January 30, 2013, 05:16:24 pm
Hi RobinMarks, if you make the skydome single-sided, the sunlight will indeed pass through the skydome. And don't worry about textures, they are automatically imported if you apply them to a model in your 3D modelling application (see the link at the bottom of this post).
If you type in '
how to make a skydome in 3ds max' in Google, you'll find many good tutorials - here's an excerpt of one of them (modified slightly to make it Lumion friendly

):
1) New scene in 3DS Max (Units: Meters).
2) Create a large sphere with sufficient subdivisions to make it curve smoothly (pick 5000m radius or whatever you need), and center it at 0,0,0.
3) Convert it to an editable poly (right-click ->
Convert to Editable Poly).
4) Delete the bottom half of the sphere.
5) Select the sphere again, right-click ->
Object Properties -> Backface Cull = On (This means that single-sided polygons will no longer be displayed as double-sided: this is how Lumion will see the sphere after you have imported it).
6) Add a '
Normal' modifier to the sphere and flip the normals. They should now point inwards.
7) Add a '
UVW Map' modifier and set it to
Cylindrical – then click the
Fit button.
8 ) Add a
Standard material with your sky texture to the sphere. Make sure it looks right.
9) Export the skydome to Lumion by following the instructions here:
http://lumion3d.com/forum/importing/how-to-import-a-scene-from-3d-studio-max-tutorial/