Topic: [Answered] Can you set up schemes for different material looks?

[John_Waggs]

I am trying to create a movie that shows a house with different color brick. the first part of the movie would show one color and the second half would show another. What is the best way to accomplish this?

[Morten]

From a maintenance point of view, the easiest way to create variations is to work on them in a single scene, so that you don't need to add changes to 2 different scenes.

All you need to do is to load the scene with ModelA, then place ModelB on a separate Layer, so that you can show/hide it when needed in your video via the Show/Hide Layer effects.

If ModelB needs to share some of the materials ModelA is using, you can save the Material Set via the Context Menu (the wrench/spanner button) in the top right corner of the material panel of one of ModelA's materials.

I've pasted the full step-by-step procedure below for your perusal:

HOW DO YOU CREATE MODEL VARIATIONS?
For simplicity's sake I'll show you how to do this for 2 variations, i.e. VariationA (the original) and VariationB.

1. In Material Editor mode, please save the Material Set of the VariationA model (VariationA.MTT) (Click here to see how).

2. Then edit the materials of the building to match the new material variation you want and save the materials as a new Material Set (VariationB.MTT).

3. Load the original Material Set again (VariationA.MTT).

4. Save your scene, close Lumion, go to Documents/Lumion 7.0/Library and locate the 4 model files for the VariationA model.

5. Duplicate the 4 files and rename them to VariationB. Do not change the file extensions: they should still have these suffixes: .LIB, TXX.INN, MTT.INN, LIB.INN).

6. Start Lumion again and load your scene.

7. In the Imported Model library you should now see the duplicate building (VariationB). Go ahead and place it in the scene. It doesn't matter where.

8. Assign the new Material Set (VariationB.MTT) that you created earlier to the VariationB model.

9. Move the VariationB model to an empty Layer (click here to see how).

10. Move the existing VariationA model to an empty Layer.

11. Place the VariationB model at the same position as the VariationA model (click here to see how).

12. You should now have 2 different Layers, one with the VariationA model and one with the VariationB model. Use the Hide/Show Layer effects in Photo/Movie mode as desired.

13. Rinse and repeat if you need more variations.

Hope this helps!