Act-3D has unveiled Lumion 4.0, the forthcoming update to the real-time architectural visualisation tool.

Plants, water and flares
New features this time round include support for animated grass and falling leaves; and improvements to the look of fountains and oceans.

The rendering engine gets support for motion blur and physical camera effects, including lens flares; along with Sun Study – a physical sun system.

There is also a new toolset for adding basic titles and transitions to presentations without the need for a separate editing package; and support for direct import of SketchUp SKP files.

System requirements and release dates
The software is going 64-bit only, so you’ll need a 64-bit version of Windows – although you’d probably have needed one anyway for all but the simplest of scenes.

Lumion 4.0 is out in November 2013. Act-3D’s site currently only lists the planned upgrade prices, but the standard version of the software currently costs €1,499 (around $2,030), and the Pro edition €2,999 ($4,060).

Read a full list of features in Lumion 4.0

Tags: 64-bit, Act-3D, architectural visualization, fountains, grass, lens flare, Lumion, Lumion 4.0, motion blur, new features, oceans, physical camera, real time, release date, rendering, trees, vegetation, water