Chapter 1. Getting Ready for Lumion 3D
Lumion 3D's main goal is to provide the best solution to produce believable 3D renders in the simplest way possible. Lumion had a modest start with the first version, but from the beginning, it was easy to see Lumion's potential. The final output is simply amazing when compared to the time it takes to create a movie and still image.
Lumion always aimed to bring the best real-time technology and at the same time provide intuitive and friendly software that empower anyone to transform a simple 3D model into a highly professional still image or beautiful architectural movie. The real-time technology used in Lumion 3D allows us to focus on the artistic side of the project instead of the technicalities and parameters.
Consequently, it doesn't matter what your professional background is; you can use Lumion 3D for your projects, and this book is aimed at helping both beginners and advanced users. However, you might wonder how a book can be useful and practical for two totally different types of users. For someone who is just starting out with Lumion, this book covers in depth the tools, techniques, workflow, and other elements that will enable you to become a Lumion master and produce an output similar to this:
On the other hand, if you are an advanced user, this book can help you explore in more depth how to use Lumion in ways you didn't think possible, helping you to see Lumion from a totally different perspective.
In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:
- Controlling the camera
- Lumion's hotkeys
- Using the Settings window
- Modeling for Lumion
- Additional models
- Importance of materials
- Solving common problems
- Exporting 3D models
- Using the COLLADA format
- Exporting animations
