Topic: Any low cost software to create animations for importing to Lumion?

[Ecuadorian]

Do you guys know of any?

[Architect JM]

... do you mean "models/projects"?

.. if so, the cheapest "free" is SketchUp.
 

... you are going to do the animation in Lumion (that is the program for),... so ... you don't need and additional animation...

 

[Ecuadorian]

I mean, actually a*n*i*m*a*t*i*n*g stuff and then importing into Lumion. Like, for example, an engine.

[thecravatman]

Take a look at iClone it has just got a physics engine that looks pretty good and in this new release it exports to other 3d applications specifically for games developing. Another interesting thing with iClone is that you can do mocap with ms kinect for pc. This is all in the latest version 5. I don't have it and an like you I am in the research phase, so excuse any errors in my suggestions.
T

[Ecuadorian]

Thanks for the lead.

[peterm]

You are currently limited in animation of course to the type of importing Lumion supports, being transform animation, as skin is done for the characters currently using special point cache, although they are investigating options.  You can do a form of skinning as forum member found a workaround for simple character construction.

You could have a look at the DAZ products.

DAZ Studio is still currently free.  Cararra is a nice app.  The Pro version is more expensive but way cheaper than things like Max, exports to a range of formats and links well with Daz Studio etc, plus they now have their own Genesis tools (so good bye to Poser).

There's a Carrara Basic thats less than 100, but check out the export options.  In Pro I tested couple of exports using Collada (they support 2 Collada variants) with currently no success, but the FBX worked on 2 tests immediately.  Have not tested Studio anim for export.

[cerise]

hi!!
I use blender which is free and i export animations in FBX.
you can only scale, move and rotate object .Mesh deformation with bones don 't work.

unfortunately, sometimes some keyframes are bad after importing in lumion.
Will be great if somebody know why

[Morten]

Hi cerise, you're right - simple move/rotate/scale animations in Blender can be imported via FBX format, but the last time I tested it, the vertex smoothing didn't look right, ie, a box from Blender would not appear to have sharp edges in Lumion:

http://lumion3d.com/forum/general-discussion/new-animation-plug-in-just-where-to-start/msg20185/#msg20185

Can you confirm whether this works in the latest version of Blender?

[cerise]

Hi morten,
i use an old version of blender (2.49b) and when i export to fbx i get a popup like this

[Morten]

And if you import an animated box (with hard edges), does it look like the box on the left or like the box on the right in Lumion?

[cerise]

I'm at office now, i will try this evening at home

[cerise]

here a snapshot after importing in lumion

and the animation here

[Morten]

Thanks, can you remove the material and make another screenshot that shows both the "sunny" and the "shady" sides of the cube?

[cerise]

hi Morten,i think to see what you want to do,
To preserve some edge from smoothing ,select them in edit mode and press CTRL+E and select "mark sharp"
add a modifier "Edge split" to the object with the button "From marked as sharp" pressed in 2.4 or check "sharp edges" in 2.6

if you smooth the object after , these edges keep sharp

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.4/Manual/Modifiers/Generate/Edge_Split
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Modifiers/Generate/Edge_Split


left cube without split edge
right cube with mark sharp and split edge

[Morten]

Thanks for testing this, cerise.