Step 4: Add Reflections

When rendering in Lumion, one effect that can instantly

improve the realism of your scene is the Reflection  effect.
By applying reflection planes to windows and other
reflective surfaces, you can accurately convey a sense of
space and help audiences immerse themselves into the
scene you’ve created. Because when the reflections aren’t
accurate, our brains send little warning signals that
something is off, that something looks wrong.

Comparison of the interior with no reflections (left) and

reflections (right).
With the release of Lumion 10.3, you can now
automatically detect reflective surfaces and place
reflection planes.
In the video at the beginning of this blog, you may have
noticed that the automatic reflection feature placed a
reflection plane on the hardwood floor. While there may be
a case where you want to add reflections to your floor
materials, we figured it was best to remove the floor
reflection plane and then add two reflection planes to the
windows along the wall and the angled ceiling.
*Note — every additional reflection plane that you add in
Lumion may slow down the final render time.
Step 5: Turn up the Hyperlight

At this point in the process, the interior is still a little too

dark. Instead of turning up the brightness, however, we
thought the next step would be to turn up
the hyperlight effect, as this effect is essentially a power-
booster for improved lighting quality and accuracy.
In Lumion 10.3, you can also see how the hyperlight effect
impacts lighting in the high-quality preview. Simply turn on
the ‘enable in preview’ button while you’re in
the hyperlight effect and then click on the scene.
Step 6: Turn up the Sky Light
Comparison of the interior without Sky Light (left) and with
Sky Light (right).
In addition to turning up the hyperlight effect, we wanted to
do the same thing with the Sky Light effect in order to
enrich the accuracy and color of the scene’s
environmental lighting.
After turning up the brightness of the Sky Light (we
turned it up all the way to get as much of the
environmental lighting as we can in this scene), we also
made sure to turn on Sky Light in the scene’s planar
reflections and we switched the Sky Light render quality
from ‘High’ to ‘Ultra’. While this will slow down render time
even further, we wanted to make sure to get the highest
quality from the Sky Light effect as possible.
Step 7: One final enhancement
Looking to get just a little more quality, sharpness and
beauty from your final render? Fortunately, there’s one
effect that requires no customization and it will instantly
enhance your render (this is ideal if you need to do any
post-processing).
This effect is called the Print Poster Enhancer and it’s
located in the ‘Advanced’ tab of the Photo effects. Simply
add this effect and you’re ready to render, but keep in
mind that this effect will, also, slow down render times.
Step 8: Render
Once you’re satisfied with the look and feel, it’s time to
render. For a 3840 x 2160 image, we were able to render
in 2 minutes and 24 seconds with the following PC
specifications:
– CPU: i7-8750H CPU @ 2.20 GHz
– GPU: GeForce GTX 1080 with Max-Q Design
Show your designs in a style you’ll love.
Render faster than ever before.
Choosing and adjusting the right arrangement of effects
can mean the difference between an “okay” render and an
image that’ll blow your clients’ socks off.
Fortunately, you don’t have to add all of your effects from
scratch. By using one of the Styles, you can make a few
adjustments and quickly create a style that uniquely
communicates your architectural vision.