We are pleased to announce that Lumion 5.0 is available now. The video below provides an overview of amazing features have been included in Lumion 5.0 features and how you can use them.
Fast and practical
You won't believe what you can achieve on your first day
Lumion is a real-time 3D architectural visualization tool for architects, urban planners and designers.
It is a serious alternative to traditional rendering or outsourcing visualizations.
When visualization is not your primary profession you need software that's easy to pick up, you need something that gets the job done and you can rely on.
Ease of use combined with fast rendering and excellent quality is what makes Lumion such an extraordinary product.
Importing your models
File import technology you can rely on
Even the most complex 3D models from your CAD software of choice can be imported with ease. For example from Trimble Sketchup, AutoCAD, Revit Architecture, 3DS Max and many other 3D modeling packages.
A dedicated update function makes it a breeze to (re-)load models that were updated in your CAD software.
Supported import formats:
- 3D models: DAE, FBX, MAX, 3DS, OBJ, DWG, DXF
- Images: TGA, DDS, PSD, JPG, BMP, HDR and PNG images
- Lightmaps from AutoDesk 3DS Max
- Animated models from AutoDesk 3DS Max via FBX format (Move/Rotate/Scale)
- COLLADA exporter plugin for Revit
Build your own environment
Architectural visualization comes alive
The scene creation tools in Lumion take full advantage of a GPU-based 3D interface which lets you see changes in real-time. The 3D rendering performance is highly optimized so that you can import 3D models with millions of polygons with ease. Terrain creation is straightforward with the 28 built-in landscape presets, 6 water types and a customizable ocean. Daylight, sun, sky and clouds are easily adjustable and can be animated for sun studies.
Material Library
Easily enhance your models with great looking materials
Thanks to the huge material library of 3D models in Lumion it takes just moments to really make your design shine. There are 509 built-in high-quality materials such as wooden floors and brick walls as well as 9 custom material types.
Rich Content Library
3D objects and moving 3D animations
Bringing your visualization to life is child's play with the hundreds of entourage models in the model library. For example trees that sway in the wind, moving cars, animated people, buildings, street furniture and much more. Lumion Pro ships with a whopping 1826 models including 459 trees, plants and other nature items as well as 82 Special FX objects.
Video and image output
Architectural visualization in HD
Lumion renders stunning images in seconds rather than hours. And high quality HD videos in hours rather than weeks.
The built-in video editor in Lumion makes great film directors out of anyone. Just take a few snapshots and Lumion turns them into professional-looking camera motions. Add overlay images, filters or special effects and you're ready to render a video that you can watch on any PC or Mac. Or upload it straight to YouTube, so your client can see how awesome your design is.
System Requirements
Minimum system requirements
OS: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 (32- and 64-bit) and DirectX 9.0c or later. Windows 32-bit is only suitable for simple scenes.
System memory: 3GB (for simple scenes)
Graphics card: NVidia GeForce GTS 450 or ATI/AMD Radeon HD 4890 (minimum 1,500 PassMark points), with at least 1GB dedicated memory (not shared system memory).
Harddrive: 7.5GB of disk space Using Lumion via Remote Desktop is not supported Lumion 3 requires an internet connection
Recommended system specifications
OS: Windows 7, 8 (64-bit)
System memory: 6GB
Graphics card: NVidia GTX 680 / AMD Radeon HD 7970 or faster (minimum 4,000 PassMark points), with at least 2GB dedicated memory (not shared system memory).
Harddrive: 7.5GB of disk space Using Lumion via Remote Desktop is not supported Lumion 3 requires an internet connection
Source: http://lumion3d.com/
New Materials Interface
Optimizing materials can often be time-consuming and difficult. To maintain the highest standards regarding usability, Lumion 5 has an entirely revamped materials interface. This reduces the time and work needed to get your materials looking just how you want them. The new materials interface follows Lumion's PureGlass® user interface approach, which is designed to make complicated technology easy to use. You will find remarkably few icons on your screen at any one moment, providing you with a satisfying and intuitive experience.
Oil Painting Effect
This effect is a jaw-dropping addition to the range of artistic effects in Lumion. Switch it on with a single click and watch your scene transform itself into a smooth-flowing oil painting. Users of Lumion will already be familiar with effects like “sketch” and “paint”, which help provide an artistic flavour to your images and films. The oil painting effect is another one in the ever-broadening palette that Lumion provides.
Pastel Sketch Effect
Another super artistic effect for use in stills and animations. Depending on the settings you choose, it can make your scene look something like a chalk or a pastel sketch. It’s another feature to help you breathe life into ideas and present them in an attractive and conceptual way to colleagues or clients. Use it together with the volume lighting and produce a dreamy effect for your interiors.
Analogue Color Lab
Tweaking color shades can instantly change the feel of a scene. The new Analogue Color Lab in Lumion 5.0 allows you to tune the coloring within your scene to give it a kind of ‘instagram’ look, which can have a great artistic impact.
Blueprint Effect
The blueprint effect is especially useful for animations. You can begin a clip with your scene looking like a blueprint drawing and then gradually fade in the colors and materials and watch your animation come to life.
Material Highlight Effect
It is often important to highlight certain materials in your renders or animations, so that they stand out more clearly relative to everything else. For example, pipes, paths or specific surfaces. The new Material Highlight feature allows you to do this quickly, attractively and easily.
Mass Placement
The new Mass Placement feature allows you to build huge scenes even faster than before. Just draw a line and the objects you select will be placed along it. You can also spread them out at arbitrary distances apart, rotate them randomly, mix the object selections and change the number of objects placed. Mass Placement can be used for all objects, making it extremely easy to put traffic on a road, create a forest or a garden, or place a crowd of people . All of this with a couple of clicks and sliders!
Mass Move Effect
Animating objects is essential in bringing your films to life. The Mass Move effect enables you to efficiently animate large numbers of objects. Simply draw a line in your scene and watch the objects close to that line move at the speed and in the direction you define. Super-easy and super-fast. This effect combined with the new Mass Placement now makes it extremely fast and easy, for example, to create multi-lane traffic moving along a wide road at different speeds, or to have a crowd of people walking along a street.
100 Photos
Lumion 5.0 has an expanded capacity for still images. Now it’s 100 photos; a great improvement on Lumion 4.5, which could hold 10 photos. This possibility leads to an improved workflow in making still shots. You can now take effectively as many as you like, without deleting any before deciding to render the ones you want.
Multiple Movie Clip Sequences
Different stakeholders often have different visualization needs. For example, one stakeholder might need a more conceptual and artistic look, while another might require something more technical. In Lumion 5, creating multiple movies for the scene you have created will be easy to achieve and manage. You can make up to 10 movies for a single scene.
Five Render Quality Options
Being able to choose from five render options allows to find the balance between quality and speed in your workflow. If you want the highest quality in your final video presentation, then choose 5 star. When the time pressure is on, you can choose a 4 or 3 star with a very small compromise on quality but a greatly reduced waiting time: either 50% or 75% render time reduction. So, if you only have a half-hour to render your film, click on the 3 star option and you'll get a great quality movie, on time!
Faster Rendering
Render time is crucially important in the visualization workflow. Due to detailed improvements in the rendering engine, Lumion 5 renders even faster than previously. Tests have delivered render time reductions of typically 20% to 90% for images and animations of the same quality on the same hardware. This is quite staggering, considering that Lumion was already the fastest architectural rendering option available anywhere.
Volumetric Sunlight
Volumetric Sunlight is the kind of light that seems to hang in the air itself. This is an effect that looks something like a ray of mist with light streaming through it. It can easily be switched on and off in Lumion 5.0 and its characteristics can be adjusted with a slider to give you the exact level you are looking for. This effect is categorised as a ‘weather’ effect but can equally well be applied indoors to help add atmosphere and breathe life into a space.
Hyperlight® in Photo Mode
Lighting can make or break the impact of a still image. Hyperlight® provides a great boost in the quality of lighting in your stills. Hyperlight® was developed using unique in-house technology and is a physically-based method of incorporating light reflections into a scene. Hyperlight® can be especially effective in making attractive images of building interiors. It looks fantastic and adds a whole new ambience to your renders.
New People
The many places and cultures in which Lumion is now used around the world are reflected in the characters available in the people library. With Lumion 5.0, another huge step has been made with an extra 73 (in Lumion Pro) animated characters representing various cultures from around the the globe. The new additions include, amongst others, Middle-Eastern, African and East Asian characters. 60 of the characters were made by the renowned 3D modeling company, aXYZ Design.
New Trees and Plants
High-quality foliage so often breathes life into a scene. Lumion's native shrubs, plants and trees help put Lumion in a league of its own. Lumion 5.0 contains 87 new trees and 103 new plants from around the world, bringing the total high quality plants and trees to around 1000, and making Lumion an even more global product through its further increased local relevance.
Water Plane Reflections
Beautiful reflections from water very often boost a scene's realism.
Lumion 5 includes the possibility to add plane reflections to water, adding even more realism to the already highly realistic and evocative water available in Lumion.
New Skin Rendering
Very often subtle changes in the skin tone make characters that look more lifelike. Lumion 5 incorporates a new way of rendering skin and facial features of people.
This adds an uncanny realism to the individuals that you place in your scene
New Exporter for McNeel’s Rhinoceros (Rhino)
Lumion continues to work perfectly with many major 3D modeling software packages, including Trimble® SketchUp®, Autodesk® Revit®, Nemetschek® Allplan® and Vectorworks®, Graphisoft® ArchiCAD® and Autodesk® 3D Studio Max. To coincide with the development of Lumion 5.0, a dedicated exporter has been developed especially for McNeel’s Rhinoceros (Rhino), now making it a breeze to transfer a model from Rhino into Lumion.
Lumion 5.0 upgrade comparison table
| Description | Lumion® | Lumion® Pro |
|---|
|
| Lighting |
| Hyperlight ® in Photo Mode | | • |
| Volumetric sunlight | • | • |
| Materials |
| New material Interface | • | • |
| Physically based material rendering | • | • |
| New materials | 123 | 123 |
| Artistic effects |
| Analog color lab | • | • |
| Oil painting | • | • |
| Pastel sketch | • | • |
| Blueprint | • | • |
| Material highlight | • | • |
| Workflow |
| Five render qualities | • | • |
| Mass move effect | • | • |
| 100 photos capacity | • | • |
|
| Multiple movie clip sequences | • | • |
| 20% to 90% faster rendering | • | • |
| Content |
| New high resolution animated characters | *** | 73 |
| New trees and plants | *** | 190 |
| Improvements |
| Water Plane Reflections | • | • |
| Improved Skin Rendering | • | • |
| Import/export |
| New compatibility with Rhino due to dedicated exporter | •
| • |
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There are a lot of choices on BIM software, see a list here
