Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Lumion undoubtedly has a very wide ranging library, which covers almost
everything that one needs. But why are we reading the description of Lumion's
content here in this section?
At this stage, we should have a 3D model ready, but it is not unusual to realize that
we need extra content for the 3D model imported. Knowing what Lumion has will
help us avoid unnecessary modeling, and this will save our precious time that can be
spent in tweaking and adding effects to enhance the project.
However, we will not remember every object available in Lumion, so
one solution is to take screenshots of every single tab and save them as
a file that can be easily consulted when we prepare the project.
To open one of these libraries, we need to select one of the categories and click on the
Change object
button to open the library.
But enough talk now. Let's see how we can import an external 3D model and 3D
models from Lumion's library.
Importing 3D models
In most projects, we start by importing the 3D model that we have modeled using an
external application. By now, we should have the 3D model waiting to be imported,
and if you need help with this topic, take a look at the
Exporting the 3D model
section
in
Chapter 1
,
Getting Ready for Lumion 3D
. Here, we can find what formats are
supported by Lumion and an explanation on why we should export the 3D model as
a COLLADA file. Let's start by importing our first 3D model in Lumion.
External 3D model
Let's assume that Lumion is running, and a scene was created to start working. With
Lumion, we have some modes that are used for specific tasks; in this case, to import
a 3D model, we need to be in the
Build
mode. On the right-hand side, there is a
column of buttons, and the second button is the one that should be activated.
Now, let's turn our attention to the left-hand side, and here, we can find some
buttons to open the four menus available. For now, only the third menu called
Import
is needed, as you can see in the following screenshot:
