Lumion - Test drive

Ecuadorian · 28 Mar 2011, 17:55

Miguel posted an excellentvideo compiled from different renders he made with different tools

[...]

Let's see how much I could charge for it - i.e. can I buy Lumion

Thanks, Csaba. Charge at least enough to get a new power source, high-end graphics card, Lumion license, and a 1080p projector to show your videos.

Gaieus · 28 Mar 2011, 18:02

Well, so far my system can cope with it (I have a 1 Gb nVidia GeForce 9600 GT which is obviously not high end but I can render just fine with Lumion).

Gaieus · 30 Mar 2011, 14:26

Cool. I didn't know that custom objects can also make waves in the water when advancing.

Just a still (was testing max image output but of course, did not attach that here as it's 70 Mb even when converted to png)

Only noticed in the really high-res image (when zoomed in) that my pigeons are hovering above the roof.

tfdesign · 30 Mar 2011, 15:03

Another damn excuse to buy a copy of Windows 7 for this computer!

marvins_dad · 30 Mar 2011, 18:31

Hey Solo - great find!

Looks like with the most recent release they have brought it down to around 258mb download...but that means less content
It installs to about 542mb.
They only give you basically one of each library item just to check it out. Wish they gave a bit more though.

Really easy to use - am attempting my first export of a movie. Unsure if I am able to change materials though...will have to try that out next because all my windows come in white.

One question for you Solo - are the trees in your videos Lumion or others?

marvins_dad · 30 Mar 2011, 20:26

Also - can anyone tell me if it can render out in the background?
I am noticing with the Demo version that you have to have the program be active for it to render to the video file.

Ecuadorian · 30 Mar 2011, 20:35

That's one of Lumion's Achilles' heels. You can't do anything else while it's rendering. If you work in another window, it pauses rendering, and resumes when you activate the Lumion window again. Better have a PlayStation handy.

tfdesign · 30 Mar 2011, 20:42

Or put the kettle on? But that's not good, unless you have a dedicated PC for the soft.

I think I'll stick with Unity3D.

Ecuadorian · 30 Mar 2011, 20:49

Octane also works with the GPU and has a similar problem... You can still use other windows and it will keep rendering, but the system will feel really sluggish, even when browsing the web. They recommend getting a second GPU just for display.

LightUp, on the other hand, is also a GPU-heavy renderer, but you can still do other stuff and have a responsive system, at least for web browsing.

marvins_dad · 30 Mar 2011, 20:52

Thanks for the verification. I guess that is something that is inherent with GPU renderers?

Gaieus · 31 Mar 2011, 06:58

Yes, there is even a topic on the Lumion forums about this where they explain (please, allow me not to perfectly understand the technical details). It seems that splitting GPU tasks is not as straightforward as splitting CPU tasks (especially with multicore processors) but gain, please, do not argue with me as it is beyond me...

Anyway, I finally finished this model (sort of - it needs some work from inside but that cannot be seen from here). I am probably too "enthusiastic" about all this fog and such and it seems to be a bit too much from some views but this is the course of learning now for me (thus the topic title "Lumion Test Drive").

Tweaking materials: here I could finally get the hang. You need normal maps to create your own with proper (or maybe exaggerated as in the video below) bumps and all. I used a Gimp plugin to create my normal maps but of course, there are a bunch of applications out there.

YouTube - Lumion Test Drive - Cella Trichora, Sopianae
[flash=600,360:339k2zzb]http://www.youtube.com/v/2-QS_V1jFJ4?fs=1&hl=en_US[/flash:339k2zzb]

The model is an actual archaeological find (of last year), an Early Christian cemetery chapel from the 4th century (we have about two dozen of them - ranging from 3-4 metres to the largest known at 22.5 metres - in our World Heritage site.

Rich O Brien · 31 Mar 2011, 08:25

That's excellent

tfdesign · 31 Mar 2011, 09:05

That was good

Maybe I will have another look at it.

Gaieus · 31 Mar 2011, 10:10

I think the contrast (between dark/ shaded and sunlight) was a bit too strong above however. Besides some presets, you can always adjust the shadow colour, exposure, brightnes and all. Obviously some kind of bloom effect comes from fog (be careful - it may be a common mistake to overdo it - like the ploy count of a nipple compared to a whole head of those poser figures) and of course, it slows rendering time down (as far as I can tell).

Fog is great however to indicate "depth" (as we know since Leonardo). Here is a 3D output with less dramatical difference between dark and light areas (again, 3D glasses are needed and the old embed code that we can use on the forums cannot get the 3D view in - only the new, iFrame code which does not work on the forums so visit YT instead via the link above the video)

YouTube - Cella Trichora Secunda 3D - Sopianae
[flash=600,360:2sy5ji56]http://www.youtube.com/v/9wwgLWx2qa4?fs=1&hl=en_US[/flash:2sy5ji56]

numbthumb · 31 Mar 2011, 15:06

I would like to know which file format do you prefer for import into Lumion? I am using SU 7.1 Free, so I guess .dae is the only choice I have ( that is, without plugins like TIG´s OBJexporter )

solo · 31 Mar 2011, 15:08

Collada works great actually, I've had no problems yet.

numbthumb · 31 Mar 2011, 15:13

OK, thanks for the info. No need for tweaking default export settings?

solo · 31 Mar 2011, 15:16

nope.

marvins_dad · 31 Mar 2011, 21:56

This was my second attempt. The thought is to animate a few existing projects and maybe the powers that be might loosen the purse strings so we can get a license.

This one is a little longer and a little more complete.

[flash=640,390:30mneckg]http://www.youtube.com/v/TcPW-hIaE6w[/flash:30mneckg]

marvins_dad · 31 Mar 2011, 22:12

Here is my first simply fly around after playing with it for about 30 minutes. I haven't modeled the parking lot yet and added a lake out front just to play with the terrain tools. I have much to learn, but it is really easy and I can see that some of the questions I have had you guys have already asked.

I did notice that the if you had the opposite side of the default material exposed to the camera, it reads it as clear...which creates holes in your model if you are looking through the model at a wall that hasn't had a texture applied. Easy to fix, but something to point out for those that haven't played with it yet.

[flash=640,390:8nypclw8]http://www.youtube.com/v/F6ulj_CDALU[/flash:8nypclw8]