Lumion - Test drive
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You can also import terrain as a heightmap. I made a terrain in SU, projected a black and white image (transition between black; low and white; high) from the side then sent to Layout where I could export a png from it with transparent background. Cropping to that transparent background yielded in the image I used. You can use a 1024x1024 square image like that which will be upsampled to double the size in Lumion where 1 pixel will be equal to 2 metres (i.e. a 4096 x 40ö6 metre mesh).
To me, this solution gave a kind of "stepped" terrain though (probably due to pixellation) and the only way to get rid of this seemed to be softening the terrain but then it does not only softens but kind of "equals" the differences in bigger scale, too.
Also, if you import your mesh geometry to Lumion, you can paint on it just like as if it were Lumiomn terrain (although with one particular mesh I had issues as it did not paint to where my paint brush or what was but tens of metres away). Obviously this would be the better solution (for us, SU users) but currently there are two great obstacles;
- you cannot sculpt this terrain like Lumion's terrain
- objects won't "snap" to this imported terrain when you "send them" on the ground (but fall through).
The first (missing) feature is on the development team's radar though and they wrote on their forum that it's an acceptable feature request.
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These are the trees I have in the Lumion library (although in one folder, there may be more plants like the Arfica Olive has 3 tree and 2 bush versions I think).
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If you hold on a bit, I can populate a scene with some stuff.
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@gaieus said:
If you hold on a bit, I can populate a scene with some stuff.
No, that would be too much. Here is what I have from the program itself. It seems that even with each incremental updates they add a some more of them, too.
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Obviously there are some poorer libraries (like the cacti) and some stuff like water plants are entirely missing but as I read about these on their forums, they will (hopefully) be added gradually.
Also there are birds and farm animals, boulders and different rocks and also hedges although they are not extremely convincing:
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Here is an olive and a cherry tree at close-up (and they are moving in the wind
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@gaieus said:
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.
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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).
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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.
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Another damn excuse to buy a copy of Windows 7 for this computer! 
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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?
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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. -
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.
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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.
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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.
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Thanks for the verification. I guess that is something that is inherent with GPU renderers?
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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.
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That's excellent
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That was good
Maybe I will have another look at it.
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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]
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