Lumion V3.0 Reflections II

Preview of the new planar reflections effect for Lumion 3.0. One of the prime additions to Lumion 3.0, planar reflections have now been integrated the easiest way imaginable. Just pick a surface – By surface I mean geometry on your model, for instance a wall, window, facade etc.- , add a reflection movie-effect – You can find these under Movie-Mode but also in Photo-Mode -,  and all planar surfaces on that axis will instantly become reflective. This means that if you have dozens of windows on that particular axis, they will all inherit planar reflections. How cool is that!

Currently the Lumion 3.0 Reflection Effect is limited to 5 surfaces maximum to avoid major slowdowns while doing realtime reviewing or final rendering. Even so, planar reflections should be used with a bit of caution and strategy and with scene design preferably optimized for reflections from the start since it will essentially mirror your entire scene per applied effect.  This means that with 5 reflection planes applied, your scene will also be mirrored 5 times. I guess it goes without saying this won’t contribute to any kind of favorable fps in your viewport since it will allow you to crank up your poly-count sky-high in a heartbeat   Initial planar reflections effect did not support Anti Aliasing and whilst this produced a much faster result, the final render showed unacceptable amounts of artifacts. In the final version they are now rendered properly.

Lumion 3.01 also introduced a reduce-flicker slider in the effect allowing you to get rid of flickering on surfaces in case these might occur whilst rendering out your final images or movies.

Forest House Sample Scene details:

Modeling the house in 3ds Max: 30 minutes
Setting up materials in Lumion: 15 minutes
Creating the scene: 1.5 hours
Nr. of Reflection planes applied: 4
Rendertime per frame: 12 seconds (GTX580)