The Lights in the Exterior Night Scene - Project Brazil - Lumion 2023
Lumion 2023
Lumion 2023 Night Lighting Tutorial: Mastering Scene Illumination for Night Scenes
This tutorial guide aims to be a practical and straightforward resource, providing insights into all the lights and their settings used to create the Exterior night scene in Project Brazil using Lumion 2023.
Our intention is to impart knowledge about Lumion 2023's lighting mechanics and to achieve this, the tutorial is divided into two parts. The first part covers theoretical aspects derived from Lumion's knowledge base, while the second part offers practical demonstrations, showcasing the lights and configurations employed in the Exterior Night Scene from Project Brazil.
Summary Guide
I. Understanding the Lights in Lumion 2023
II. Lighting used for each part of the project - legend for each environment
III. Pool Lights
IV. Interior Lights
V. Palm Tree Lights
VI. Jabuticaba Tree Lights
VII. Final Result and Considerations
I. Understanding the Lights in Lumion 2023
Unleashing the Power of Lumion 2023 Lights
Lumion 2023 updates its lighting technology, making it more realistic and user-friendly than ever before. Let's go right to the major points:
Spotlights and Omni Lights:
The Brightness value is now measured in Lumens, which corresponds to the actual units for illumination intensity.
Area lights and line lights:
The brightness value for Area Lights and Line Lights is now measured in Nits, making them more comparable to real-world luminance units.
Unified Lighting System:
Lumion has made a significant advancement in lighting by combining all light sources into a single system. Sunlight, Spotlights, Omni Lights, Area Lights, HDR skies, and Emissive Materials are now all part of the same unified system, which simplifies your creative process.
New Lighting Values:
Lumion 2023 provides a change in lighting values for different objects:
Spotlights and Omnilights: Lumen (from 1 to 100,000)
Area Lights and Emissive Materials: Nits (range: 1 to 100,000)
Matching Real-World Illumination:
In comparison to previous versions, artificial lights now behave more naturally during the day. However, they can't compete with the Sun's Brightness.
Embrace the Darker Side:
To make artificial lighting more visible during the day, lower the Sun/Sky/Real Sky Brightness setting. Remember, the darker the scene, the more your artificial lights will shine!
All the information here has been taken and summarized from the Lumion website. For more details about the functionality of lights in Lumion 2023, visit the following pages:
1.12: Lighting and exposure - Lumion 2023.0: Release Notes: https://support.lumion.com/hc/en-us/articles/7441741355804-Lumion-2023-0-Release-Notes
5. Unified lighting system - Transitions: From prior versions to working with the new Lumion 2023: https://support.lumion.com/hc/en-us/articles/7807462680732-Transitions-From-prior-versions-to-working-with-the-new-Lumion-2023
II. Lighting used for each part of the project - legend for each environment
IMAGE LEGEND:
INTERIOR LIGHTS
PALM TREE LIGHTS
JABUTICABA TREE LIGHTS
POOL LIGHTS
Before we move on to each environment and its configured lights in Lumion 2023, please note that the lights have been set up for the exterior night scene in Project Brazil. The final outcome may vary for each project, primarily depending on the effects used in your scene during rendering.
We offer the exterior night effect from Project Brazil, with the light configurations below, and using this effect should yield a result similar to the night exterior scene. You can purchase this effect, in the pack Effects from ml3d ScenesExterior and Interior - All Moods. Along with the other two effects from Project Brazil, and an additional 16 effects from previous projects through the button below:
III. Pool Lights
The pool lighting was executed following a reference from an illuminated pool of a project by the Brazilian architectural firm Studio mk27. It was a pool that already had green tones and green illumination. To achieve a similar outcome, we tested some settings and different types of lights and the best outcome was when we used 11 Spotlights (Lamp28) with the color set to #2FFF3F and the brightness set to 1,000 lum:
For us, the lighting of the pool was one of the most interesting parts of the scene, and we really liked the final result, another point that we liked was the reflection of the light source in the water, we managed to achieve this by turning on the Light Source in these spotlights settings.
IV. Interior Lights
For the object highlighting illumination, we employed linear lighting to accentuate the kitchen cabinet and sink, as well as the shelf and its decoration. For this purpose, we used Line Lights (14 in total), setting the color to #FF6D00 to provide a warmer tone to the highlighted objects and adjusting the brightness to 10,000 nits.
For the overall ambient lighting, we utilized spotlights, placing them into the ceiling spots. Subsequently, we duplicated these spotlights and brought them close to the floor, then rotated them to face the ceiling. This approach allowed us to achieve proper illumination for the environment while also emphasizing the ceiling.
For the illumination starting from the spots in the scene, we used 10 Spotlights (Lamp), with color #FFFAE6, and brightness set to 8,000 lum:
For the copied lighting, placed on the floor and facing the ceiling, we used 10 Spotlights (Lamp), with color #FF8900 and brightness set to 40,000 lum:
V. Palm Tree Lights
For the palm trees, the trick was to position spotlights close to the ground and near the trees to create an overblown brightness effect. The 4 Spotlights (Lamp) for the palm trees were set with color #FF8900 and brightness at 1,000 lum:
V. Jabuticaba Tree Lights
With the Jabuticabeira Tree, our goal was to draw attention to it in the scene, since it is the center of several interesting projects of great Brazilian offices, and we wanted it to function as a focal point in our exterior scene. So in the night scene, we put 3 Spotlights (Lamp) with maximum brightness to bring that focus to it. The spotlights were colored #FF8900 and with the maximum brightness at 100,000 lum:
VI. Final Result and Considerations
As we can observe from the above results for the exterior night scene lighting, the main concept behind the lighting settings was to determine what elements to highlight, what to illuminate for showcasing details, and what areas to keep unlit, all this helps us to create contrast in the scene. We also made efforts to enhance realism by following references from Brazilian projects.
Some considerations to note:
all spotlights are set to High for Shadows instead of Normal, which may increase render times but significantly improves the overall quality.
For other light parts of the scene, not commented on in the other sessions, we used only Spotlights (Lamp) with moderate brightness, we used with color #FF8900 and brightness set to 3,000 lum for elements where we wanted to retain details without drawing too much attention.
Having said that, the light scene configurations will vary depending on the materials used and their settings, such as reflectivity and roughness.
As mentioned in section II, the final results for the light settings will vary mainly for the effects used in the scene. The effect used in this scene, along with others used in different projects, is available in a pack. Clients who have previously purchased the pack will receive the three new effects from Project Brazil.
Additionally, those who buy the pack now will receive effects from future projects as well. If you are interested, we have an article explaining all the effects and how to use them. Click the button below to access it:
Lastly, the pool lighting will also depend on the type of water material used. In Project Brazil, we utilized three different water materials, specifically tailored for each of the three exterior scenes. If you believe that a tutorial explaining these water materials used in Project Brazil could be helpful or interesting, please feel free to contact us via email or WhatsApp to tell us about it.