How do you work with terrains in Lumion 12 and newer versions?

1. Here's how

There are two ways to work with terrains in Lumion 12 and newer:

• Use the built-in Lumion Landscape or OpenStreetMaps in Lumion.

         or...

• Import your own model.

 

2. Using the built-in Lumion Landscape

• The editable Lumion Landscape consists of a high-detail 2 x 2 km square (1000 meters from the world center, X or Z) surrounded by a low-detail 10 x 10 km (5000 meters from the world center, X or Z) square. The outlines of the squares are yellow and red respectively.
  
  
• You can paint the Lumion Landscape and change the shape/height of the yellow 2 x 2 km square at a higher level of detail than the surrounding 10 x 10 km square.
  
  
• Landscape Grass is only displayed inside the yellow 2 x 2 km square.  
• For those reasons, we recommend that you place your Imported Models inside the yellow high-detail 2 x 2 km square.
  
  
• The squares are centered at 0,0,0. The red, green, and blue axes mark 0,0,0. 
  
  
• It is not possible to change the shape/height or paint the Lumion Landscape outside the 10 x 10 km area.

• Hex-tiling:
  Starting with Lumion 2024.0 most textures available to paint the Lumion Landscape are now tiled by default using hexagonal mapping to reduce repetitiveness. Old square method on the left and the hex tiling on the right:

2.1: To download real-world Height Maps (elevation data) for the Lumion Landscape, we recommend using the OpenStreetMap function in Lumion 10 Pro or newer:

• Knowledge Base:  Guide: Working with OpenStreetMap in Lumion 2023 Pro

• Knowledge Base: Guide: Working with OpenStreetMap in Lumion 12 Pro

2.2: Alternatively, you can save and load the terrain elevation data from the 2 x 2 km square as a grayscale Landscape Map (also known as a Heightmap) via the Load Landscape Map function:

Lumion 2023.0 and newer:

Lumion 12.5 and older:

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

• The resolution of the Landscape Map texture should be 1024x1024 pixels. The innermost 1000x1000 pixels are only used for the 2 x 2 km high-detail square. The outermost 12 pixels along the edges are not used. Each pixel of the Landscape Map texture corresponds to 2x2m on the editable part of the Lumion Landscape.
• The color black is equal to a terrain height of 0m and the color white is equal to a terrain height of 200m. Each grayscale step (from RGB = 0 to RGB = 255) is equal to a terrain height of 0.78125m.

2.4: Visit the following page to learn more about Heightmaps:

• External link: Wikipedia: Heightmap

Example of a scaled-down Landscape Map texture:

 

3. Importing your own model

3.1: Alternatively, import your model in Lumion and use it as a terrain. Please note the following:

• It is not possible to adjust the shape of an Imported Model.
• Imported Models and other models are only displayed within a 35 km circle as measured from the current camera position.

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

Lumion 2023.3.0 and newer:

 

Lumion 23.2.2 and earlier:

3.3: When you paint your Imported Model with the 4 Landscape Textures, the Lumion Landscape 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 10 x 10 km square of the Lumion Landscape:

Hexagonal mapping also applies to the Landscape Material. See also Section 2: on Hex-tiling.

3.4: After assigning a Landscape Material to the Imported Model, it is possible to add Landscape Grass to the Landscape Material of the Imported Model.

Note that Landscape Grass only appears inside the 2 x2 km square (1000 meters from the world center, X or Z) of the Lumion Landscape:

Lumion 2023.0 and newer:

 

Lumion 12.5 and older:

 

4. Custom Landscape textures.

4.1: You can also add custom landscape textures by selecting a slot and then clicking the Custom button. You can add a custom Color Map and a Normal Map. 

Lumion 2023.3.0 and newer:

Contains 15 new landscape and 3 new side rock textures as high-resolution PBR texture maps.

Prior version maps in the Landscape Texture Library can be found in the Legacy folder.

 

Lumion 23.2.2 and older:

Note for NVIDIA graphics card users: The quality of landscape textures is decreased if the 'Anisotropic Filtering' setting in the NVIDIA Control Panel is set to Off, 2X, or 4X. It's best to leave this setting on 'Application Controlled'.