Lumion V3.0 Reflections I

Byzantos3D Lumion3 PlanarReflections 7

Lumion V3.0 Reflections I

The addition of planar reflections to Lumion 3.0 by itself might not be anything to get tremendously excited about. After all this technique is almost as old as Rome itself. The way it’s been integrated however makes all the difference here. Real Time engines featuring planar reflections often can’t hide the fact they are pretty difficult to configure or get stable. Not so with Lumion. The Reflections Effect selection gizmo allows for smooth snapping onto any surface -meaning any type of Geometry you have imported, for example a facade, windows, Skyscraper etc.-.  The fact you can configure multiple reflective materials, per model if so desired, on just a single reflection surface plane, makes this a flexible yet incredibly powerful addition to your Realtime rendering toolkit. Do keep in mind though this is quite a costly effect since it will mirror your scene for each reflection applied.

Planar reflections will most likely feature blur control in a later iteration of Lumion and it might be good to know the ‘standard material’  reflection functionality like colorize, glossiness and so on will also be at your control to tune this effect. Currently it’s still far from easy to configure planar reflections for anything but highly polished mirror-like surfaces.  Adding a normalmap to your reflective materials however is a crucial step in the process of creating realistic reflections. The normalmap ideally feature little high-frequency detail and is kept as clean as possible. This distorts the ‘mirror’ look just enough on low bump settings for the reflection effect to become much more credible. If you have any questions on how to configure this effect, don’t hesitate to shoot me a message.

Sample Scene details:

12 Skyscrapers made in 3dsMax: 2 hours
8 Materials made with Filter Forge: 15 minutes
Importing and Scene setup in Lumion: 1 Hour
Render time per 1080 frame: 12 seconds on a GTX580

 

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12 comments
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Carito_Lali_Di
Carito_Lali_Di

Hello I'm new in this Lumion thing and I've been trying to create a mirror. But unfortunately I didn't get the result I expected as the objects reflected on the mirror appear much bigger than they are. The technique I used was to create a glass surface without the trasnparency propiertie and I later added the reflection control ball available in the lightning menu. So I was wondering what's that thing about adding multiple planes in order to get planar reflections. It would be amazing if you could explain it to me step by stef if it's not too much to ask.

Also I would like to ask you whether you have any idea about adding video textures to objects such as tvs, projectors, etc with Lumion 3.

ps: I work with lumion 3 and with lumion 2.5 Both in Pro versions.

Thanks! (:

Byzantos3D
Byzantos3D moderator like.author.displayName 1 Like

@Carito_Lali_Di  Hi there! Planar Reflections are not related to the reflection ball (this is for cubemap reflections). You need to go into Movie or Photo mode, choose the Reflection Effect and in this effect you will find a box you can click on and it will take you to a screen where you can select your geometry to be reflected. Let me know if this helped ok? Good luck!


Carito_Lali_Di
Carito_Lali_Di

@Byzantos3D @Carito_Lali_Di

Thanks so much! It worked perfectly (: 

The effect I got is amazing. Now the reflections are shown properly.
PS: I'm sorry for insisting too much on the mp4 texture, but I find it quite interesting and would like to be able to use it. After long search through the  internet I managed to find these instructions, unfortunately I tried to do what it says but I wasn't able to make the video (mp4 file)watchable on a tv screen. By replacing the material used for the screen with a new material type that had the diffuse texture modified. I would be really helpful if you could tell me how does this new feature work.

New video textures: Use MP4 movies as textures on models (Standard or Model Librarymaterials -> Textures tab -> Change diffuse texture -> Select MP4 file).

 Once again, I would like  to thank you a lot for the previous advice, you've saved me! I had a project to hand in and needed the reflections to look professional.

Carito_Lali_Di
Carito_Lali_Di

@Byzantos3D @Carito_Lali_Di Hello! Thanks again for the quick response (:  I have some good news, I followed your instructions but it didn't work properly either. The problem was that the mp4 video I was using as a texture was an flv video that I converted with a program into mp4. So when I added a video that had been decoded or created directly in mp4 format to the  diffuse texture,  it worked correctly, and the video started playing as soon as I chose the source video for the texture.

There's only one little detail left to master, and is how can I resize the mp4 video (modify it's resolution) so that it fits the tv screen (ideal resolution would be 300 x 150). As If I choose the scale button and move it to adjust the image I cannot find the proper size, and also it is displayed upside down not 90° like a widescreen video. And the other issue, is that as soon as I try to modify the video it is no longer playable in Lumion.

Thanks again, and have a good week!

Byzantos3D
Byzantos3D moderator like.author.displayName 1 Like

@Carito_Lali_Di @Byzantos3D  Hello again. Great news you've got Planar Reflections working! Now lets see about those movie-textures.

So you have this TV or whatever in Lumion 3. Now edit its materials and make sure to select the Lumion Standard material as the one for your display. Inside the texture tab you have the options for a diffuse texture and a normal/bumpmap. Click on the diffuse slot and select your .mp4 file. Something should at least happen now. If it doesn't display properly, use the Scale slider in the Standard Material main menu to see if this solves any possible issues 1st. Also make sure your .mp4 file is playing correctly on Windows Movie maker, VLC, DIVX player or whatever you have installed for .mp4 player.

Good luck and please let me know if this helps ok?

Jorgensen
Jorgensen

Hi :-) I'm really looking foreword to try out the reflections - this will sure increase the realism. As I understand it, the reflection has to in the same plane. Building often have windows in different depth, and often we need illustrations where you see two facades at the same time, but can you add the effect to two different facades at the same time? Else it might be possible to merge two images in photoshop...

Byzantos3D
Byzantos3D moderator

Hi Jorgensen, 

Good question and no worries. You can easily add multiple planes to different depths. The more you add the slower your scene will become but that should be somewhat logical for everyone. They are planar reflections after all which means they will mirror your scene for each additional plane.

I have tested the scene above with up to 5 planes simultaneously and even though the realtime viewport becomes slow, the actual rendertime is still very good. This is still beta info. Things might change. I will try to get some new images up this weekend!

Jorgensen
Jorgensen

@Byzantos3D Super thanks :-)

DeividVargas
DeividVargas like.author.displayName 1 Like

son las 3:00 am en mi país, me despierto abruptamente, y me  pregunto  que novedades trae lumion, y ud. siempre sorprendiéndome, insisto el equipo Lumion pierde al no tenerlo, imágenes espectaculares !!! ,    aunque sospecho que ya forma parte de Lumion . saludos Aaron ! XD

Byzantos3D
Byzantos3D moderator

 @DeividVargas Thanks Deivid. No worries, these are in fact shots from Lumion 3.0 beta. You will get a chance to do this yourself pretty soon ;-)

derekw
derekw like.author.displayName 1 Like

Hi Aaron, this is what we have all been waiting for - and well worth the wait too. This will really give Lumion the edge

it's been missing. Are you able to tell me typical render times for the images posted, as opposed to using the old reflection method used in

2.5? I'm very excited about this and I have just the project ready to try it out. Thanks for the great work again Aaron.

Byzantos3D
Byzantos3D moderator

 @derekw It's indeed a biggy Derek. Rendertimes are still being tweaked. It depends on whether you want your reflections with AA or if they are acceptable without AA. Without they are pretty fast as they only require one pass. With AA it's a different matter. Things can slow down significantly but if this gets rid of jagged edges (which you will see without AA), it remains to be seen how much of a timebump the average Lumion user is willing to accept for such increased quality. 

Have a nice day!