Topic: Site orientation

[neo1]

Hi

 Im wondering how is site orientation handled in Lumion 3?

Can I set cardinal North?

many thanks

[peterm]

Use the Lumion Sun Direction compass.  This will be along the Z (Blue) Axis, so if you have a pointer to north in your model that is imported, you can rotate and point that to north.

[neo1]

Ah OK, I never noticed the E,W,S,N when rotating before! thank you

So, if I have a project already developed using many Lumion library objects, as well as imported 3D models, how would I rotate the entire project to orientate in the correct direction?
can i select everything and rotate around 1 axis point?
Or can I just change the blue, red and green x,y, andZ axis?

thanks

[peterm]

You will need to do a bit of work to re-align things.  Which version of 3 are you using?

[neo1]

Im using 3.2.1 free

So I will need to rebuild the scene from scratch?

How does the sun study in Lumion 4 work? can I rotate the scene or set North on existing Lumion 3 projects? Or would I need to rebuild the scene to use the sun study properly?

[peterm]

So I will need to rebuild the scene from scratch?

Probably and unfortunately.

However, sun direction is a relative position, so an option (correct me if wrong) could be to simply adjust the sun direction by the amount of rotation your current 'world' is out by - an offset.

How does the sun study in Lumion 4 work? can I rotate the scene or set North on existing Lumion 3 projects? Or would I need to rebuild the scene to use the sun study properly?

It allows you to pick a location, set time zone, date for real world sun and then automate the animation of the sun making it a lot easier than the manual positioning needed in prior versions.

There's a Lumion Tutorial Video that shows the basic usage.

As above possible, do a sun direction offset for your scene should work and only take a small amount of time to amend.  If you are looking towards later use of the scene for any accurate sun study positioning you would need to re-do the layout of the scene.

[neo1]

I don't think this is correct Peterm, if I want to rotate a project, it means rotating all the objects around 1 central point of axis, not just rotating each object around their own axis.

 I have a house with trees, cars, people etc etc around it. If I want to re-orientate the building to face true South, I need to rotate the building model and then "rotate" the surrounding objects around the central point of axis that I rotated the house. If I turn a paper building plan  so that the orientation is different everything changes its relative position, they don't just rotate around their own axis.

 this is why I say you might as well start from scratch because you need to rotate AND reposition all the objects.

 It would be much easier to be able to just change the N,S,W,E axis around the project. Either that or it needs to be made very clear from the beginning (including in the tutorial video) that your project is correctly orientated if the sun study tool is to be effective.   

[peterm]

Sorry, should have tested using object rotation, of course not going to work, as you correctly state it requires rotation of all around central point.  Have amended by earlier post.

Lumion does not have a group feature so that all objects within that group are rotated as a whole, rotation even when multi-select is used is around each objects axis.

I don't think you should start from scratch though, as it should surely be least a little quicker dealing with the current scene objects than having to ensure you replicated all objects needed in the scene.  It might require placing some items in layers to hide and show as you work through.

I still think though that to avoid that re-work simply offsetting the direction of the sun should work.  Perhaps I'm still missing something critical so please correct if wrong. 

For example, if the building was placed as facing north and it should be east, then for all sun directions, just add the difference to the direction.  This seems to work OK in a test with animating the sun using the Sun Effect by adding 0.25 to the morning, midday and evening keyframes.  The only thing this work-around doesn't account for is if the terrain had notable features from the first build of the scene, so the sun would be out of position.  However, if that's not a problem, then using an offset seems to work and give shadows for time of day correctly.

Your comment is noted for sun study issues.

[neo1]

Thanks replying and making that clear for me.

I think Lumion is a great program and hope that the next update will make it possible to easily reorientate the project compass direction ( red, green and blue axis)  independent of rotating the project objects themselves. I would go as far as to say that with the new sun study tool , this is an imperative.

[Morten]

I would go as far as to say that with the new sun study tool , this is an imperative.

I agree, and although I am not one of the developers, I can't imagine it would be difficult to offset the compass direction with a custom value.

[rufus]

Use the Lumion Sun Direction compass.  This will be along the Z (Blue) Axis, so if you have a pointer to north in your model that is imported, you can rotate and point that to north.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

1) If your model is already imported as pointing to NORTH (no need for rotating it), then you have to rotate sun direction compass to EAST (for morning shots) or WEST (for afternoon shots). And to SOUTH (for noon shots), or NORTH (for noon shots if your model is in SOUTH HEMISPHERE)

2) But if you imported your model with wrong orientation (and you cannot rotate it since is a bunch a models, etc) then you have to rotate sun direction a little... How much? The easiest way is to make a bird-eye shot from high, with a very low sun (dawn or sunset) >>> Rotate sun direction in order to align shadows with EAST or WEST facades.

Of course all that is just approximated.

[Morten]

True, you can fake it. However, the problem is that it isn't possible to get correct results when using the Sun Study effect - unless your model is pointing the right way when you export it.

[bottedepaille]

I think there needs to be a site orientation "object" in the same way there is a global reflection  object. This object would be placed anywhere in  the project and could be rotated to define cardinal North.

[Morten]

Thanks for your feedback, bottedepaille.

[bottedepaille]

LUMION 4.5 looks great. Did site orientation manage to get a look in??