The major update also includes new configurations and lighting and rendering enhancements.
(Image credit: Epic Games)
Twinmotion, Epic Games' real-time visualisation tool for 3D artists, creatives and architects, has received its latest update, and it's a big one with new features for creating realistic exterior environments, lighting and rendering enhancements and more.
Twinmotion's success comes from simplifying complex 3D processes with easy to use drag and drop features including lights, materials and models. It took off after Epic added new technology from Unreal Engine (see our last Twinmotion review and our guide to how to get started in Twinmotion. In the meantime, here's what's new in Twinmotion 2025.1.
Twinmotion 2025.1 is a big update, particularly for environments. New additions include true volumetric clouds with customisable altitude, coverage, colour and density. Clouds can react to wind and cast shadows, and several presets are included.
Meanwhile, other updates allow more control over ambience, including clarity and color of dynamic sky using turbidity and atmosphere density adjustments. Users can also customize the sun's color or temperature (or the directional light for HDRI skies).
You can set the color or temperature of the sun (or the directional light in the case of HDRI skies) and finally set both color and height of exponential height fog, as well as its density. Default presets include 'Golden hour,' 'Sunrise glow,' 'Rainy day,' and 'Mars horizon', and the Environment panel has been redesigned to provide clearer settings for the dynamic sky and HDRI and the ability to separately adjust season, precipitation, and leaf fall/colour.
A new Configurations feature allows the creation of interactive 3D presentations to showcase project variations for clients, which could be ideal for real estate sales teams, product designers, automotive manufacturers, and more. users can switch between variations with a single click in Fullscreen mode or when viewing images, panoramas, videos, or sequences in local presentations.
There are also several lighting and rendering improvements to enhance the quality of real-time renders. New Projector lights allow any image or video texture to be projected onto a surface, which looks good for the visualisation of live events and installations or for simulating effects like caustic reflections.
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Enhancements for architecture and visualisation
For architects, there are improvements to the real-time rendering of orthographic views in Standard and Lumen lighting modes. There's now support for shadows, and there's no more black outline around objects, making it easier to create high-quality plan and elevation views quickly without using the Path Tracer, and allowing more precise object placement. On Windows only, a new optional shadow rendering method based on Virtual Shadow Map technology has been added to provide more accurate and consistent shadows.
Camera animation enhancements include a new Orbit cam rig that revolves the camera around its specified central pivot in a scene, making it easy to present a 360-degree view. You can also intuitively ease controls for speed adjustment and spatial manipulation to achieve smooth and controlled camera motion by selecting points on a camera path and adjusting their tangents.
There are some new features designed for automotive and transportation designers too: new support for importing surfaces in the Alias Wire file format, with tessellation parameters for added precision, and a new Tire base material, which textures and automatically creates UVs for flat cylindrical objects. There are new controls for Car paint material, including imperfections like dust, fingerprints, and scratches, and coated carbon fiber materials have been introduced in the Metals category to enhance the realism of visualisations.
Joe is a regular freelance journalist and editor at Creative Bloq. He writes news, features and buying guides and keeps track of the best equipment and software for creatives, from video editing programs to monitors and accessories. A veteran news writer and photographer, he now works as a project manager at the London and Buenos Aires-based design, production and branding agency Hermana Creatives. There he manages a team of designers, photographers and video editors who specialise in producing visual content and design assets for the hospitality sector. He also dances Argentine tango.
