Topic: Student Licensing or software donation

[jp0212]

Hey everyone,

First, I apologize if I am overstepping any boundaries by posting this here, but I couldn't think of a better place to reach out to numerous staff members and users of Lumion. I am a Construction Management student at Arizona State University who is participating in a national competition that takes place every year in Reno, NV. Multiple problem statements exist, but I am the Captain of the Design-Build team. For the competition, we are given an actual Request for Proposal, and we are then given 15 hours to develop a full proposal (design, estimate, risk analysis, etc.), have the night to prepare our presentation and then are required to present on our proposal the next day. Last year I was a member of the team as well and we were able to capture third place. I acknowledge that our design, and more than anything our design presentation were our weakest part. Knowing I would captain the team for the next competition I immediately started looking for ways to improve that shortcoming. I found Lumion 3d and have been obsessing ever since. I would love nothing more than to have this software so that our Architecture student on the team can properly prepare his for presentation and blow the judges and 100+ people in the audience away. I should point out, that every person present in the industry is currently working in the industry, many of which work for Design-Build firms or contractors whose predominant delivery method is Design-Build. I was curious if there was anyway someone on the board could direct me to someone who may be willing to allow us access to two licenses, or if some staff members could tell me who to go about contacting about licensing donations. I know education licenses are available, but I'm not sure how we would be able to use those given that we must travel for the competition. Any help you guys can offer would be incredibly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Jesse

[peterm]

Hi Jesse

Great to hear of your interest in Lumion, it is cool and also can rapidly produce visualization content.

Given your timeframes, I would say the Educational license options will not work as Act-3d need to receive details, an order etc from the organisation and assess things, and it is then received and administered by the educational organisation.

You could:
Use the Free version.  If not already, see menu top of forum.  This has nearly all features, you can save your work, it renders out the same to Photo and Video.  Key differences are it only includes a small selection of 3D content for the Libraries, and it has a watermark whilst using and on all output.


Your best option (as I see), use the Free version.  If you don't mind the watermark (its not too strong), and given your focus needs to be on the design and 3d model of the building first, then having nominal content should not be an issue.  Lumion will help you communicate your ideas.

Please make sure you have PC's that meet or are above the specs to run Lumion:
1.  LUMION 3: Minimum hardware requirements

2.  Lumion Web Site: Specifications

3.  Passmark: Videocard Benchmarks


By the way, after the competition, don't forget to approach the university to ask about them obtaining Lumion.  

[jp0212]

Thank you very much for responding. Unfortunately the free version would not be very helpful. I did download it and try it, but in the version I had downloaded the watermark was too much as it was across the screen rather than just in a corner. Is there any possibility, given that we are students and this would be used for a student competition, that Lumion would allow us to have a trial version which is time limited? I would love to use this software as we are currently only going to be using AutoCad products, and although they are great, they take a significant amount of time to render and edit. We do have a tax ID which makes all donations deductible (if applicable to Lumion being located in the Netherlands). Thanks again.

Jesse

[peterm]

Hi

The Free version is provided with features close to the licensed version so the watermark is essential.  In previous versions the watermark got abused so that's why it now is across the complete screen.  The strength is less than what it initially was for v3, so it has less impact on the visuals.

It was my impression you were already under a 15 hour timeframe from time of first post  , so if that is not the case and that's just the project time, then what about approaching the University to see if Educational Licenses can be arranged before the competition commences?

Details on the Educational versions can be found here, including the watermark, content etc.  The university can get versions of just the Educational Lumion or include the Educational Pro if desired.  Lumion only requires an internet connection for the start-up of each session, not for the duration.  

Laptops (except for the high end ones) tend to be under-powered due to the GPU's being focused on power consumption, but we do have users who build projects and render, so if can travel with desktop or access to desktop then all the better, or render only in 1 or 2  Star.

Please contact the office ( info [at] act-3d.com ) with your details as per your first post.