Real-time viz software includes volumetric clouds, adds control over sky, sun and fog
Epic Games has unveiled Twinmotion 2025.1, the latest release of its easy-to-use visualisation software, widely used by AEC professionals.
New features include volumetric clouds; enhanced real-time rendering of orthographic views; and ‘configurations’ that enable users to build interactive 3D presentations that showcase different variations of a project.
To enhance the realism of exterior scenes, Twinmotion now has the option to use ‘true volumetric clouds’. Users can author the appearance of clouds by adjusting their altitude, coverage, and distribution, and by fine-tuning their density, colour, puffiness, and other settings.
Volumetric clouds can be affected by wind and will cast shadows. The software includes several presets so users can choose different cloud formations as starting points for their own creations.
Adding further control to exterior scenes, users can now adjust the clarity and colour of the dynamic sky via new settings for turbidity and atmosphere density. In addition, the colour or temperature of the sun (or the directional light in the case of HDRI skies) can also be set, as well as colour, height and density of fog.
Environment settings can be saved as presets, enabling users to apply all the settings in the environment panel in a single click. There are several defaults, including “Golden hour,” “Sunrise glow,” “Rainy day,” and “Mars horizon.”
To showcase different variations of a project to clients or stakeholders, Twinmotion now includes a new ‘Configurations’ feature. Users can instantly switch between the variations when using Twinmotion in Fullscreen mode or when viewing images, panoramas, videos, or sequences in local presentations.
For architects, real-time rendering of orthographic views in Standard and Lumen lighting modes has been ‘significantly enhanced’. There’s now support for shadows, and the black outline around objects has been removed. According to the developers, this enables users to quickly produce high-quality plan and elevation views without using the Path Tracer, as well as facilitating more precise interactive object placement.
Elsewhere, users now have more choice when rendering shadows in real-time rendering mode. New Virtual Shadow Map (VSM) technology is said to produce shadows that are more accurate than standard shadows and that are more consistent with path-traced shadows.
There are also several Camera animation enhancements, a measure tool that enables you to precisely measure the distance between two arbitrary points, and automatic level of detail (LOD) generation to help maintain real-time performance when working with complex imported meshes.
