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How do you work with terrains in Lumion 9.5 and older versions?

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Arthur Roodenburg
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1. Here's how

There are two ways to work with terrains in Lumion 9.5 and older versions:

  • Use the built-in Lumion Landscape.

         or...

  • Import your own model.

 

2. Using the built-in Lumion Terrain

  • The editable part of the Lumion Landscape is a 2040x2040 meter square centered at 0,0,0 (the red, green and blue axes mark the center of this square).
  • It is not possible to change the shape/height or paint the Lumion Landscape outside this area.
  • The height of the Lumion Landscape fades to 0 meters across the last 50 meters of the edges of the 2000x2000 meter square in order to blend in with the flat terrain outside the editable area.

mceclip0.png

2.1: You can import and export terrains as a grayscale Landscape Map (also known as a Heightmap) via the Load Landscape Map function:

mceclip1.png

2.2: If you want to import a Landscape Map (also known as a Heightmap) from a 3rd party application, please use these guidelines to prepare the texture:

  • The resolution of the Landscape Map texture should be 1024x1024 pixels. The innermost 1000x1000 pixels are used for the 2000x2000m editable part of the terrain. The outermost 12 pixels along the edges are not used. Each pixel of the Landscape Map texture corresponds to 2x2m on the editable part of the Lumion Landscape.
  • The color black is equal to a terrain height of 0m and the color white is equal to a terrain height of 200m. Each grayscale step (from RGB = 0 to RGB = 255) is equal to a terrain height of 0.78125m.

2.3: Visit the following page to learn more about Heightmaps:

External link: Wikipedia: Heightmap

Example of a scaled-down Landscape Map texture:

 

3. Importing your own model

3.1: Alternatively, import your model in Lumion and use it as a terrain. Please note the following:

  • It is not possible to adjust the shape of an Imported Model.
  • Imported Models and other models are only displayed within a 35 km circle as measured from the current camera position.

3.2: You can assign a Landscape Material to the Imported Model, so that the model uses the same Landscape Textures as the Lumion Landscape:

mceclip2.png

3.3: When you paint your Imported Model with the 4 Landscape Textures, the Lumion Landscape below your model will also be painted - and vice versa. Please note that you can only paint your Imported Model as long as it is inside the editable part of the Lumion Landscape, i.e. a 2000x2000 meter square centered at 0,0,0 (the red, green and blue axes mark the center of this square):

3.4: After assigning a Landscape Material to the Imported Model, it is possible to make Landscape Grass appear on the Landscape Material of the Imported Model:

mceclip3.png

mceclip4.png

3.5: Lumion 8.5 and older versions

Lumion 8.5 and older versions require an additional step to mark the Imported Model as a terrain:

Select the model and click on the Context Menu button followed by Extra. Then set Mark as terrain to On:

Advantages:

  • When you click on the Set eye level button while editing a Clip or a Panorama location, the camera will measure the distance from the Imported Model that you have 'marked' as a terrain (instead of only measuring the distance from the Lumion Landscape).

         

  • When you hold down CTRL to place 10 objects at a time in Build Mode or when you hold down the ALT key to copy selected models, all of the models will be placed on the Imported Model that you have 'marked' as a terrain (instead of on the Lumion Landscape below it).
  • Please note that 'marking' an Imported Model as a terrain will require more system memory for storing additional collision data, so use this function sparingly if your Imported Models are very complex. When you move a lot of objects, performance may also deteriorate if you have marked a lot of complex Imported Models as terrains.