Topic: Lumion 6.5 released

[Morten]

Dear Lumion users,                                                                      June 6th, 2016.

We are pleased to inform you that version 6.5 of Lumion and Lumion Pro has been released. It's a free update for licensed version 6 users.

Thanks a lot for your support, feedback, error reports and patience since Lumion 6.3 was released!

Lumion 6.5 contains an updated engine that works better with Windows 8.x and 10. It also gives access to extra graphics card and system memory so that you can work on larger, more complex scenes.

In addition, it includes a number of error fixes and improvements, so we recommend that all Lumion 6 licensees install version 6.5. You do not need to uninstall older versions of Lumion prior to installing 6.5.

We also recommend upgrading to Windows 10 before the free upgrade offer expires on 29 July 2016.

Please note that Lumion 6.5 works from a new \Lumion 6.5 folder in Documents. You will need to copy the Scenes, Library and Miscellaneous folders from Documents\Lumion 6 to Documents\Lumion 6.5 to be able to load your scenes and models in version 6.5. This was done in order to ensure that you still have a back-up of your Lumion 6.3 scenes and imported models in case you experience serious problems in 6.5.

To keep your Favourites from the Imported Model Library and Lumion Library, copy the file "settings45.ini" from Documents\Lumion 6 to Documents\Lumion 6.5



We would be grateful if you could report issues in 6.5 as soon as you encounter them, so that the developers have a chance of fixing them (ideally before the summer holiday!).

Best regards from all of us at Act-3D!


WHAT'S NEW?
What's New?

RELEASE NOTES
Please read the release notes below to see what has changed.

LUMION VIEWER
We will update this thread when we have news about the Lumion Viewer. Please click on the 'Notify' button near the top of this thread if you would like to receive an email when Lumion Viewer is released. If you need to use the Lumion Viewer for presenting your projects, please continue to use Lumion Pro 6.3 and Lumion Viewer 6.0.1.

DOWNLOADING LUMION 6.5
Licensed customers should now have received an email with download instructions (please check your Spam folder on your email account).

Please note that the email was sent to the email address that was used when Lumion 6 was purchased, so if you work for a large organisation you may have to ask the person who bought Lumion to forward the email to you.

If you haven't received the email, please forward your Lumion 6 license number and purchase receipt to [email protected], so they can send you another email.

[Morten]

LUMION 6.5: RELEASE NOTES

COMPATIBILITY

• Please note that scenes and models saved in 6.5 are not backwards compatible with earlier versions.
• Scenes and imported models in 6.5 are saved in My Documents/Lumion 6.5/Scenes & Library folders to avoid mixing them up with scenes and models saved in older versions. You will need to copy your Lumion 6 folders (Scenes, Library and Miscellaneous folders) to the Lumion 6.5 folder if you want to load those scenes and models in version 6.5. Make sure to restart Lumion 6.5 after doing this.

       

• Lumion 6.5 requires that you install the new DWG to Lumion Bridge 2017 plug-in before importing DWG files. Please visit this page to download and install it. You do not need to uninstall the previous installation of the DWG to Lumion Bridge plug-in as it is still required for older versions of Lumion.

NEW FEATURES

BUILD MODE

       

• New transparency property for trees and plants. Select one or more trees and plants to see the new slider. Please note that there are 16 transparency levels when rendering a 5-star movie, 8 levels in 4-star movies and 4 levels in 3-star movies.
• Change Height + ALT: It is now possible to duplicate models by holding down the ALT key while moving an object vertically.

MOVIE/PHOTO MODE

• Render times are now faster in most scenes and on most graphics cards (based on Lumion demo scene tests on a variety of graphics cards).

PANORAMA MODE

       

• New equirectangular panoramic output format for use in 3rd party panorama generator software.
• It is now possible to re-order each of the Locations by drag and drop.
• Copy and paste of a Location is now available in the Context menu for each Location.

MISCELLANEOUS
       

• Lumion has been upgraded to DirectX 11.
  
• The 4 GB memory cap in Lumion no longer exists on Windows 8.x and 10. This means that Lumion can use more than 4GB graphics card memory (if available) in addition to all available system memory and harddisk swapspace. The result is that you can now work on more complex scenes with more textures on Windows 8.x and 10.
• It is now possible to save LS6 files that are larger than 4 GB.

       

• News and Learning: A new section with tips and news is now displayed on the start screen after starting up Lumion.
• Scenes and imported models in 6.5 are saved in My Documents/Lumion 6.5/Scenes & Library folders to avoid mixing them up with scenes and models saved in older versions. You will need to copy your Lumion 6 folders to the Lumion 6.5 folder if you want to load those scenes and models in version 6.5. Make sure to restart Lumion 6.5 after doing this.

NEW TUTORIAL VIDEOS

• (00:45)
• (01:13)
• (01:15)
• (01:15)
• (00:55)
• (01:03)
• (00:43)
• (01:16)
• (01:29)
• (00:46)
• (00:55)
• (00:58)
• (00:57)
• (02:09)

CHANGES & RESOLVED ERRORS

PANORAMA MODE

• The stand-alone LumionVR viewer has been discontinued due to too many unknowns in the app creation process for the Oculus Store. Please use the GearVR / Oculus option in the VR Panorama Settings to render a panorama in side-by-side cubic format.
  
  • Click here to see how to view GearVR / Oculus renderings on your Samsung GearVR device.
  • to see how to view GearVR / Oculus renderings on your Oculus Rift device.

• The terrain in MyLumion panoramas is now rendered in high quality, even if the ‘High quality terrain in editor’ setting is turned off.
• The terrain and trees/plants in Oculus / GearVR panoramas are now rendered in high quality, even if the ‘High quality terrain in editor’ and ‘High quality trees and grass in editor’ settings are turned off.
• Deleting Locations now requires double-clicking.
• Pasting a copied Location now also includes the camera viewpoint.

BUILD MODE

• High quality trees and plants no longer switch to low quality when re-sizing the Lumion window.
• Landscape textures are no longer darker when the mouse cursor highlights them.
• The sun is no longer black when the Brightness slider value is below 0.01.
• Move object + ALT: This function now makes duplicates of models instead of moving the original selected models and leaving the copies behind.
• N & M shortcut keys: Object altitude is no longer affected by the terrain when moving an object along the X or Z axes.
• Grass & terrain outside the editable terrain area are now uniform and no longer “inherits” the shading and distribution from the editable part of the terrain.
• The user interface for the Ocean color selector is no longer offset.
• Spotlights: The Rotate function now changes the Pitch value instead of the Heading value in order to make it easier to re-orient Spotlights.
• Spotlights: 'Show light source' now works as expected again.
• Keyboard tooltip: Shift + Space shortcut is now displayed while moving the camera.

MOVIE/PHOTO MODE

• Lensflare effect: This effect is now more visible through PureGlass materials.
• Lensflare effect: The Isolate Bright Pixels slider now displays correctly between 0 and 20%.
• Mass Move effect: Moving objects in Build mode are now also moved in the effect in Movie mode.
• Shadow effect: A shadow gap no longer appears in a user-submitted scene when Final sun shadow render detail is set to High or Super.
• Shadow effect: Shadows no longer flicker on the terrain in a user-submitted scene when Final sun shadow render detail is set to Super.
• Shadow effect: There is no longer an artifact in sub-frame 1 in Super resolution.
• Reflection effect: Reflections on PureGlass materials are no longer rendered in front of 3D silhouette people.
• Reflection effect: Standard and PureGlass materials no longer have wrong reflections when rendered with the Preview Quality set to Low.
• Reflection effect: A reflection gap no longer appears in a user-submitted scene.
• Global Illumination effect: The sun no longer changes position when editing this effect.
• Global Illumination effect: Artifacts no longer appear in a user-submitted scene.
• Blueprint effect: The clip plane now also clips PureGlass materials.
• 2-Point Perspective effect: The Target Light function for Spotlights now works as expected in Build With Effects mode.
• Entire Movie mode: It is no longer possible to paste the Foliage Wind and Global Illumination effects.
• Material Highlight effect: The OK button in Edit mode is now black.
• Styrofoam effect: The translucency is no longer ruined by sun shadows set to Super resolution.
• Sun effect: Sun Disk Size values from 0 to 0.0001 no longer affects cloud brightness.
• Sun effect: The sun is no longer black in a user-sumbitted scene.
• Save Movie settings: Frame Range -> Custom now has the correct tooltip.
• Titles effect: The black part of a logo is now more visible when using the Floating effect.

PHOTO MODE

• The frames around Photo thumbnail images are now 100% white.
• Global Illumination effect: This effect can now be copy-pasted in Photo mode.
• There is no longer a brightness difference between single images and the same images rendered as part of a Photo Set.

MOVIE MODE

• Edit Clip mode: Focal Length type-in no longer locks the user interface if Return key is not pressed after editing.
• Titles effect: The tooltip for the Start At slider is no longer obstructed by the text field.

MATERIAL EDITOR

• Adding a new material to a model with a lot of imported textured materials is up to twice as fast.
• Standard material: The Scale slider now allows textures to cover a bigger area.
• Thin masked areas in alpha channel no longer disappear faster in the distance when using the Standard material (compared with the imported material).

MODEL LIBRARY

• Specular reflections have been improved for some model types, e.g. furniture.
• 3D silhouette people no longer glow when Brightness is 0.
• People2D_L_Caucasian_0004 no longer has an artifact at the top.
• The texture resolution of all People2D_L objects has been increased.
• The Transparency slider for 3D silhouette people now works more gradually.
• The Pine category has been renamed to Conifers.

IMPORTING & EXPORTING

• Lumion 6.5 requires that you install the new DWG to Lumion Bridge 2017 plug-in before importing DWG files. Please visit this page to download and install it. You do not need to uninstall previous installations of DWG to Lumion Bridge plug-in as they are still required for older versions of Lumion.
• Imported model files moved to sub-folders in the Library folder are no longer re-saved to the root Library folder after re-importing them.

MISCELLANEOUS

• Localization: The translations have been updated.
• Settings screen: The Limit all texture sizes to 512x512 option has been removed as it was causing more problems than it was solving.
• A warning message is now displayed if Lumion was unable to create required folders in the Documents folder (typically due to inadequate read/write Windows permissions).
• The LS6 file type no longer shows up as an LS5 file type in the file properties on Windows.
• The Emergency Activation Code link is no longer wrong after the Lumion website was overhauled.
• On PCs with 2 graphics cards and monitors, it is no longer possible to move Lumion window from one monitor to another and get it to switch to the graphics card for that monitor.
• Laptop PCs with Nvidia & Intel HD cards should now automatically select the Nvidia card for Lumion again.
• Benchmark screen: Numerical scores or the graphics card and the CPU are now hidden as the test is very superficial and can be skewed by CPU-intensive background processes.
• Benchmark screen: The scores in the colour-coded columns have been tweaked, and a warning for a user-submitted slow graphics card is now displayed as expected.
• Benchmark screen: Abbreviations have been replaced by easier-to-understand words.

[Morten]

HOW TO RESOLVE CRASHES, ERRORS AND START-UP PROBLEMS IN LUMION 6.5
Lumion 6.5 and newer require that all Windows updates as well as the latest graphics card driver have been installed. Please click here and follow the instructions to ensure that your PC is ready for Lumion 6.5.

[Morten]

HOW TO RESOLVE TEXTURE ERRORS IN LUMION 6.5

This issue has been resolved in update V6.5.1  Refer: Lumion 6.5.1 released, 28 June 2016.

The hotfix below for Lumion 6.5 will prevent various texture errors from popping up when Lumion is unable to read very high resolution textures.

The hotfix automatically resizes very high resolution textures, i.e. bigger than 16384 pixels (width/height) to a maximum of 16384 x 16384.

TIP: Even though this hotfix resolves the issue, it's good practice to avoid using very high resolution textures. Most graphics cards are only made to use textures up to 16384 x 16384 pixels. A 16384 x 16384 pixel texture uses 1GB graphics card memory (and if you assign this texture in Lumion, a NormalMap will be created which requires another 1GB!). For that reason, the only situation where you could consider using such a high resolution texture is if you've got a terrain with a satellite image.

Here's how to install the hotfix:

1) Download and unzip the attached zip file.

2) In Lumion 6.5/Channels, rename A1617BEA-2E4A-4A92-B235-509245665AFC.dll to:
A1617BEA-2E4A-4A92-B235-509245665AFC.BAK

3) Move the unzipped A1617BEA-2E4A-4A92-B235-509245665AFC.dll to:
Lumion 6.5/Channels

4) Restart Lumion 6.5.

[Morten]

HOW TO RESOLVE DWG FILE CRASHES IN LUMION 6.5

This issue has been resolved in update V6.5.1  Refer: Lumion 6.5.1 released, 28 June 2016.

After installing the new DWG to Lumion Bridge 2017 plug-in, Lumion 6.5 will crash the second time you import or re-import a DWG file.

The hotfix below resolves this problem.

Here's how to install the hotfix:

1) Download and unzip the attached zip file.

2) In Lumion 6.5/3rd, rename DwgReader.dll to:
DwgReader.BAK

3) Move the unzipped DwgReader.dll to:
Lumion 6.5/3rd

4) Restart Lumion 6.5.