Hello Lumioners
I am new to Lumion and animation in general.
After watching some high quality videos on vimeo of what others did with Lumion. I was sold. I knew I had to get Lumion.
But when I realized that Lumion could not import animated characters or export lumion scenes to other 3d applications like Maya or Max.... Well... Let's just say, I began to doubt if spending 4k on Lumion would be a wise investment.
So I did more research, went to architectural job boards and forums to ask people if they use Lumion at work or for professional jobs. I got some not so encouraging responses. Most of the architects agreed that Lumion is nice, looks OK, fast, but one of them said that when they tried to present a project to a client rendered in lumion, the client(who was used to the higher vray quality) was not impressed and demanded a "better" render.
So what's my point?
Well, as the title states.... What is the best use for lumion?

I am scared that I'm going to spend 4k on a software that won't make me any money.
Who out there is actually making money using Lumion? I am not trying to be rude... I'm just really confused at this point.
My goal is to start my own visualization business. As we speak I am ordering a custom build which I pretty much built just for lumion and Octane render. Right now im thinking I will ditch lumion and go with Octane since it seems to be what high profile clients want... Vray type renders... But I really like the easy user interface of lumion... I don't know.
I love lumion but architectural visualization does not seem like a profitable way to use lumion. Most people I have asked prefer vray because of its super realistic quality. I wanted to use lumion as a tool ton!ake backgrounds for 3d animated films, but lumion does not export to max or Maya noor can I import animated characters... So.... At this point, I'm not sure what lumion will actually do for me. Its too expensive to just buy it for the sake of "fooling around in lumion" this isn't a hobby.
So my hope when I first heard of lumion was that it was the real time version of a software called VUE by E-on Software. Vue is the software that was used to make the backgrounds(3d environments) for movies like Avatar, Superman, Indiana Jones, Xmen last stand and so on... And vue looks very real, gray quality and vue is much cheaper.
I keep hearing that Architecture is a dying field. So is buying lumion worth it?
Someone please help..
Of course lumion staff will say yes lol but I would like to know if I will make any real money if I use lumion for architectural visualization. Here in the USA, will lumion pay for itself? How can I market myself? Would people pay more for a faster render or do they prefer to wait for hours, days for a very render?
I spoke to some artists who get between $1000 - $4000 per still image by vray. I was impressed.... But everywhere I've checked... People using lumion are only making a couple of hundred here and there... That is scary... I plan to do this full time.. I got a pay bills. If I'm spending 4k on a software then that software should be making me 4k back and more.
Please share your thoughts guys.. I'm super confused right now... Trying to decide between octane render, vue or lumion. Which one will make me more money. I'm thinking vue to be honest since I'm more into film and since there doesn't seem to be a lot of jobs in architectural visualization.
Bellow is the custom build I just ordered.
Over clocked Intel i5-4670K(4.4GHz) quad core
16GB Memory 1600MHz DDR3
Nvidia Geforce GTX Titan Black 6GB DDR5 (over clocked)
256GB SSD
1TB HDD
Windows 7 pro 64bit