Anyone using lumion3d, and is it worth it?

[hassler16]

just saw an advert for lumion3d on CG architect.com,

 

From the 2mins browsing the videos on the site, I was amazed by the visual ease and quality of the images and interface.

 

however, if this software is so easy to used by anyone, as it claims on their website. It kinda makes you wonder why do I need to learn Vray in depth which appears to be the industry standard for rendering , from product to Architectural design, and 9 times of ten job postings require you to know Vray, buy then comes along lumion3d and it just makes you wonder why is that not the Industry standard, and used by many.

 

Any thoughts on this software, and why Vray is a must would be greatful?

[AJLynn]

Well, Lumion and Vray could be used for different purposes. Lumion seems quite good at quickly doing the level of graphics you'd see in a high quality video game. Vray (and mental ray etc.) is for spending more time on a higher quality level, with GI and more shader features.

[RyderSK]

Lumion quickly steps-up the vizual aspect of presentation by simply using light-maps from Vray ;- )

I texture bake all my scenes in Flatiron with Vray, this ways all real-time apps I use from Lumion to UDK looks way better.

 

No one seems to do this regularly, and then bash the software for lack of GI and ugly SSAO shadows, well....it's real-time, what do people expect these days ;- ) One has to be smart about the use of this for arch-viz.

[neil poppleton]

Do you use Lumion as a real time presentation tool ?

[David Arbogast]

Lumion quickly steps-up the vizual aspect of presentation by simply using light-maps from Vray ;- )

I texture bake all my scenes in Flatiron with Vray, this ways all real-time apps I use from Lumion to UDK looks way better.

 

No one seems to do this regularly, and then bash the software for lack of GI and ugly SSAO shadows, well....it's real-time, what do people expect these days ;- ) One has to be smart about the use of this for arch-viz.

Very interesting...I keep looking at the Flatiron plugin as it seems very promising, but I can't find any pro reviews on it. Apparently it's working very well for you?

 

Lumion also looks cool...especially if you need animated cats and birds.

Edited March 16, 2011 by David Arbogast

[Dave Buchhofer]

I don't have much to add to the lumion discussion, but i can recommend flatiron with no problems.. it can be slightly quirky, but they have very good customer service, and are helpful with getting out fixes quickly if you run into an issue.

[Chewbacca]

I have been starting to use Lumion on some exterior animations. There are still some things that I feel need improvement, but really trying to work the software into my workflow due to the fast rendering capablities. I rendered this quick test scene overnight on one pc using a gtx 285 video card at 1280 x720.

 

[Fooch]

I don't have much to add to the lumion discussion, but i can recommend flatiron with no problems.. it can be slightly quirky, but they have very good customer service, and are helpful with getting out fixes quickly if you run into an issue.

 

We just got it for an interactive project. Definitely vouch for it. Saved us heaps of time

[callme_ash2001]

@Eric Johnson,

 

your animation looks good.what was your workflow?? did you use sketchup or 3dmax for scene modelling??/ any baking???

[Chewbacca]

@Eric Johnson,

 

your animation looks good.what was your workflow?? did you use sketchup or 3dmax for scene modelling??/ any baking???

 

Thanks Abhay. All the buildings were are low poly models that were made of from photos of existing buildings that was done in Sketchup The building at the end of the movie was from Revit. Everything except the vegetation was was exported from 3ds max via a dae file into Lumion. The ground plain is just a arieal photo. The scene was then populated with Lumion trees. No baking.