Topic: Lumion 8.0 released

[Morten]

Dear Lumion users,                                                             The 6th of November 2017.

We are very pleased to tell you that the long-awaited version 8.0 of Lumion and Lumion Pro has been released.

We would like to thank all of you for your support, feedback, error reports and patience since Lumion 7.0, 7.0.1, 7.3 and 7.5 were released over the past year.   

Lumion 8.0 Pro takes the quality of your presentations to the next level with the new Sky Light effect, Soft Shadows and Fine Detail Shadows, a new Variations effect, soft edges for materials, 734 new models (HD cars, animated 3D people, trees etc) and no fewer than 168 new materials (among others, much improved water materials). Version 8.0 also includes a lot of productivity enhancements and improvements, for example a new 'Group' function, curved 'Mass Placement' arrays and a brand new streamlined user interface in Photo and Movie mode.

We hope this new version will save you even more time, make work easier and more fun and above all, help you deliver more projects and get new customers over the coming year!

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

__________________________________________________

HOW TO RESOLVE CRASHES, ERRORS AND START-UP PROBLEMS IN LUMION
Lumion requires 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.

WHAT'S NEW?
Please read the release notes below to see what has changed. There is more information on the What's New page.

WHAT'S NEW - VIDEO TUTORIALS:
See Video Tutorials covering all the new features: What's New in Lumion 8.

DOWNLOADING LUMION 8.0
Licensed customers should have received an email with download instructions on the 6th of November. The email is automatically sent to all Lumion 8 license owners. Please click here and follow the instructions if you cannot find the email.

INSTALLING LUMION 8.0

• Lumion 8.0 is a complete installation. It is not a patch for older versions of Lumion.
• Do not uninstall older existing Lumion installations until you have transferred your scenes and models (see below).
• Do not install Lumion 8.0 in the same folder as an older version of Lumion.

TRANSFERRING PROJECTS TO LUMION 8.0
1) Please copy the Library, Miscellaneous and Materials folders from Documents\Lumion (VERSION) to Documents\Lumion 8.0 to make it possible to use your imported models in version 8.0.

2) To keep your Favourites from the Imported Model Library and Lumion Library, copy the file "settings7.ini" from Documents\Lumion 7.0, rename it to "settings8.ini", and then place it in Documents\Lumion 8.0 (choose 'overwrite').

3) To open a scene from an older version of Lumion, you will have to save the scene as an LS file via the Save Scene and Models tab in the older version of Lumion. Then load the LS scene file in Lumion 8.0.

Note that if you are using Lumion (Standard) 5.7.2 or older and you have upgraded your license to version 8, you will be able to save an LS scene file, just like in newer versions.

LUMION VIEWER
Lumion 8.0 Viewer is not yet available. We will update this thread when Lumion 8.0 Viewer is released. Please click on the 'Notify' button near the top of this thread if you would like to receive an email when this happens. If you need to use the Lumion Viewer for presenting your projects, please continue to use Lumion 7.3 Pro and Lumion 7.3 Viewer.

LUMION TRIAL
Please see this article:
Knowledge Base Article: Is there a Trial version of Lumion?

LUMION STUDENT PRO
Please see this article:
Knowledge Base Article: Is there an educational or student version of Lumion?

[Morten]

LUMION 8.0: RELEASE NOTES

COMPATIBILITY

• Please note that scenes and models saved in 8.0 are not backwards compatible with earlier versions.
• Please read the forum post above to see how to open projects from older versions of Lumion.

NEW FEATURES

MOVIE/PHOTO MODE

• New 'Sky Light' effect on the 'World' tab which will simulate soft, ambient shadows from the sky. The shadows are only added in areas that the sky is visible from. It is not possible to include the result of the 'Sky Light' effect in the Preview screen.

• New 'Soft Shadows' function in the 'Shadow' effect that will blur shadows, the farther away from the shadow-casting objects they are. This function only works when the 'Shadow type' is set to 'Normal'.
• New 'Fine Detail Shadows' function in the 'Shadow' effect that will add micro-shadows to objects, for example to grass and leaves.

• New 'Styles' presets (pre-made effect combinations) to make it very easy to render realistic images and movies as well as artistic renderings.

• New 'Time Warp' effect on the 'Objects' tab which allows you to adjust the current animation frame of animated 3D people & animals as well as imported animated models.

• New 'Outlines' effect ('Lumion Pro' only) on the 'Sketch' tab. Add artistic sketch outlines to your renderings among other things.

• New 'Variation Control' effect ('Lumion Pro' only) on the 'Objects' tab which lets you switch between different versions of an imported model to show different materials and designs.

• New 'Tilt Shift' effect ('Lumion Pro' only) on the 'Camera' tab which makes it possible to render photos and movies with a look that's similar to macro shots of scale models.

• New 'Layer Visibility' effect on the 'Objects' tab which allows you to show or hide the objects placed in any Build mode layer. This effect replaces the 'Hide Layer' and 'Show Layer' effects in older versions of Lumion.

• 'HyperLight' is now an effect. It is available on the 'World' tab.

• New 'Temperature' and 'Vibrance' sliders in the 'Color Correction' effect make it even easier to set the mood in your renderings.
• Anti-aliasing has been significantly improved when rendering images and movies.

• The '2-Point Perspective' effect now includes a slider instead of a toggle option.
• New 'Clear effects' menu item in the 'Edit' sub-menu of the 'Context Menu' above the effects panel.

MOVIE MODE

• New 4k movie resolution option (3860x2160) when rendering image sequences and MP4 movie files. This option requires a graphics card with 6GB or more of memory.

• 'Handheld Camera' effect: New 'Look at fixed point' option which makes the camera point towards a custom-defined position in your scene.
• The 'Hyperlight' effect now also works in Movie mode. Please note that the range of the effect is significantly lower in movies, so movies and still images with the 'Hyperlight' effect will not look the same.
• New User Interface (consistent with Photo Mode) for rendering movies and images.

PHOTO MODE

• Photos and photo sets are now rendered in the background, so that you can do other things while Lumion is rendering, including pausing or completely cancelling a render.

• It is now possible to select the photos you want to render on the 'Photo Set' tab.
• New User Interface for rendering photos.

MODEL LIBRARY

• 621 new Evermotion models ('Lumion Pro' only) in the 'Indoor' & 'Outdoor' categories. For example food, handbags, clothing, shoes, street furniture, office furniture, sofas, beds and so on.
• 14 new Evermotion HD cars and bikes ('Lumion Pro' only) in the 'Transport' category.
• 74 new trees and bushes ('Lumion Pro' only) in the 'Nature' category.
• 25 new animated 3D people and animals ('Lumion Pro' only) in the 'People & Animals' category (including bicyclists, a dog walker etc)

       (Note: 'Lumion' has approximately 33% of the models from the full 'Lumion Pro' library)

MATERIAL EDITOR

• 100 new high-definition materials from Poliigon.com and 48 additional materials: They are available in the 'Tiles', 'Curtains', 'Fabric', 'Metal', 'Plaster' and 'Plastics' sections in the 'Indoors' category as well as in the 'Concrete', 'Glass', 'Metal', 'Roofing', 'Stone' and 'Asphalt' sections in the 'Outdoors' category. There are also new materials in the 'Grass', 'Soil' and 'Water' categories in the 'Nature' category.
• New 'Water' material: Enhanced water with 3D waves/ripples for even more realistic looking water.
• New 'Water' category with 20 pre-made materials using the new 'Water' material.
• New 'Edges' slider in the 'Weathering' tab ('Lumion Pro' only) in 'Standard' materials. This function will soften hard surface edges (as well as soften the 'Relief' from 'NormalMaps').

BUILD MODE

• New 'Variations' function ('Lumion Pro' only) that lets you import different versions of a model and switch between those variations, for example to show different materials and designs. Assigned Lumion materials are automatically transferred from the original model to the variations when they are being imported.

• New 'Group' function which lets you group certain object types. The Groups can be animated as a single object in Movie mode. The function also lets you change the pivot point of the Group object, so that you can make it rotate around a specific point. This is useful if you import a door object that you want to animate.

• The 'OpenStreetMap' function ('Lumion Pro' only) now includes several new buttons which let you toggle the visibility of buildings and move & rotate the 'OpenStreetMap' model (Please note that if you load a scene with an 'OpenStreetMap' model from an older version of Lumion, you have to download it again in 8.0).

• Landmark buildings/structures in the 'OpenStreetMap' model ('Lumion Pro' only) are now more detailed in some cities (Please note that if you load a scene with an 'OpenStreetMap' model from an older version of Lumion, you have to download it again in 8.0).
• 'Mass Placement' function: It is now possible to add more than two points to 'Mass Placement' lines. The points can also be made rounder.
• It is now possible to create sub-folders in 'Documents\Lumion 8.0\Library' when imported models from within Lumion.
• You can now re-import multiple selected imported models.
• A new pagination function makes it easy to cycle through imported model folders.
• OmniLights now have a new 'Fall-off' slider (like Area Lights). This makes it possible to control the light intensity over distance.

• New 'Grid' object ('Lumion Pro' only) in the 'Lights & Special Objects' category. This object is useful as a guide when placing models in a grid shape.

• New 'Measurement' object ('Lumion Pro' only) in the 'Lights & Special Objects' category. Hold down the left mouse and drag to create a measurement between two (or more) points.

IMPORTING & EXPORTING

• 'ArchiCAD To Lumion Bridge' for ArchiCAD 21 is now available on:
  https://lumion.com/archicad-exporters.html
• 'DWG To Lumion Bridge 2018' now supports DWG files from AutoCAD 2018. The plug-in is available on this page:
  https://lumion.com/dwg-loader.html
• 'Lumion Plug-In for Revit 2.0.3' is available on the following page:
  https://lumion.com/revit-exporters.html
• The included fixes in version 2.0.3 are listed in the 'Changes & Resolved Errors' section below.

MISCELLANEOUS

• The demo scenes that are included with Lumion have been updated.
• 'Files' screen: The 'Save Scene' functionality has been overhauled. Scenes are no longer saved in the 'Documents\Lumion (Version)\Scenes' folder. All Scenes are now saved to an LS8 file at a file location of your choosing. Select ‘Save as’ to save a new LS8 file, or ‘Overwrite’ to overwrite an existing file.
• 'Files' screen:  The ‘Load Scene’ functionality has been overhauled. You now load a scene only from an LS8 file.  'Recent Scenes' saved are displayed as a thumbnail with up to 99 displayed as part of your history. Click on a 'Recent Scenes' thumbnail to open it directly within Lumion, rather than via the ‘Load Scene’ button.

CHANGES & RESOLVED ERRORS

PANORAMA MODE

• A warning that the oldest uploaded MyLumion panorama project will be deleted if you upload more than 10 projects is now displayed correctly again.
• Spotlight shadows no longer disappear if you click on the 'Show desktop' button in Windows.

BUILD MODE

• 'Mass Placement' function: Holding down the CTRL key to place a second point in a 'Mass Placement' line now places one point instead of two.
• 'Mass Placement' function: The first object in a new line is now more random than before.
• 'Mass Placement' function: It is now possible to change & randomize the orientation of 'Leaves' objects.
• SpotLights: The user interface for selecting the shadow type has been improved.
• SpotLights: Shadow banding no longer appears on walls.
• It is no longer possible to place objects by mistake when clicking inside an object properties window.
• Move mode: CTRL-clicking on the category buttons now de-selects all buttons and only selects the category that was clicked.
• Place mode: 'Orientation' and 'Size' sliders are now also displayed on this tab.
• The 'Theatre' (Play) mode button has been removed. Please use the F11 key from now on.
• Bounding boxes are now hidden in all sub-modes in Build mode - apart from when the 'Move mode/Place mode' tabs are selected.
• When using the 'Change height' function, you can now hold down the Shift key to fine-tune the position of the model.
• Moving objects to a hidden Layer now only requires a single click.
• "IvyLeaf", "IvyRoots" and "IvyFlower" models are no longer rotated randomly when duplicated with the ALT-key.
• The Y-position tooltip is no longer displayed when the placement preview bounding box of a model is placed in the sky.
• 'Place current item on nodes' followed by 'Replace with Library selection' no longer results in an incorrect scale for the model(s).
• Replacing a light using the 'Replace with Library selection' Context Menu option now assigns the settings of the old light to the new light.
• Weather Settings: The Sun Brightness value is now being saved in scene files.
• ALT + Copy: Moving up several objects at a time now works as expected.
• ALT + Copy: If 3D people with a color are duplicated, the color now remains assigned to both the duplicates and the original model.
• The 'Brightness' slider value of Spotlights is now unchanged when pasting a hexadecimal color into the color selector.
• Keyboard shortcut tooltips are no longer being shown twice when switching between 'Place mode' & 'Move mode'.
• High 'Brightness' slider values for 'Smoke' & 'Fog/Dust' objects no longer results in artifacts.
• Undo is now disabled after ALT-copying an object. This is to prevent an error which makes the duplicate move back to the original object.
• Keyboard shortcut tooltips no longer flicker for a short moment after releasing the A/W/S/D/Q/E keys.
• The selection rectangle is now easier to see in night scenes.
• The default tonemapping, saturation, brightness, contrast and shadow brightness have been tweaked for a more realistic default look.

MOVIE/PHOTO MODE

• 'Current Shot' tab: Lumion now remembers which image file type you last selected.
• 'Near Clip Plane' effect: The slider range has been increased to 0.1-10.
• 'Fog' effect: The foreground area is now less affected by fog (depending on the 'Density' slider value).
• 'Rain' effect: Rain clouds are now darker.
• 'Cartoon effect': The 'Outline Transparency' slider no longer makes outlines white instead of transparent at higher values.
• 'Fish Eye' effect: The distortion in previews should now match the rendered result more closely.
• 'Material Highlight' effect combined with 'Blueprint' effect: The 3D view no longer flickers when moving the mouse cursor over sliders.
• 'Transparency' for trees and plants now look the same on photo renderings and in movies. You may need to increase the 'Transparency' slider value for trees from older versions if you want them to look the same as in previous versions of Lumion.
• The maximum intensity of the 'Hyperlight' effect has been reduced a bit to avoid situations with extreme lighting.
• 3D grass no longer shows through surfaces if 2 or more reflection planes overlap.
• 3D grass now looks more dense in the distance.
• 'Snow' effect: Fire objects are now visible when this effect is active.
• 'Reflection' effect: Mirrored copies of scatter objects (rocks)  from the terrain are no longer included in planar reflections in a user-submitted scene.
• DIB and PFM image output formats are no longer available.
• 'Styrofoam' effect is disabled in 'Entire Movie' mode to prevent problems with luminance.
• Combining the 'Global Illumination' effect & the '2-Point Perspective' effect no longer results in artifacts in planar reflections in a user-submitted scene.
• When the 'Reflection' effect preview is set to 'Low' and a reflection plane is assigned to a (standard) 'Glass' material, the surface is no longer a bit brighter.
• Raising/lowering the Lumion terrain is now taken into account after using the 'Flatten terrain' function and clicking on the 'Undo' button.
• There are no longer black sun shadow artifacts in the distance when moving the camera very high up and rendering an image in a user-submitted scene.
• A 'Standard' material with the 'Emissive' slider set to the max value no longer causes 'Email' and 'Desktop' resolution renders to be dark in a user-submitted scene.
• The 'Material Highlight' effect overlay is now taking optional '2-Point Perspective' effects into account when displaying a preview of the highlighted material.
• There are no longer artifacts on 'PureGlass' surfaces with planar reflections assigned to them in a user-submitted scene with a very high 'Sun Brightness' slider value.
• The default tonemapping, saturation, brightness, contrast and shadow brightness have been tweaked for a more realistic default look.

PHOTO MODE

• Deleting a photo now also removes effects assigned to the photo.
• Animated people and animals are no longer synchronised in a user-submitted scene.
• All animated objects, functions and materials are now paused at frame 0 of their animations (Use the new 'Time Warp' effect in the 'Objects' tab to adjust the current animation frame of animated 3D people & animals as well as imported animated models).
• Artifacts no longer appear on reflective materials while 'SpeedRay Reflections' are turned on when pressing the U key multiple times to update 'Projected Reflections'.
• 3D Sounds are no longer audible as animations are paused by default in 'Photo' mode.

MOVIE MODE

• The frame count can now be displayed above the timeline slider by pressing the CTRL key whilst the mouse is over the timeline. If you select to render to a frame range, the timeline slider displays the frame count by default, until you choose to render with another option. Whilst using the frame range option, you can toggle the display to show the seconds counter using the CTRL key whilst the mouse is over the timeline slider.
• MaterialID output format: Models that are below the Lumion terrain are now clipped correctly.
• 'Image sequence' tab: TGA output format is no longer saved in BMP format by mistake.
• 'Image sequence' tab: DDS output format can now be opened in Photoshop.
• 'Animate Light Colors' effect: The selectable area of Spotlight icons is no longer offset.
• 'Projected Reflections' are now updated automatically after moving (and releasing) the timeline slider.
• Frames per second is no longer displayed by default while rendering. Hold down the CTRL key to display it again.
• While rendering movies, 'Time remaining' is now only displayed after the first 16 frames have been rendered.
• After uploading a movie to YouTube, the options window is no longer closed if you choose to save the movie as an MP4 file on your harddrive.
• The 'Stereoscopic Settings' effect has been renamed to the 'Side by Side 3D Stereo' effect.
• When rendering a 'Depth map' in a user-submitted scene, a water plane is no longer rendered by mistake.
• 'Titles' effect: Text is now displayed correctly, regardless of which of the 9 screen positions are selected when using the 'Circle Reveal' style.
• 3D Sounds are now only audible when playing a movie.
• The camera no longer moves to a different position after deleting all camera keyframes in a clip.
• The framerate of videos being rendered at 200 frames per second will be scaled down to 60 frames per second as YouTube does not support 200 frames per second.

MATERIAL EDITOR

• 'Color' material: The Brightness slider has been removed. If you need this function, please replace the material with a 'Standard' material and then use the 'Emissive' slider on the 'Settings' tab.
• A Standard material with a transparency clip mask now has 16 levels of transparency in Lumion instead of 9.
  
• The Waterfall material has been moved from the Nature category to the Custom category.
• The 'Brightness' slider of the 'Waterfall' material has been removed.
• 'Leaves' are no longer incorrectly applied to certain materials by default.
• The 'Flicker Reduction' slider value is now displayed with more digits when close to 0.0.
• The material settings for the 'Water' and 'Lightmap' materials are now shown when you click to assign one of these materials.

MODEL LIBRARY

• When a model has been used in a scene, the icon for the "Model recently in use" tooltip in the 'Imported Model' browser window now includes a button icon.
• 'Trees\Leaf - Medium\European_White_Birch' has been moved to the 'Legacy' folder and can no longer be placed in your scenes, but is available for a scene from a prior version.
• 'Trees\Leaf - Medium\BlackElder' has been moved to the 'Legacy' folder and can no longer be placed in your scenes, but is available for a scene from a prior version.
• 'Trees\Leaf - Medium\Red_Maple' has been moved to the 'Legacy' folder and can no longer be placed in your scenes, but is available for a scene from a prior version.
• 'Trees\Conifers\AlaskaCedar' has been moved to the 'Legacy' folder and can no longer be placed in your scenes, but is available for a scene from a prior version.

IMPORTING & EXPORTING

• ArchiCAD: Exported model names that include Japanese characters are now exported without any problems. Please use the new 'ArchiCAD To Lumion Bridge' plug-ins for ArchiCAD 20 and 21 on this page:
  https://lumion.com/archicad-exporters.html
• Revit: 'Lumion Plug-In for Revit 2.0.3' is available on this page:
  https://lumion.com/revit-exporters.html
• Revit 2018 no longer causes Revit to crash when updating a LiveSync model in a user-submitted scene.
• Certain IFC symbol components in a user-submitted Revit model are now exported to Lumion as separate surfaces.
• Certain parts of surfaces in a user-submitted Revit model are no longer facing the wrong way in Lumion.
• Certain parts of surfaces in a user-submitted Revit RFA model are no longer facing the wrong way in Lumion.
• Section box changes are now transferred instantly to Lumion in a 'LiveSync' model.
• The memory calculation function has been improved when exporting a 'LiveSync' model to Lumion.
• The performance of certain 'LiveSync' models from Revit has been improved further.
• A ceiling made from a basic plane in Revit 2018 (and not a solid) no longer displays in Lumion as a bright surface.
• The 'Finish Bumps' slider amount is now transferred correctly to the LiveSync model in Lumion.

SOUND

• 'MPEG 1 Layer II' sound is used in the upcoming 'Lumion 8.0 Student' and 'Lumion 8.0 Trial' version when rendering movies with audio. Bear in mind that this format is not audible in Windows Media Player. Please use a different media player, for example VLC.

MISCELLANEOUS

• The Benchmark test now ensures that CPUs with 4.0 GHz clock frequency or higher will get the maximum score. The graphics card score now runs independently of the CPU (by testing shader instructions) and will therefore more accurately reflect the expected render speed in Lumion.
• In the upcoming 'Lumion 8.0 Student', it is only possible to open .LS scene files from 'Lumion Educational Free' and 'Lumion Educational Pro'.
• Double-clicking an LS8 scene file now starts Lumion in editor mode.
• Translation: EN has been changed to US on the language selection screen.
• When saving an .LS scene file, an error is now displayed if the .LIB file of an imported model library object is not present in 'Documents\Lumion 8.0\Library'.
• Model Context Menu: The wording for various menu items has been improved.
• Warning messages are now clearer when there are problems with the license during start-up.
• No internet connection: New icon for OpenStreetMaps, Youtube and MyLumion Photo and Panorama mode uploads.
• When starting Lumion, help information is now displayed as expected when moving the mouse cursor to the 'Hover for help' area.
• Lumion no longer displays an endless number of error messages when re-sizing the Lumion window to the smallest possible size.
• Movie from File: Lumion now checks if the MP4 file is located in the same location as the LS8 file while loading the scene.
• The user interface and wordings of many of the functions in Lumion have been improved.

[peterm]

Please also see the 8.0 hotfixes post:

Licensed users: Lumion 8.0 hotfixes

Educational/Student users: Lumion 8.0 hotfixes