lumion Archives - Digital Urban

Particles – 3dsMax and Lumion/Unity

Andy — Mon, 01 Sep 2014 10:43:24 +0000

Particle Flow is a versatile, powerful particle system for Autodesk’s 3ds Max. It employs an event-driven model, using a special dialog called Particle View, allowing you to combine individual operators that describe particle properties such as shape, speed, direction, and rotation over a period of time into groups called events. Each operator provides a set of parameters, many of which you can animate to change particle behaviour during the event. As the event transpires, Particle Flow continually evaluates each operator in the list and updates the particle system accordingly.

pFlow 3ds Max

To achieve more substantial changes in particle properties and behaviour, you can create a flow. The flow sends particles from event to event using tests, which let you wire events together in series. A test can check, for example, whether a particle has passed a certain age, how fast it’s moving, or whether it has collided with a deflector. Particles that pass the test move on to the next event, while those that don’t meet the test criteria remain in the current event, possibly to undergo other tests. The simple example pictured above details a pFlow dialogue determining the birth of particles linked to a target geometry. The particles can subsequently be baked (using pFlow Baker) into an animation timeline for simple output via .fbx, allowing import into external systems such as Unity or Lumion.

The clip above illustrates the pFlow system imported into Lumion with the addition of a scene created in CityEngine.

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UCL Quad – Procedural City and Lumion

Andy — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 09:24:48 +0000

The Quadrangle at University College London was designed by William Wilkins and constructed between 1827 and 1828. It is a natural building of urban research as its surroundings provide a mix of architectural styles. The 3D model of the quad was built using SketchUp with photos grabbed via a mobile phone – quick and simple.

UCL Quad – Lumion

Regular readers will recognise the model from our previous Elder Scrolls IV Game Engine work. We found the model on an old hard drive for a group of students working on a new UCL project. As such we took the opportunity to load it into Lumion and add it into a future Bloomsbury created using CityEngine. Finally, the falling cubes (CASA branded, home of digital urban) are via 3D Max, linked in from a previous tutorial on Mass FX:

The building is centered on a Corinthian portico, after the completion of University College London Wilkins went to design the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square.

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Processing, Lumion, CityEngine, 3D Max and a touch of Jazz

Andy — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 15:06:14 +0000

One of the questions in modelling a ‘living city’ is how to combine aspects of agent based modelling for crowds, traffic simulation and 3D cities without a work flow that takes weeks and a high end graphics house.

Processing Output in Lumion

Using the intriguing P5 to Max script it is possible to control 3D Max via Processing and a local server connection, this opens up a raft of possibilities for visualisation and urban scenes based on real data.
As a quick example we used the default processing P5 scene and created the clip below, it also allowed us to test the various configurations for lighting and weather in Lumion:

We will be exploring the possibilities of Processing and 3D Max further over the coming weeks…

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Flying Cities

Andy — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 16:02:39 +0000

Flying Cities is a concept animation by Stefan Haberkorn – it is one of the best uses of Lumion we have seen so far. It goes beyond the normal architectural visualisation and makes good use of landscaping and volumetric clouds.

Flying Cities

The full movie below sets the standard:
Head over to http://www.vi-3d.de/ to see more examples of Stefans work.

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Lumion 3 – ESRI CityEngine and Autodesk 3D Max

Andy — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 09:35:39 +0000

Lumion is one of the best rapid visualisation systems out there for architectural style rendering. Its ease of use and ability to create scenes complete with advanced sky and lighting effects make it perfect for urban visualisation. With the release of version 3 we thought we would take the free version for a test run.

Lumion 3 fbx Import

The scene below was created using a mix of CityEngine by ESRI and Autodesk’s 3D Studio Max, exported via .fbx. The movie took 8hrs to render at 1080p, 30 frames per second and depth of focus / advanced sky effects:
Lumion 3.0 has notably changed its watermarking on any output – the Lumion Free Not for Commercial Use is not easy to mistake, this is a change to the previous version that had a small banner in the top left hand corner. We can see the reasons why – the previous version could simply be cropped to take out the water mark – but as its on screen the whole time, even in the editor, it does make the work flow painful on the eyes.
With the addition of new video textures, updated sky effects, global illumination and new models Lumion is well worth a look…

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Rapid Augmented Reality using CityEngine, 3D Max and Lumion

Andy — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 11:50:20 +0000

AR-Media is one of the quickest ways to get started in Augmented Reality. The system is free for non commercial use and offers plugins for 3D Max, SketchUp and others with players running on iOS/Android and desktop devices via a webcam. The plugin used to be £100 + but the move to enhanced functionality and free for non commercial use makes it the first place to explore AR.

AR Virtual Projector on iOS

The plugin not only allows us of 3D models and animations but also movies and audio – the clip below demonstrates two example models we have built using AR Media, visualised using the AR Media player on iOS with models uploaded via DropBox:
Mixing AR Tags with 3D Max, CityEngine and Lumion opens up a lot of possibilites for rapid visualisation – head over to AR Media to download the various plugins required.

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