Topic: Lumion 6.0 Released

[peterm]

Dear Lumion users,

It is with great pleasure that we can announce that version 6.0 of Lumion and Lumion Pro has been released!



Many months of hard work is now over for us, and it's time for you to reap the rewards.

We would like to thank all of you for your support, feedback, error reports and patience since Lumion 5.0, 5.3, 5.7, 5.7.1 and 5.7.2 were released over the last year.   

Lumion 6 brings the quality of your presentations to the next level with new glass, enhanced reflections, shadows & lighting and many more new features.
  Lumion 6.0: Overview

Please also read the Release Notes below to see what has changed.

We've also updated the forum documentation for version 6.0 in three new posts:
  Quickstart Guide
  Frequently Asked Questions
  Keyboard Shortcuts

There's a number of important key new features, along with added content to use in 6.0.  So we hope this new version will save you even more time, make work easier and more fun and above all, help you get more projects and customers!

Best regards,

Team Lumion

DOWNLOADING LUMION 6.0
Licensed customers will receive an email with download instructions within the next 24 hours (please check your Spam folder on your email account).

If you haven't received the email within 24 hours, please forward your license number to [email protected]

LUMION VIEWER 6.0
Lumion Viewer 6.0 has not yet been released. This post will be updated as soon as it's ready.

COMPATIBILITY
Please note that scenes and LS6 files saved in 6.x are NOT backwards compatible with earlier versions. 

If you try to load scenes or imported model files made with an earlier version of Lumion, you will have to re-apply all materials in Lumion 6.0. For that reason, we recommend that you finish any Lumion 4.x, 5.0 and 5.3 scenes, and only start up new scenes in 6.0. Scenes commenced in 5.7 or above can be opened and worked on with Lumion 6.0.

[Morten]

LUMION 6.0: RELEASE NOTES

COMPATIBILITY
Please note that scenes and LS6 files saved in 6.x are NOT backwards compatible with earlier versions. If you try to load scenes or imported model files made with Lumion 1.x, 2.x, 3.x or 4.x, you will have to remove and re-assign all materials and Movie/Photo effects in Lumion 6.0.

MIGRATING SCENES FROM LUMION 4.5.1 AND 5.0
Lumion 5.3 and newer allow users to configure a different combination of effects for each photo in Photo mode. The introduction of this feature in 5.3 means that older projects load with an empty list of effects in Photo mode.
If you want to apply the same set of effects to photos in Lumion 6.0, simply save the effects in Photo mode in Lumion 4.5.1 or Lumion 5.0 and load the effect file in 6.0 via the context menu button above the effect stack.



NEW FEATURES

MOVIE & PHOTO MODE

• Hyperlight® 2 (Lumion Pro only): Completely redesigned algorithm which greatly improves the quality of still image renderings. The number of light bounces has been increased from 2 to 16 and the result is silky smooth lighting, even in dimly lit interiors. Render times are also significantly faster. Please note that this function only works for single image renderings, not for movies.
• Reflection effect: New SpeedRayâ„¢ Reflections function (Lumion Pro only) - a great new alternative to planar reflections but far less resource-intensive. This function makes it possible for reflective materials to reflect their surroundings.
• Reflection effect: Planar reflections are now blurred based on the Gloss value of reflective materials which results in more realistic reflections.
• Shadow effect: New OmniShadowâ„¢ function which improves the quality of ambient shadows, even far away from the camera.
• Depth of Field effect: This effect has been remade from scratch to improve the visual quality. The effect now includes cinematic “Bokeh” presets and an Auto Focus function.
• New Autumn Generator effect: The colors of green parts of trees and plants in a scene can now be animated to simulate changing seasons. Tress and plants must be in the same Layer as set in the effect.
• New Animate Spotlight Colors effect: The colors of Spotlights can now be animated, along with the intensity to create fading lights. Multiple instances of this effect can be used in the same clip or movie.
• New Styrofoam effect: This new effect makes your design look like a scale model cut from styrofoam material. The softness and color of the styrofoam can be configured to create the look you want.

MOVIE MODE ONLY

• Mass Move effect: It is now possible to make curved paths with multiple path points and custom smoothness. In addition, path animations now work on sloping terrain.

PHOTO MODE ONLY

• Hyperlight© 2 (Lumion Pro only): Please refer to the description of this function in the Movie mode section above.
• New “Remove” button for saved camera slots. Removes the camera snapshot but leaves the effects in place for later snapshots.

MODEL LIBRARY

• 20 new animated 3D people from aXYZ Design (Lumion Pro only).
• 77 new plants (Lumion Pro only).
• 135 new trees (Lumion Pro only).
• 20 new sounds (Lumion Pro only).
• New silhouette functionality for animated 3D people: White, grey or black (via Edit Properties).
• New “People” option for Transport models (via Edit properties). Turning this option on makes most of the models appear with drivers and passengers in them.

BUILD MODE

• Improved sky realism.

MATERIAL EDITOR

• New PureGlass® - an Advanced Glass material type with 80 glass preset types (It is currently not possible to add your own textures to Advanced Glass materials). Create glass with Opaqueness, translucency or frosted glass.
• More detailed and accurate simulation of materials such as fabric, rubber, concrete, stone, skin and terrain.
• The Gloss property has been updated. If you’re using reflective materials, you may have to increase this slider value after loading a model made in earlier versions of Lumion.
• New Wet Asphalt material.

IMPORT & EXPORT

• Safe Mode: Intelligent mechanism that detects which application and version number FBX and DAE files are exported from. Based on this information, Lumion fixes geometry issues such as missing faces and flipped normals while importing the model.
• FBX: FBX 2016 files are now supported, e.g. exported from AutoDesk® 3DS Max® 2016 and AutoDesk® Maya® 2016.
• DWG: The DWG importer is now a separate installer.
• DWG: Improved reliability and speed when importing DWG files.
• DWG: Added support for additional AutoDesk® AutoCAD® Architecture® AEC objects (Walls, windows etc).

MYLUMION

• New Portfolio Management option in MyLumion® (Beta). This function allows you to delete MyLumion® projects as well as edit the title and description text.

OTHER

• Lumion now supports Unicode. It is now possible to use foreign characters, e.g. Japanese, Chinese, Hebrew, Greek and Cyrillic when saving/loading scenes, LS files, textures, materials, Material Sets, Movie effects etc in Lumion. The dedicated Exporters (Revit To Lumion Bridge and ArchiCAD To Lumion Bridge) have also been updated.
• It is now possible to save LS6 files in Lumion (Normal).
• Improved sky realism. Improved sky and cloud realism when adjusting the Sun and Cloud effects to give those sunrise and sunset looks you are after.

CHANGES & RESOLVED ERRORS

BUILD MODE

• Place Item on Nodes tool: An error message no longer appears if you replaced nodes with spotlights in a new Lumion session.
• Random objects no longer lose Billboard materials every time you re-open a scene.
• Place Item on Nodes tool: Spotlight positions are no longer reset to the height of the lowest Spotlight when moving them vertically.
• Sun Brightness now works as expected (Before this fix, it worked more like an exposure slider).
• Objects that are placed above the Lumion terrain now react as expected when you type in a height and then run the Space XZ command.
• Grass: Tinting from custom terrain textures is now more accurate as the custom terrain textures are blurred less before the grass tinting process.
• Objects can no longer be accidentally deleted after returning to Build mode from the Material Editor.
• Mark as terrain function: Scatter objects are no longer placed above the terrain.
• The text in Fountain properties has been improved.

MOVIE MODE

• Ocean reflections are now blurrier, so that objects that are close to the camera when rendering the first frame of a movie/clip will be less noticeable in the 360 degree Reflection Control texture.
• Mass Move effect: The path preview is no longer incorrect when the mouse cursor for a path endpoint is above the horizon.
• Mass Move effect: Debug information that was visible in certain situations has now been hidden.
• Handheld Camera effect: Tilt now uses smooth bezier interpolation instead of linear interpolation when animated.
• Move effect: Rotate Heading animation keyframes no longer result in incorrect movement for walking 3D people.
• Move effect: Rotate Pitch and Rotate Bank tooltips have been swapped.
• Rain effect: Flashes from lightning strikes is now faster.
• The text "Please do not minimize during rendering" has been updated in order to explain what not to do during the rendering process.
• Advanced Move effect: It is no longer possible to animate multiple objects that were selected in Build mode before returning to Movie mode.
• Copy-pasting effects from Photo mode no longer results in an incorrect effect stack layout.

PHOTO MODE

• Ocean reflections are now blurrier, so that objects that are close to the camera when rendering still images will be less noticeable in the 360 degree Reflection Control texture.
• Moon effect: This effect no longer results in incorrect glow from the moon while it is below the horizon in a user-submitted scene.
• Moon effect: The preview of the moon is now updated when switching between Photo slots.

MODEL LIBRARY

• Women_African_003 no longer has a “gap” in the back of the head.
• Wheels no longer spin the wrong way after rotating a vehicle 180 degrees.
• MotorBike_001 and MotorBike_002 no longer have reflective tires.
• 25 old trees have been moved to the Trees/Legacy folder because the quality is no longer good enough (and we now provide better alternatives).

MATERIAL EDITOR

• Shadows from an Imported Material now look the same as shadows from a Standard Material when the material has a clipping mask.
• Material Editor: The padlock icon on the Color Map slot now has a darker outline so it is still visible on white textures.
• Glass material: Textures are now visible in the shade again.
• Standard material: -> More module -> “Color Map Alpha clips Object”.
• "Cancel changes" button now works as expected when the button is overlapping another material.

MYLUMION

• Text objects are now rendered correctly on MyLumion Viewpoints.
• The web demos on lumion3d.com and mylumion.com should now work on all iOS devices.
• Navigation keys no longer accidentally affect the camera view when naming Viewpoints.
• The camera Focal Length is now reset to its default value when switching to MyLumion mode.
• Tree and plants that use socalled billboard textures are no longer rendered multiple times on MyLumion renderings.

LUMION VIEWER

• When importing an LS scene file, the included model files in the LS file are now used instead of existing model files in the Lumion 6/Library folder.

IMPORT & EXPORT

• Re-import Model & Re-import Model from File: The button for these functions has been moved and is now only available when a single model is selected.
• Updated dedicated exporters for Revit To Lumion Bridge and ArchiCAD to Lumion Bridge to support Unicode (e.g. Japanese characters) and some error fixes.
• Corrupted lib.inn files from imported models are now recreated automatically and will no longer cause a crash in Lumion.

OTHER

• “Export full scene” tab and button have been renamed to “Save Scene and Models”.
• “Import full scene” tab and button have been renamed to “Load Scene and Models”.
• Lumion no longer automatically saves a copy of the scene when you exit the program. However, you now get an option to save the scene and models as an LS6 file.
• Saving files in locations with very long path names now works as expected.
• The Lumion icons on the Uninstall list in Windows now look correct.
• The Lumion Benchmark has been updated to reflect the fact that users have better graphics cards. Scores from previous versions of Lumion are not comparable with the new 6.0 scores.
• The preview image for an imported LS file no longer shows the text LS4 below the disc icon.
• License check: If you start up Lumion without a connection and click on the Retry button it now displays a message and allows you to try again.
• Text searches in the Model Library no longer includes trees or plants from the Trees/Legacy folder in the search results.
• Sound names are no longer only lower-case.
• Save Scene tab: Typing text followed by Backspace no longer places the cursor at the end of the field.
• Save Scene tab: There are no longer two active cursors displaying in the Name and Description fields.
• If Lumion loses the connection to the graphics card a warning message will now appear in order to prompt you to restart the rendering process.
• The help text on the start screen of Lumion is no longer obscuring the Settings button.
• Localization: Various text and layout issues have been corrected for non-English languages.