Topic: Layers management

[8rino]

Hello,
thank you for your answer, I hope this gets sorted soon.
I’m very interested in making a purchase but in all honesty, I’d like to make sure the software has what I need for my work. About this matter I have another question: layers management could use some upgrading. I’m going to explain this throughly:

I import a file from Archicad. In this file I have 2 buildings, external walls of the first building will be in one ArchiCad layer, external walls of the second building will be in another and so on, even if the walls are made of the same material.
Lumion doesn’t allow importation maintaining original layers names, which is very important, but “collapses” every object with the same material and selecting one you select every object with the same material.

Another example:
in case I need to insert trees from a real place so they show the exact landscape I’m going to need to import ArchiCad file WITH trees, position trees in Lumion then remove Archicad imported file and import another one from Archicad WITHOUT original trees.

Since architectonical projects are very complex and many object/structures/elements are made of the same material, even if not from the same architectural object, Archicad allows to manage hundreds of layers, and working with only a few of them in Lumion is very limiting.
I’m also testing TwinMotion which has an interesting layer management system, near to what is needed for this kind of work.
I think that implementing layers management to make more performing would take it to an even higher level than it already is on other aspects.

I hope that what I’m pointing out is useful for an implementation of the software, and that other users of the forum as well as Lumion staff, which seems to me very quick on answering customers’ -and future customers’- doubts and questions, will share my mind on this matters.
I attach an example of Archicad layers of a small project and a link to a video (youtube) of a project made with Archicad that contains more of 300 layers. (link:   )
Thank you for your attention
Best regards

[peterm]

Hi 8rino

Thank you for your interest in Lumion, and the time taken to post a detailed explanation on your wish for more layers.  A range of suggestions about layers have also been made by other members in our Wishlist Boards.

Lumion combines materials in order to provide two key things:
1. Easy updating of materials.
2. Real Time performance, both in Build Mode for potentially complex, large and extensive environments, as well as for rendering and realtime playback.

We find that once the design is imported (irrespective of what stage the design is in), that users are more interested in finalising the look and feel towards the final output of the visualization for clients.  This means that Lumion leaves the complex task associated with architectural modelling of structures to the architectural software tools like ArchiCAD and Revit etc.

We certainly have had feedback from members and users on the current 20 layers, and suggesting improvements and better layer management.

As Lumion is focused on the visualization part of the process, so it needs layers to handle not only models, but also the other content/entourage added to a scene to make that final photo or animation.

Note in regard your example with model and real tree positioning; we have a simple method called Nodes (sort of like proxies or dummy objects) that makes the process quite easy.  You can read more about it here: How do you replace imported "proxy" objects with trees or lights?