Materials in your scene can make or break your Renders
So in this video
I'll show you how to create realistic materials in Lumion
Let's get started
When you first import a model in Lumion
you can use the material library
to apply the materials to your objects
Lumion already has a good material library
but the cool thing is that you can also create your own PBR materials
so what are PBR materials
physically based rendering or PBR
is a method of shading and rendering
that provides a more accurate representation of how lights interacts with material properties
allowing you to create realistic materials in your rendering software
there are many websites that provide PBR materials
I cover them in these videos
for this video
I will download some materials from Poliigon
which is a good website for premium materials
but it also has free materials
I willl use this material here
after it is downloaded
just unpack the zip file to get these different maps
as you can see a set of PBR materials often consists of multiple images or maps
I will cover what each of these maps are and their functionality throughout the video
now let's go back into Lumion
and click on the surface that you want to import the map
in the settings tab
you will see many different parameters
first is the texture map
which is equivalent to a diffuse or a color map
this is a map that contains color information
you can click on this button to import your own texture map
to know which map to use
we can look at the name of each map to see what type of map they are
you can see that our material has been updated to show the texture map
when you import the material
you can change the size by adjusting the map scale here
if you go down here
then you can use the X Y and Z offset sliders to position the texture map
while the other three sliders
let you rotate and shield the map in different directions
I usually don't do this in Lumion
because I prefer doing it in my 3D application
for example I will reset this material to its original properties
now in my 3D application
I can import the diffuse map
and make the changes to the material scale and position
then I can reimport the model
but in this case I'm using the Live Sync plugin
to link my model directly to Lumion
so any changes I make will be updated in Lumion immediately
then again you can use this material scale to adjust the size of the texture map
if you drag it all the way to the left
this will revert it back to the original scale of the imported texture
next is the Relief Map also known as the Normal Map
which is a map that is used to create an illusion of depth on the surface of an object
in Lumion even if you do not have a normal map
you can click these three dots and click here
to automatically generate the no more information based on the texture map
after that you can control the intensity using the slider here
you can also invert your normal map using this button
it's quite hard to see the effects
so we can slide the texture slider all the way to the left
to override the texture map with our base color
which you can change to a different color if you like it
there we go now we can see the effects easier
however this method is only for when you don't have a normal map
but to achieve the most realistic result
it's best to import a normal map that comes with the PBR material
there we go that looks a lot better now
you can adjust the intensity of the normal map using this slider
whenever you use normal Maps
sometimes the direction of the shadows is not correct relative to the direction of the sunlight
this is because there are two types of normal maps
DirectX and OpenGL
lumion uses DirectX
while the normal map that we downloaded from Poliigon uses OpenGL
so to fix this you can click on these three dots
and click on this button to flip the green channel of the normal map
there we go that looks correct now
next is the roughness and reflectivity parameters
the reflectivity perimeter is where we can put a reflection map
this will control the intensity of the reflection of the material
the roughness parameter is where we can input a roughness map
which controls how smooth or rough your material will be
note that the normal map will also affect the look of that material
so for now I will set the relief values to zero
just so that we can see the full effects of this perameter
and again if you want to see the effects easier
you can set the texture map slider to zero percent
and override it with a dark color
you can see that at the value of 200 percent
the material would be very rough
and at zero percent the material will be very smooth
so what is a roughness map
a roughness map is a black and white map
that defines how rough or smooth your material will be
the darker area will make the material smoother and more glossy
while the lighter area will make the material rougher and less glossy
it's important to note that the roughness maps and glossiness maps are inverse of each other
and since this material doesn't have a roughness map
but it has a glossiness map
so we can import it in the reference slot
then click these three dots
and click on invert map
this process is similar to inverting the map in Photoshop
but having the inverse option in lumion just makes it a lot faster
then again we can use the slider to adjust the intensity
and so you can see with some quick work
we can have a much more realistic material than before
just repeat this workflow for any other material in the scene that you want to work on
there's also an option to copy and paste a material
for example I can copy this leather material
and then I can paste it over here
then I can make any changes like changing the color for example
and there we go that helps make my workflow a lot faster
the next slider is the metalness slider
which if it's set to maximum then it will make the material metallic
but if it's set to zero then material will be non-metallic
when working with metal materials
the color of reflection for the material is decided by the base color and the texture map
for custom materials which can be downloaded from websites like Poliigon
sometimes it will offer a metalness workflow
this workflow comes with a roughness map
so we don't have to invert it after importing
and more importantly it comes with a metalness map
which is a grayscale map where the white represents fully metallic
and the black represents non-metallic
here you can see the parts that are white are metallic
while the parts that are black are rusty non-metallic
Lumion also has a displacement parameter
where you can add a displacement map
which is a black and white image that tells the computer how and where to displace its surface
the difference between a normal and a displacement map
is a normal map only changes the way the light affects the surface
given it an illusion of depth
while a displacement map uses Parallax mapping
to create more realistic bump effects
next is the opacity slider
which controls how transparent a material will be
for custom materials
you can load in the opacity map
which is a black and white map
where the white color is opaque and the black color is transparent
alternatively if the material comes with a PNG texture map that's already masked out
then the alpha channel will be automatically assigned to the opacity map slot
Lumion also has a subsurface scattering slider
which will give an object a translucent effect
allowing light to penetrate and be scattered by the material
if you assign a color other than white
it will give the material a tint of that color
you can also explore the other options in this panel
such as this slider
which will soften the edges of an object
this is a great way to smooth edges without adding more polygons to the 3D scenes
next is the clearcoat slider
which will add a layer of colorless resin light finish to a surface
this is great for creating materials like varnished wood
in the new version of Lumion
the glass material has a special parameter called frostiness
which controls the translucency of the surface
you can also add a custom map to create a frosted pattern
combine this with the relief and texture maps
to create highly realistic patterned glass like this
and those are the tips for creating realistic materials in Lumion
check out this video for more material tips and tricks in Lumion
stay inspired guys and I'll see you
next time