Topic: apply material

[joza]

how can i reapply material that was chosen in the 3d modeling program(vectorworks}? can i change the definition of an object material in lumion and not going back to the 3d program?
to be clear, if i have in the project a few walls with the same texture as they were originally importer, can i define one of them to be with a different texture?
at the jpg i put here you can see a simple wall.
1. can i apply a different texture/material on the top of the wall other then the face of the wall?
2. can i apply a different texture /material on each face of the wall?

[peterm]

Hi joza

You can change Lumion materials (textures, reflectivity settings etc) for any individual surface in Lumion.

Each individual surface is defined by the material name or ID that you apply in the modelling application.

On import, Lumion then combines all faces that have the same material name in to a single combined surface.  This makes it easy and rapid to update across faces by just selecting the surface anywhere in the model.

You will see that in Lumion, if you move the mouse over one of the faces that it will have a name - the material name applied in the modelling application.  If the wall was applied with one material only to all faces, then all faces in Lumion have the same surface and material name.

So, if you have two walls, then you will need to go back to the modelling application and apply a different material to one of the walls, and then export/import using Reload (see your other topic) to update the Lumion Imported Model.

The same for a single wall, or for any faces of the wall, but where you want to have faces that have different materials.

Does that answer your questions fully?

[joza]

thank you for the quick reply.
if i do understand its quite difficult, unfortunately to reapply materials as i use to do in other programs that i use to work with, i hope that in the next version you will solve this .

[peterm]

What is difficult in applying or re-applying materials?  Are you referring to wanting to select separate faces for parts of a model to apply materials?  Can you explain in some more detail, thanks, and I'll try and show you how easy it is  .

[joza]

ok realy thank you.
1. in the pict you can see some problems in the walls. in the upper floor you can see that some walls are getting to the top like a coloms which they are not, in order to change this and go back to the 3d moddeling vector works it will take a lot of time and a very hard work.
2. if i want to make the design in lumion i will have to calculate each step in the modelling app which is very hard to prevent like here where i do wish to apply a different textures into the buildings walls.
3. i am sure you know that in the modelling app we use a definite characters wall and use them all over the plane other wise it will slaw the modeling process very much.
you can see that the inside walls of the compartments are the same of the out side with bricks i would prefer to be able to apply different texture in the inside faces while keeping the out side with the bricks.
4. the top of the walls . i mean the edge, the thickness of the wall is again with the same texture, think that if i want to Chang ir in the 3d app it needs to make some kind of copping on top of them, a lot of work!
i use to work with artlantis app and there it is very easy to make this kind of changes without exiting the program.

[peterm]

Hi again

Many thanks for your detailed explanations.

I understand what you are saying, and can see how being able to directly set materials to any face can be a time saver within Lumion.  Some of our users have also made similar suggestions.

It's related to the workflow.  Currently Lumion, in order to give you benefits from optimized realtime models and single material based surfaces, does require that the faces you want to be different, are defined as different in the 3D modelling application. 

One other workflow reason is that the definitions of the design are set and retained at the model source (eg in the Vectorworks model), so things do not get out of sync between design/model and visualization.

That said, the developers are always looking for ways to improve Lumion.

Let us know if there's anything else we can help with.