1.1: A user wants to know why their LiveSync model always reverts to the original state (white, without materials), even after saving it.
1.2 User quote:
I am struggling with Revit and the lumion model staying linked. Is there a proper shutdown procedure? If I save the Lumion model after making changes in it like adding a tree, when I reopen it the changes are gone - no tree. Livelink works on the newly opening Lumion model but it is not the same model I saved from the prior session. In other words, once you make changes in Lumion and close the files, the changes are lost unless you open the old file from inside of Revit - but then there is no livelink.
[...]
Everything disappears, objects, material changes to model. It looks like a linked file that opens for the first time.
Thanks for getting in touch and sorry to hear about your issue.
That sounds a bit unusual since Lumion should not forget information unless the files are not saved properly. I presume you are saving the Lumion file before/after closing LiveSync and Revit.
Please answer some follow-up questions just to make sure we get everything right:
1. When you try to LiveSync after re-opening Lumion, does the .RVT file have the same name and location?
If you change the name or location of the Revit project, you need to use the 'Re-connect' button to relink the files and make Lumion compare the data:
2. What type of objects disappear after re-opening Lumion? Is it only Trees and assigned Materials? Can you confirm this happens with all included Lumion Library objects?
3. Can you confirm that your workflow is the following when LiveSync-ing?
You:
4. For most users, the syncing procedure seems to not cause any issues. As you have mentioned for your case:
The relinking procedure is cumbersome and the reimported model in Limion is all white so that doesn't work. Clearly, I am missing something as the LiveLink process so far is largely useless unless you don't make any additions to the Lumion Model until you are 100% done in the Revit model. That makes no sense.
That is correct, it does not make any sense and LiveSync does not behave that way. Normally all the changes you do in Revit are visible live in Lumion.
Did you try following the instructions from the article provided in the article below? 99.9% of the times, that is the issue the users are dealing with and the article explains the LiveSync relink procedure:
If you can confirm it's the case from question 3 (the exact same steps and still experience data loss), the most common culprit for this sort of problem is generally cloud-based software that prevents Lumion from properly saving or storing information.
You need to make sure that software such as OneDrive, Gdrive, Dropbox, etc is not backing up the Documents\Lumion folder (or it's simply turned off while Lumion is open), otherwise, you risk data losses. What normally happens to create this issue is that the cloud software locks up the file before Lumion writing all the data. Then, more often than not, you are left with a corrupted file that you can't recover anything from. For good practice with Lumion, we would appreciate if you work locally and then, for backup purposes only, upload your files to the cloud.
3.1: Reference:
3.2: User Quote on the solution:
The problem seems to have gone away by moving my model and Lumion model to my local drives and by starting Lumion with the correct model before I start LiveLink in Revit.
3.3: Editor's notes:
There is no reason for which a model should revert to its original state (if using LiveSync or otherwise) unless the model has not been written to the hard drive in the first place. The suspicion, in this case, was that the user was working on their model in Memory (RAM) and then, once Lumion was closed, the model disappeared. Therefore, the course of action that was chosen was to investigate if anything is preventing the user from saving properly.