadows from Spotlights are not displayed all the time for performance reasons. If you render an image or a video the shadows will appear again.

To preview shadows from Spotlights in Build mode, do one of the following:

• Hold down (F8) or select the spotlights in Build mode to temporarily turn on real-time shadows.

To preview shadows from Spotlights in Movie/Photo mode, do one of the following:

• Hold down (F8).
• Apply a Global Illumination effect (New effect -> World tab -> Global Illumination), and click on Preview spotlight GI and shadows in the effect panel.
• If you want to view the shadows in Build mode while seeing the Movie/Photo effects, click on the Build with effects button in the top left corner.

Depending on the shadow settings of the Spotlights this may have a significant impact on performance.

There's more information about the performance impact of Spotlights in this Knowledge Base article.


HOW TO USE LAYERS
Layers are useful for organising your models in large projects. That way you can place all lights on one Layer, all trees on another and so on. If you click on the (+) button you can add new Layers up to a maximum of 20.

The Eye buttons in Build mode allow you to show or hide models.

The Arrow button is for moving selected models to the active Layer.



In Movie mode, you can also animate the visibility of Layers in your clips with the Show Layer and Hide Layer effects.




HOW TO WORK WITH TERRAINS IN LUMION
There are two ways to work with terrains in Lumion:

1) Import your own model and tell Lumion to treat it like a terrain.
2) Use the built-in native terrain functionality in Lumion.

METHOD 1: IMPORTING YOUR OWN TERRAIN MODEL
Import your model in Lumion and mark it as a terrain. Please note that marking an imported model as a terrain will require more system memory for storing additional collision data, so please only use this function sparingly. When you move a lot of objects, performance may also deteriorate if you have marked a lot of complex imported models as terrains.

Context Menu -> Click on the object icon of your imported model -> Extra -> Mark as terrain -> On



Then assign a Landscape material to it. This allows you paint on it just like the "native" terrain in Lumion:




METHOD 2: THE NATIVE LUMION TERRAIN
The editable part of the terrain in Lumion occupies a 2000x2000m square. Beyond this, you will not be able to change the height or paint the landscape. The height of your terrain fades out to 0m over the last 50m of the edges of the 2000x2000m square in order to blend in with the flat terrain outside the editable area.



You can create a terrain based on an imported greyscale Heightmap texture via the Load Terrain Map function.



The resolution of the Heightmap texture should be 1024x1024 pixels. The innermost 1000x1000 pixels are used to cover the 2000x2000m square. The outermost 24x24 pixels are not used. Each pixel on the heightmap corresponds to 2x2m on the editable part of the Lumion terrain.

If you save a standard JPG file for use as a Heightmap in Lumion, 100% black equates to a terrain height of 0m and 100% white is equal to a terrain height of 200m. In other words, each greyscale step (from 0 to 255) is equal to 0.78125m.

As for the height scale of imported heightmap textures, the RGB values normally range from 0 to 1.0, but if you create a 32-bit image in Photoshop (Image -> Mode -> 32-bits per channel), you can boost the "whiteness" (and thereby terrain height range) by up to x20.



In other words:
RGB 0 to 1.0 in Photoshop = 0m to 200m in Lumion
RGB 0 to 2.0 in Photoshop = 0m to 400m in Lumion
RGB 0 to 3.0 in Photoshop = 0m to 600m in Lumion



Once you've created your heightmap, you'll need to save it as a 32-bit DDS heightmap in "32f" format using Nvidia's DDS plugin for Photoshop.



Make sure that you do not turn on 'Limit all textures to 512x512' in the Settings menu as this will reduce the resolution of the heightmap from 1024x1024 to 512x512 pixels.


HOW TO AVOID SHADOW ARTIFACTS (BANDING, FLICKERING, LIGHT LEAKAGE)
Shadows in Lumion are added on top of all surfaces with a small offset. The reason an offset is needed is that the shadows will otherwise flicker (or display banding artifacts) when the shadows are very close to surfaces. It's challenging to get the offset right as the optimal offset varies from scene to scene, depending on the sun position and the camera position. For that reason, you sometimes have to add the Shadow effect to your clip and experiment with the Shadow correction slider until the artifacts are gone. If the offset is set too high, furniture (as an example) will appear to hover above the floor. In reality the furniture is not hovering of course, but the offset shadows give the illusion of it.




HOW TO WORK WITH REFLECTIONS
There are three different reflection types in Lumion:

• Planar reflections: Very accurate on planar surfaces but renders slowly.
• SpeedRay Reflections: Mostly accurate on any surface and renders fast.
• Projected Reflections: Not very accurate on any surface but renders very fast.

PLANAR REFLECTIONS
Planar reflections are available via the Reflection effect:
Movie/Photo mode -> New effect -> World tab -> Reflection



This Movie or Photo effect allows you to specify up to 10 reflection planes in your scene.

Every time you add 1 reflection plane, Lumion has to mirror all models & render the entire scene once more, and this can get slow very quickly. For that reason, try to use as few reflection planes as possible.

Any model surface which is co-planar with a given reflection plane in your scene will have accurate reflections, provided that you have assigned a Standard, Water, Glass material or PureGlass material to it. This is ideal for mirrors, marble floors etc. You can also assign reflection planes to the built-in water planes in Lumion.

The effect includes a Threshold slider which allows you to adjust the distance at which nearly-co-planar surfaces will be included in the reflection plane. The tradeoff is accuracy but it's usually not noticeable. Please note that if you have some nearly co-planar surfaces that you want to assign a single reflection plane to, you need to assign the plane to the surface which is closest to the camera so to speak.

You can adjust the blurriness of a Planar Reflection by adjusting the Gloss value of the reflective material.

Please note that the following objects and materials are not reflected due to technical limitations:
- Ocean.
- Native Lumion water planes.
- Waterfall, Water and Glass materials.
- Special effects: Fountains, Smoke, Fire and Fog.
- Grass.




SPEEDRAY REFLECTIONS
SpeedRay Reflections are available via the Reflection effect in Lumion Pro:
Movie/Photo mode -> New effect -> World tab -> Reflection -> SpeedRay Reflections



Materials that have Reflectivity and Gloss will reflect the local environment. This creates a much more accurate and defined reflection on any surface. This setting is a lot faster to render than Planar Reflections (via the Reflection effect) but slightly slower to render than Projected Reflections. The reflection can apply to any surface as well as to planar surfaces.

Use the Gloss slider of materials to adjust the amount of blurriness in the reflection.

You do not need to add any planar surfaces to enable this reflection type to work - just include the effect and turn on the setting. Any surfaces selected for planar reflections will continue to be rendered as fully planar reflections, even if SpeedRay Reflections are turned on.


PROJECTED REFLECTIONS
Projected Reflections are the default reflection type in Lumion. They are assigned to reflective surfaces that are not affected by Planar Reflections and SpeedRay reflections. The projected reflection method is only an approximation and will never provide as realistic reflections as the Planar Reflections or SpeedRay Reflections but they're very fast to render.

Projected reflections in Lumion rely on a single 360 degree panoramic reflection texture which is projected onto any reflective materials that are not using planar reflections or SpeedRay Reflections (this includes the ocean in Lumion).

In Build mode, the Reflection Control object is placed 100m above the Lumion terrain in order to provide generic reflections of the sky and entire scene.

However, when you render still images in Photo or Movie mode, the 360 degree panoramic reflection texture is automatically rendered at the camera position.

When you render videos, the 360 degree panoramic reflection texture is rendered at the position of the camera at the first frame of each clip. The position that the 360 degree panoramic reflection texture is being rendered at does not change while the clip is being rendered.

To preview the reflections before starting the rendering procedure, you need to press the U-key.

To disable these automated functions, you can insert the Reflection Control object into your scene in Build mode, and move it around manually in Movie mode via the Move or Advanced Move effects.

Add the Lights and Special Objects -> Utilities -> Reflection control object to your scene to specify the position where the 360 degree panoramic reflection texture should be rendered at. Bear in mind that you can also animate this object with the Move/Advanced Move effects in the Movie section.




HOW TO UPDATE THE SUN, SKY, LIGHTING, CLOUDS AND REFLECTIONS
(U): If you press the (U) key, the sun, sky, lighting, clouds and 360 degree reflection texture will be updated. This is often necessary if you switch between Build/Movie/Photo mode and the sun is in different positions.

If you keep the (U) key pressed in Photo/Movie mode, the Cloud effect will be rendered in (almost) final render quality. This is useful if you want to see what the clouds will look like while adjusting the cloud sliders. Bear in mind that the Volume Clouds effect has to be rendered in 3 star quality to see what these clouds will look like in final render quality.


WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A 'CLIP' AND 'ENTIRE MOVIE'?
Entire Movie versus Clips: You can apply a Movie effect to a single clip or to the 'Entire Movie'.



'Entire Movie' is selected by clicking on the large button in the lower left corner of the screen in Movie mode. If a new Movie effect is applied while 'Entire Movie' is selected, this effect will affect all clips in your movie.

The exception to this rule is if you have also applied the same Movie effect to one of your clips. In this case, the Movie effect in the clip will override the Movie effect that is applied to 'Entire Movie'.


HOW DO YOU ANIMATE MOVIE EFFECTS?
In Movie mode, use the small button with the 'sine wave' symbol to the right of the effect sliders to add/delete keyframes.

Move the timeline to the desired position, and set a keyframe to record the value of the desired slider for that point along the timeline. Then move the timeline to a new position, create another keyframe and set the slider value. Repeat as needed.








MOVIE MODE TIPS

Double-clicking on a clip thumbnail image: This allows you to edit the clip without having to click on the Edit clip button in the top-left corner.

Build with effects: This button in Photo/Movie mode allows you to preview effects in Build mode:




HOW TO SAVE/LOAD MOVIE & PHOTO EFFECTS
Here's how to save and load Movie & Photo effects:

Movie/Photo mode -> Context Menu (Wrench icon) -> File... -> Load effects/Save effects




HOW TO CHANGE THE RENDER QUALITY



1-star quality: Draft quality *
2-star quality: Good quality **
3-star quality: Production quality with 4 sub-samples ***
4-star quality: Production quality with 8 sub-samples ***
5-star quality: Production quality with 16 sub-samples

* Global Illumination and the Volume Clouds effect will not look right. Sky, sun and clouds will remain static.
** Global Illumination and the Volume Clouds effect will not look right.
*** Fewer sub-samples per frame will result in lower quality anti-aliasing, shadows, depth of field, motion blur, leaves on trees/plants, hair/semi-transparent parts on the 3D people and volume clouds. For optimal results, you should render final videos in 5-star quality.

Quality rendering of clouds, moon and stars
The clouds, moon and stars will render at a lower quality in videos/images by default, even if you set Final output quality to 3 stars or more. To set the sky to the best possible render quality, please add a Cloud effect and turn on HQ Clouds in movie render (slow). 




BACKGROUND RENDERING
Lumion always renders movies and image sequences in the background (which correspond to the MP4 and Images tabs in Movie mode), so that you can check your emails etc while it is rendering. Background rendering is not supported when rendering a still image via Photo mode or the Single tab in Movie mode.

IMPORTANT: Please follow these instructions when you render videos or image sequences to ensure that the background rendering process works as expected:

• Do not switch to another program until the first image is done rendering.
• Avoid moving/re-sizing/minimizing the Lumion window.
• Do not bring up the Task Manager.
• Do not click on the Show Desktop button in the lower right corner of Windows.

Doing any of the above will cause Lumion to lose the connection to the graphics card and will reset the exposure in Lumion when rendering is resumed which means that the video has to be rendered from scratch again.

If your PC switches to the screensaver or to the Windows login screen after a few minutes, rendering will also be interrupted. You can prevent this from happening by running the Windows Media Player in the background (with some music set to repeat).