Topic: 1. Reflection Control 2. Material controls frozen

[Ken]

Hi Morten and Peter,
I am using a Lumion Pro trial. I have been working on stainless steel appliances in a kitchen model in a
room with lots of windows. I want the scene to be daytime. The first renders that I did showed the exterior
landscape as reflections in the interior glass and stainless steel coloring it green. I discovered the reflection control ball in the lighting objects and I placed it near the camera, as I had read in a forum thread. It helped but I can't seem to control whether the reflection control ball follows the camera everywhere or not. It appears to follow somewhat but not everywhere, as I get interior reflections on exterior windows when doing the exterior part of the movie. I have looked for a good tutorial on this but have not found it. Some advice please.

The second concern is that I was trying to adjust the countertop material and the sliders were not working in real time yesterday. Other materials were working in real time. Later on the countertop material was working in real time and then it seemed stuck. Now it is working fine. I restarted the computer and that did not help originally, but now it is working. Is this a glitch, operator error, or something else that I missed?

Thanks, Ken

[peterm]

Hi Ken

re Reflection Control:  you are on the right track  .  When you need to manually control the reflections (instead of the Lumion automatic reflections) then yes, you need to place the Reflection Control near the camera, or, at a location that best gives the desired reflections.

Please refer to the topic HOW TO WORK WITH REFLECTIONS in  LUMION 5: Quickstart Guide.

For a Movie, if the Lumion default one is used, it's placed automatically at and only at the first frame of each clip.  If you add a Reflection Control as you have, then you need to move it using either Move Effect or (in most cases) Advanced Move Effect.  It's just an object so can be moved like any other object.

When you are working with reflections in Movie Mode, you will want to use the "U" key to update the Preview from time to time to check how things look.

Working in Advanced Move does not give you the same camera views as editing a clip, but is more like Build Mode.  So move and position the Reflection Control near to something that you know is in one of the snapshot views.  As the Reflection Control is taking a view of the world, it does not need to be placed with accuracy, but locally.  In some cases getting a suitable height is more important.

I'll mention briefly, for windows you have the option to use Planar Reflections via the Reflection Effect.  Use with care as the reflection generated is a high cost render element, but gives perfect localised, flat reflections.


re countertop materials:  thanks for the mention.  It's not a known error, although we have had one other member make a similar comment, so far, it's not clear what the issue is, (other than no response from the sliders).

Can I just check, when working in the Materials Editor, was it was a specific slider, and Standard Material or a Lumion Chrome Material from the Materials Library?  Did you have the ***More window open to add further material properties?

All we can really do at the moment is ask if it happens again, to:
1. Send the scene to us, Exported to LS5 for checking. Instructions here: HOW TO UPLOAD FILES FOR ERROR REPORTS.
2. It would greatly help if you were able to take a video capture of the problem as it happens, or if not video, then some screen captures.

[Ken]

Hi Peter,
Thanks for the in depth response. I have used the Planar Reflections via the Reflections Effect with great results and it did slow the render time, but not too much with the amount of the effect that I used.

I will play around with the Reflection Control following your advice.

The frozen countertop material happened when applying a Standard material and none of the sliders were responding in real time. I did have the "more" window open as well. I have not had the problem recently, but I also have not worked on the countertop material since I got the effect I was looking for. If it happens again I will let you know and send the scene to you.

New question: I am very happy with the results that I am getting with Lumion and will be purchasing a license in the next couple of days. I am also going to have a computer built for me with a GTX 980ti video card. I am thinking of getting a 4k monitor but have read that it can tax the video card, even the GTX 980ti. Do you recommend a 4k monitor or would I be better served with a standard HD monitor? Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Ken

[Morten]

Hi Ken, 4k monitors need to display roughly 4 times as many pixels as an HD resolution monitor, so performance in Build mode would be significantly worse. Render times, however, should not be affected.

[peterm]

Hi Ken

Thanks for the update.  All sounds good.

..The frozen countertop material happened when applying a Standard material and none of the sliders were responding in real time. I did have the "more" window open as well. ..

OK (great recall  ).  When the ***More Window is open it is modal, so it requires the user to click on one of the options to add further properties or close the window.  Other sliders in the Standard Material will not be active until the ***More Window is closed.

.. If it happens again I will let you know and send the scene to you...

Please.

[Ken]

Peter and Morten,
Thanks guys. Your information is very helpful. I am impressed by the level of support you provide.


all the best,
Ken

[peterm]

Cheers Ken, and thanks for the positive feedback.