How do you work with terrains?

1. Here's how

There are two ways to work with terrains in Lumion:

Use the built-in Lumion Terrain.

or...

Import your own model.

2. Using the built-in Lumion Terrain

The editable part of the Lumion Terrain is a 2000x2000 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 Terrain outside this area.
The height of the Lumion Terrain 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.

2.1: You can import and export terrains as a greyscale Heightmap texture via the Load Terrain Map function:

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

The resolution of the Heightmap 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 Heightmap texture corresponds to 2x2m on the editable part of the Lumion Terrain.
The color black is equal to a terrain height of 0m and the color white is equal to a terrain height of 200m. Each greyscale 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 Heightmap texture:

3. Importing your own model

3.1: Alternatively, import your model in Lumion and use it as a terrain. Please note that it is not possible to adjust the shape of an Imported Model. However, read on to see how to use some of the other Landscape functionality for Imported Models.

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

3.3: When you paint your Imported Model with the 4 Landscape Textures, the Lumion Terrain 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 Terrain, 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:

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 Terrain).

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 Terrain 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.

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How do you work with terrains?

1. Here's how

2. Using the built-in Lumion Terrain

3. Importing your own model

See also: