Lumion releases Lumion 2024.0
Lumion has released Lumion 2024.0, the new version of its real-time visualisation software.
The update significantly improves the speed and quality of ray traced renders, introduces a new landscape tiling system, and adds support for glTF import.
An easy-to-use near-real-time tool for architectural visualisation work
First released in 2010, and now one of the most widely used renderers for arch viz work, Lumion creates renders of architectural scenes in near-real time.
The software is intended to provide architects with little background in visualization with a more straightforward way to create realistic stills and animations than standard DCC apps.
Users import building models from other software, either in standard 3D file formats like FBX, OBJ, SKP and MAX, or via built-in live links to major CAD applications.
They can then edit materials inside Lumion, set up lighting and weather effects, dress the scene from the accompanying asset library, and create simple camera animations.
Over 2,000 more assets from Lumion’s library can now be used in ray traced renders, including trees and plants, glass and translucent materials.
Lumion 2024.0: faster, higher-quality ray traced rendering
Lumion 2024.0 extends the capabilities of the hardware-accelerated hybrid ray tracing/rasterization render engine introduced in Lumion 2023.0.
Key changes include a new temporal denoiser in Preview and Movie mode, making previews much less grainy, and support for ray traced subsurface scattering.
Ray tracing can now be used with lot more assets from Lumion’s asset library, including glass, translucent materials, and over 2,200 ‘nature items’ like trees.
It’s also much faster, thanks to a new Multiple Importance Sampling (MIS) algorithm: according to Lumion, ray traced video rendering is now “5x faster”.
Other new features, workflow and pipeline improvements
Other new features in Lumion 2024.0 include a landscape tiling toggle in the material editor to hide visible repeats in environment textures.
Workflow improvements include a new vertical sidebar to free up screen space; grid overlays to help with scene composition; and eight new preset render styles.
Pipeline changes include support for importing assets in glTF format, and support for batch file importing.
There are also 300 new assets in the accompanying library, including 100 new plants and trees, 45 static characters, and 25 parallax interiors for buildings.
There are also a lot of smaller improvements: you can find a full list in the online changelog.
Price and system requirements
Lumion 2024.0 is available for Windows 10+. The software is rental-only.
One-year subscriptions cost $749/year for the standard edition; $1,499/year for the Pro edition. See a feature comparison for the two editions.
The software is free to students and teachers. Both are non-commercial licenses, and renders from the student edition are watermarked.
Read an overview of the new features in Lumion 2024.0 on Lumion’s blog
Read a full list of new features in Lumion 2024.0 in the online release notes
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