Twinmotion 2024.1 has been released
Twinmotion, software initially developed by the visualization studio KA-RA and acquired by Epic Games in 2019, simplifies the creation of static or animated building visualizations. It imports hero models in various 3D file formats or through direct links to CAD programs, allowing users to create scenes using a library of stock assets. Atmospheric properties, including clouds, rain, and snow, as well as ambient lighting based on geographical location and time of day, are adjusted using slider controls. The software is now free for indie artists and studios with an annual revenue of less than one million dollars, following recent pricing changes by Epic Games.
Among the hidden changes, Twinmotion 2024.1 has been updated to Unreal Engine 5.4, the latest version of the game engine, and leverages some of its new features. Like in Unreal Engine itself, Twinmotion now includes a Render Layers system, which facilitates the program’s integration with layer-based compositing workflows in VFX and visualization. Users can select objects in the scene, assign them an ID number, and render them as separate render passes or as ID masks, providing greater flexibility in creating the final composite. Currently, the feature is available only for photos and image sequences and has several known issues, particularly with fog and weather effects.
To fill scenes, there are two new scattering tools: Spacing and Area. Both tools disperse objects along user-defined paths and within user-defined areas, respectively. However, they currently work only with horizontal surfaces and do not support rigged characters. The update also streamlines the workflow with materials, reducing the number of clicks needed to add a new material to the scene. Additionally, it introduces a new Foliage material type and updates the Fabric material. The Foliage material makes plants respond to seasonal settings in Twinmotion, automatically changing the color of leaves on deciduous species.
The existing Fabric material has received new Standard and Thin modes for opaque and translucent fabrics, as well as a wider selection of preset material types. There is now the ability to assign ambient occlusion textures to materials to compensate for the lack of accurate shading when rendering in real-time modes like Standard and Lumen.
Twinmotion 2024.1 also introduces new Filmback settings for cameras, which match the properties of real cameras, including focal length, depth of field, and aspect ratio. Settings for Bloom, lens flare, and lens dirt are now grouped under the Camera tab in the Ambience panel. Animators now have a new media type, Sequence, which allows combining camera movements or animations from imported files into animation sequences and exporting them as video. A new camera type, Action Cam, provides greater control over camera movements, including the ability to replay movements. Other changes include the ability to create parent Animators in the scene graph for more complex animations. Characters and vehicles from the asset library can now be animated deterministically, with Twinmotion generating identical animations when reusing parameters.
Twinmotion 2024.1 is compatible with Windows 10 and above and macOS 12.5 and above. Integration plugins are available for CAD and DCC applications, including 3ds Max 2017 and above, Modo 16.0 and above, and SketchUp Pro 2019 and above. The software is free for users with a gross annual revenue of less than one million dollars per year. The free version lacks access to Twinmotion Cloud, but is otherwise fully functional. For larger studios, the subscription costs $445 per seat per year.