Topic: What would you say about Lumion if you were asked?

[Truls]

Hello forum!

My name is Truls Olufsen-Mehus. I am honored to start in Act 3D as PR and marketing executive with Lumion as my main responsibility.

I have studied Lumion and competitors for some weeks, looked up Google searches and Youtube videos of tutorials to compare products. The nice guys behind Lumion have been eager explaining what makes Lumion special, so it is hard to take it all in from the guys actually created the software.

That is why I thought I should ask the forum, hoping to get some answers to increase my understanding of what Lumion means to the actual users of the software. I wish those interested in sharing, please take a few minutes to think about and answer in any way you want. Thanks in advance for your valuable time, broadening my understanding of what Lumion can do for people:


5 Questions about Lumion and you:

1) How did you get to know about Lumion? (word of mouth, video, forums, other?)

2) Why did you eventually download and start to use Lumion? (what triggered you initially?)

3) Why do you still use Lumion, what makes it valuable to you? (specifics are interesting)

4) What would you say, if you had tried Lumion Free and your boss/board was reluctant to buy it, what would be your argument to convince them to buy?

5) Are you a free user, Basic or Ultimate user?


Please add any other comment or info and feel free to send me a personal message if you prefer that to forum post

Thanks a lot, looking forward to read your points of view on Lumion!

Regards

Truls

[cerise]

hi
1-i get to know lumion with a secondlife friend
2-i download lumion to make stuff for him
3-i made a big project with it during 4 months every evening
4-yes i try to buy it at office but it's not really my job and may be difficult
5-i m a free user

[byzantium1200]

Congratulations in your new job.

1) It was a CG forum if I remember it correctly
2) The wet rocks of the "Hotel Next to Ocean" animation in Youtube, however wet rocks is currently a bug in Lumion 2 and not available 
3) Render Speed, being able to navigate easily in the scene, very little time spent for vegetation, sea, clouds and lighting
4) The ratio of money spent and the amount produced. No possibility of bad surprises at the end of long renders as in other renderers and much better chance of meeting the dead-lines.
Having the extra time and speed to try other options.
5) Ultimate

[Titi95]

1) I discovered Lumion Forum (French) or a designer I am regularly www.cadxp.com, we opened a section Lumion.

2) Looking at the youtube video, I wanted to test it for photos and video reports

3) speed rendering which saves me time and object library environment

4) I would ask him to find me a better price / quality / speed of rendering.
The ease of use.
But I had to show him a project I did with the Free version to convince him.

5) User Lumion Ultimate

[dcrosssvpa]

1) I subscribe to a site called StumbleUpon...one day I got the Lumion site as a suggestion that I might want to check out
2) The gallery of images and videos that Lumion users had posted....simply amazing
3) Ease of use, super quick render times, the ability to do animations as well that are quick to export out and the stunning effects you can apply to stills and animations
4) All I had to do was spend a few hours on a Saturday to import some existing models into Lumion...render...export an animation and then on Monday show it to my bosses.  They agreed to purchase immediately.  The images and animations speak for themselves.
5) Ultimate user

The team developing this software is truly amazing and very talented.  The fact that they have developed such an easy to use product speaks volumes about their ability to relate to the end user...not just people who work in programming all day.  They are human!

[kais Jacob]

1- Video before more than one year
2- Complementary to SetchUp
3- The easiest & fastest program available NOW
4- Ask my employer to bring program faster than Lumion If he can --to accept the work
5- Ultimate

[stucki]

1 - i followed your developement blog for a long time
2 - your demo videos
3 - fantastic speed, unbelievable polycount that it handles without any problem
     absolut amazing fauna assets to make a whole environment in short time
4 - some of the videos that are done with lumion, and maybe a quick show of how fast you can achieve this quality by ourself.
5 Basic, 3 Plugins

[Nico RVArq.com]

First of all, Congratulations Truls for the new job!  
1. Before left for sale Lumion had campaigned in http://www.cgarchitect.com
2. There was a 30-minute video Lumion demonstration. Incredible. vimeo.com/16390347
3. Tired of render farms and waiting times for renders.
4. Realtime and GPU is the 3D revolution. Comparable perhaps to the change experienced and enjoyed by the architects from the drawing board to the computer CAD.
5. Ultimate

Difficult the task that left the CG designer not to lose his/my work, the facility of use that has this program, makes be in danger, and I believe that it does not remain any more than 1 year in order that it does not achieve that any study of architecture derives the representation 3d from his project. So clearly. I'll be a dinosaur.

[Ecuadorian]

1) SketchUcation forum.

2) The video ad promised "2 seconds per frame"

3) It's fast. Not as fast as advertised, but it is fast.

4) I wouldn't. I'd buy it myself and charge him for the work.

5) "Ultimate" 1.

[jlnsvfx]

I came across Lumion in the CG Architect reviews.  Prior to that I was trying to master Cryengine3 - did alot of searching for the best game engine and found cryengine to be the best.

When I came across Lumion I was suprised at the results I was getting.  The demos and tutorials looked pretty rough, but when I used my own custom materials and normal maps, I could get the same results as Cryengine3.  This because Lumion light system is accurate.  The navigation feature works really well. 

Running animation sequences is a breeze and flicker free!  Animations would take weeks using Max and Vray. I use the Pro version of Lumion on all my projects and find the quality of screenshots rivals Vray.  I love the collada model import for misc. models I add to scenes - so much easier than with the other game engines.

Being that Lumion has been on the market for little time - I suspect that future releases will rival the other engines.  I have seen some other programs that are under development for Revit models, but the quality of images does not compare to Lumion.

I have seen the Lumion wishlist in the Forum - if they manage to capture all these items Lumion will be a top contender.  If they make it accessible for mobile applications that would be awesome!!

[Jacobs Architekten]

Hi there... here my answers:

1) The CatchUp news letter.
2) Speed of getting good results. (Lumion demo movie).
3) Speed of getting good results and a good forum.
4) I've been there and after a couple of projects made with the FREE version my boss was pretty fast convinced of buying the Ultimate version. If not I evntually would buy it for my self.
5) Ultimate 2.2 user.

[BMcIsaac]

1. Solo (Pete)
2. I needed to solve a problem but it was a perpetual problem that others (product developers) had not been able to solve...there were solutions but too many hoops, too big an L-curve and too much time or 10-20K as an entry fee..then learning curve.
Whenever someone on the sketchucation forum mentioned solutions to vegetation drudgery I would have a look....part of the daily routine, looking at tools that might solve a small workflow issue. None of the offerings really ramped up my capability so quickly as lumion.
3. I use it still because I have retained all the initial customers and I am still finding ways to apply it so I still have new places to prospect with my skill. ....and people keep calling back and saying...."I have another drawing I want you to look at".....I am getting work like never before.
4. My bosses have always trusted me to make the right pick so they would not have debated..and the price for basic was under the radar in terms of cost.
If they had hypothetically asked...I would have said, "more convincing entourage and three times the drawing/video output"....Not to mention a very slick workflow that can accomodate endless changes and a repeatable output package.  (same story board, same cameras)
5. May seem strange but you see I dont show any badge for version. That's cause it shouldn't matter. I think any of your releases could have been used to make brilliant work...and it has been...I have seen it. I use Lumion...   ....by the way...you work for Lumion....so you don't need to ask....

[David William Edwards]

1) How did you get to know about Lumion? (word of mouth, video, forums, other?)
A Sketchup Forum

2) Why did you eventually download and start to use Lumion? (what triggered you initially?)
Having seen some of the incredible graphics from FPS, I knew that eventually that technology would and should be applied to architectural visualizations. I've been there from the earliest days of AutoCAD renderings (anyone remember RenderStar and BigD), but things seemed to get more and more complicated. I worked on the Atart ST Cyber Studio that eventually became 3ds Max. But the learning curve was just huge. When Sketchup came out, it was interesting to see a company essentially "clear the decks" and provide an elegant tool with a limited feature set that balked at the necessity to provide everyone's wishlist. Lumion provides a similar experience.

3) Why do you still use Lumion, what makes it valuable to you? (specifics are interesting)
It's simplicity and time savings. Sure you can create many effects such as trees that sway in the wind and people that walk in more advanced systems. But that time it takes to learn is prohibitive for most users. Having the ability to simply "drop in" what is considered an advanced feature is breath taking.

4) What would you say, if you had tried Lumion Free and your boss/board was reluctant to buy it, what would be your argument to convince them to buy?
Just compare the hours it takes to produce output with other systems that don't offer nearly the features. Sure the end product more be of marginally better quality (that most clients wouldn't notice) using the higher end systems, but cost savings in time and training costs is huge. Just through a few simple projects at time and in no time you'll find it was one of the best purchases they could ever make and think you're brilliant for discovering it.

5) Are you a free user, Basic or Ultimate user?
Ultimate

[vikimvr]

1)How did you get to know about Lumion? (word of mouth, video, forums, other?)
   First time I heard about Lumion was at therevitkid.blogspot.com

2) Why did you eventually download and start to use Lumion? (what triggered you initially?)
    The desire to start doing something like the video that Nicolasweh talked about. I just wanted to check if it was so easy to use it… and yes, it was!.
I want to say that from my first Lumion test I get completely hooked on. Work with Lumion is just fun!

3) Why do you still use Lumion, what makes it valuable to you? (specifics are interesting)
Because I get an architectural visualization of great quality in few time. It’s so easy, anyone can use it. You have fast renderings and no complicated settings. And … just seeing the expression on the client’s face when they watch a video and say: “Wow! It looks just like real life.” It’s very satisfying!

4) What would you say, if you had tried Lumion Free and your boss/board was reluctant to buy it, what would be your argument to convince them to buy?
Open your eyes!…just see what we can do with the demo, imagine what we’ll do with the full software!!!
5) Are you a free user, Basic or Ultimate user? Free user

This is one of the best render software I've tried. The forum is Excellent! It has been of great help. Thanks very much to all Lumion staff!

[Simoni]

1) How did you get to know about Lumion? (word of mouth, video, forums, other?)
Promotional email from Quest 3D, Quest for me had amazing renderings, but interface was way beyond me.

2) Why did you eventually download and start to use Lumion? (what triggered you initially?)
The demo reel was amazing, I emailed link to a few people, they too were amazed.

3) Why do you still use Lumion, what makes it valuable to you? (specifics are interesting)
Simplicity, speed, amazing end results. It kind of makes me annoyed that all the time I wasted on geek generated software, that just took away years of time. Why has it taken so long to come up with this wonderfully simple elegant solution, ok technology is part of it, but games have had amazing GPU generated graphics for years.
Computer graphics has now come out of the geek cupboard, and is now available to artists.

4) What would you say, if you had tried Lumion Free and your boss/board was reluctant to buy it, what would be your argument to convince them to buy?
I would just quietly leave the firm and set up with Lumion on my own, actually I am reluctant for others to know how good this software is.

5) Are you a free user, Basic or Ultimate user?
Basic user, I buy plugins as required.