Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Lumion's animation effects - a quick overview
As mentioned in the beginning of this topic, we can truly import animations. These
are very limited because we can only import move, rotate, and scale animations
using the frame rate of 25 frames per second, and the file format needs to be FBX
or Collada. This is when some problems start to appear, because we cannot import
vertex, morph, or bone animations, which are needed to animate people.
However, Lumion provides a great solution with these animation effects, which,
in turn, can aid us with simple and basic animations or much more complex ones. A
word of caution: this is not a very easy topic, but hopefully, with the aid of this topic,
you will unlock and fully master the potential of Lumion's animation effects. Why
don't we start with the simplest animations and leave the hardest effect for later?
Animating layers with the Hide and Show
layer effects
Do you remember that time after time, the need for layers was mentioned? The
benefits of using layers are that they not only improve the viewport's speed and
the workflow by having an organized scene, but we can also use them to animate
objects. This is possible thanks to the two effects called
Hide layer
and
Show layer
found under the
Objects
tab.
The Hide layer, as the name suggests, hides 20 layers that can be created in Lumion.
This effect is different from all the other effects in Lumion because it is possible to
add more than one Hide layer effect to the scene. However, this effect is tricky to
work with, because once the effect is applied to the scene, everything in the first
layer is hidden, and this effect cannot be animated.
Then, the Show layer does precisely the inverse by showing the layer selected,
but in this instance, we can animate or keyframe the values of this effect. The Hide
layer hides the layer specified while everything else remains visible, and the reverse
happens with the Show layer effect. Keyframe is something we are going to cover
with the Near Clip Plane effect, but in simple terms, we can keyframe values during
the length of the clip or movie.
These two effects can be used in very specific situations. One possibility is to
combine these effects to hide and show sections of the project while doing the
render. Why? When working with massive areas, this is a good way to optimize
and decrease the render time. If this is not seen, it is not rendered, and it saves time.
The workflow for this is complex and requires loads of patience in order to divide
the project into different sections, but this is something that can be planned before
even starting the project in Lumion.
