September 07, 2011, 06:46:25 pm
knowing what scale your heightmap is (both width and elevation wise)
Some information about importing heightmaps in Lumion:1) The native terrain in Lumion occupies a 2048x2048m square, so when you load a heightmap it will "fill" the entire terrain.
2) If you load a standard JPG file, 100% black equates to a terrain height of 0m and 100% white is equal to a terrain height of 200m. In other words, each greyscale step (from 0 to 255) is equal to 0.78125m.
3) As for the imported height scale, the RGB values in Photoshop range from 0 to 1.0, but if you create a 32-bit image in Photoshop (Image -> Mode -> 32-bits per channel), you can boost the whiteness (and the terrain height range) by up to x20. In other words:
RGB 0 to 1.0 in Photoshop = 0m to 200m in Lumion
RGB 0 to 2.0 in Photoshop = 0m to 400m in Lumion
RGB 0 to 3.0 in Photoshop = 0m to 600m in Lumion
... You get the idea by now

Once you've created your heightmap, you'll need to save it as a 32-bit DDS heightmap in "32f" format using Nvidia's DDS plugin for Photoshop:
http://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-texture-tools-adobe-photoshopYou can also import your own terrain as a DAE/FBX object and apply a landscape material to it. This allows you paint it just like the native terrain in Lumion.
That being said, more flexible ways of dealing with user-imported terrains/heightmaps may be implemented in the future.