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Nichole Samuel

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Owner of Goddess Interiors based in the NYC, CT Tristate area. She has over 12 years in the home and design industry and specialize in new construction and virtual services.

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Home » Architecture Concepts » 3D Design, Modeling & Rendering » What are 3D Walkthroughs? and How to Create a 3D Virtual Tour?

Introducing 3D Walkthroughs

The times have changed, and largely in favour of all things technology. So just telling stories with words and long-winded verbal pitches no longer quite cut it. This is a visual generation on a diet of HGTV shows. So it needs you to ‘show’ rather than ‘tell’ your vision for space with an almost near-exact representation of what it would look like eventually. So the importance of technology and visual references cannot be stressed enough while making a presentation to your client. So that’s where 3D walkthroughs come in.

Luckily we’re living in an era of unbelievable technological advancement, which has something to offer to literally every profession. Information technology has created a plethora of handy tools, especially for real estate, architecture, and interior design. That means now your client can sit in the comfort of their own homes, and purchase a property that is miles away. They don’t even have to visit the place, they can just take a 3D walkthrough of the land, house, what have you. And architects and interior designers can display their designs with a 3D walkthrough in all its glory.

If you have not yet experienced it first hand, let us introduce you to this beautiful, revolutionary tool in the field of high-quality architectural and interior visualization.

create 3d walkthroughs on foyr neo

What is a 3D Walkthrough?

A 3D walkthrough is a process of taking a virtual tour of any structure, through the medium of internet connectivity, from anywhere at any time. Basically, if you are considering a real estate purchase, or designing a house or office, or literally anything for a client, you can take a virtual tour of your design ideas before implementing them. Trust us when we say it saves a LOT of time and money.

For instance, if you wish to buy a house during the pandemic as the estate rates are considerably lower due to the looming depression; but don’t want to leave the safety and comfort of your home to venture into an open house with other people swarming around, what do you do?

You take a 3D walkthrough! The estate agents or developers simply upload a virtual tour of the house and you feel like you are walking around from one room to another, checking out the layout and the floor plans, and every detail that matters to you. You can also review it as many times as you want to before you have to decide on the purchase. And the best part is, you can do all of this while sitting comfortably on your couch while enjoying a nice glass of Sauvignon Blanc.

Now, let’s say you purchased a house, or you are thinking about redesigning the current one, or maybe you are an interior designer who is designing someone’s dream house. Wouldn’t it be much easier to have a high-resolution interior walkthrough before you implement the ideas?

You can also look at the floor plan and see if there is anything you don’t really like or would like to lose. You can walk around in the space, and so can your clients before you even pick up a paintbrush or buy any expensive carpets for the living room. All of this is a gift of the 3D walkthrough!

create 3d walkthroughs on foyr 1

Why are 3D walkthroughs so important for Interior Designers?

As discussed, a 3D walkthrough is nothing but a computer-based animation, like a movie, which is the almost exact representation of what your future interior project is going to look like when finished, in terms of design, depth, measurements, ambiance, environment, and a cohesive space as a whole. So for the interior design industry, 3D walkthroughs have been nothing short of a breakthrough as clients can now know and review exactly what they are investing in before the project has even begun, and before they’ve spent a single dollar purchasing articles or pieces of furniture for space.

Technically put, a walkthrough animation is a source of visual information, created, for the most part, to provide a closer description of any type of work or place that is physically not present yet in real-time. It is shown through soft media or some type of screening technique and offers an exciting high-resolution, interactive view from every angle inside the home or space. With 3D walkthroughs, clients can virtually glide from room to room, all on their own! They can see every nook and cranny, measure the height of their windows or any other dimensions within the home as if they were there in person!

One cannot stress upon how much time this saves interior designers and clients both since there’s no longer a laundry list of furniture and items to go around town looking at and approving since you’re seeing it in a walkthrough all work together as a cohesive unit. There are no hassles of misunderstanding or miscommunication, no rearranging project schedules, no going back and forth on things, no ambiguity on what the finished product is going to look like.

It is safe to say that 3D Walkthroughs are a complete weapon when it comes to presentations and pitches because nothing gets a client more excited than them actually seeing their future homes or offices come to life! It is exactly like modeling in interior designing because it is created by putting together a number of animated models and furniture step-by-step. And once completed, it is amazing to watch, because it singularly focuses on giving people what they want for their dream interiors!

create easy 3d walkthroughs

Benefits of a 3D Walkthrough Across Industries

As already discussed, there are a multitude of benefits of using a 3D walkthrough by several industries. However, today, let us focus on the real estate, architecture, and interior design aspects of using this beautiful tool.

1. Helps View Both Exteriors and Interiors

The 3D walkthrough bridges the much-needed gap between imagination and execution. With this incredible tool, especially the featured Foyr Neo 3D Walkthrough tool, you can create 3D renderings of your designs and portray them in a completely realistic fashion.

For example: When you are creating a beautiful home, you can create a 3D walkthrough animation so they can see what the outside or environment would also look like. They can view the landscape, lighting, and background in its entirety with the interiors as if they are really there.

2. Saves Time and Money

Creating architectural and interior designs are subjective to people’s penchants. But creating a 3D walkthrough saves time and money for both the interior designer as well as architects and clients alike. With this all-powerful tool, designers can create 3D architectural visualizations and interior walkthroughs for their clients, saving a ton of time to explain and zero down on a particular idea or design vision.

They can then choose any segments they would like to change, so there is minimum wastage of money and materials. The completion of the projects is also much faster as the plans are viewed and approved with 3D rendering, thus eliminating any confusion in understanding and cause for rework.

3. Provides Realistic Visualization

3D walkthroughs take out the guesswork. When an architect or designer tries to explain their ideas on a 2D platform, the client needs to visualize everything in their mind. However, a 3D walkthrough displays the design ideas with a 3D rendering so clients can see, rather than imagine, what the actual results would be like when the project is completely finished. It adds that sense of excitement and has a kind of futuristic element about it since you’re literally seeing what your home or space will look like after everything is complete.

4. Creates Transparency

The 3D walkthrough design tool is ideal for clients and designers to get on the same page. Each one can pitch their ideas and make appropriate changes before actually implementing anything. The 3D walkthrough provides functionalities to zoom and view every part of the floor plan so clients can pick specific pieces of the design that they want to change.

Difference between Walkthroughs/Virtual Tours/360 Degree Tours

In simple terms, anything that is online / on a computer screen that guides or shows you information is considered a virtual tour or walkthrough, or 360-degree tour. As a result, many companies have been swapping out the word virtual or walkthrough and coming up with phrases like virtual video, video walkthrough, video tour and so on. Many people are left confused with all the different rephrasings. But don’t worry, while there might be different nomenclatures, on principle they’re all much the same, with minor dissimilarities. Here’s looking at some of them:

In a Virtual Tour, just like a video, you can also add voice-overs, music, photos, text and more. The primary difference is that you can walk through space at your own pace while still getting a curated experience. It is a cutting-edge and engaging sales/marketing tool with high conversion rates and connectivity.

Today’s virtual tours show off some cool technology but can tend to feel clunky on some software whereby the viewer is forced to spin in a circle to view, what is essentially, just panoramic photos. Most consumers, if given the choice, would prefer to watch streaming videos than have to click through a 3D rendering. That is why it is key to choose the right software that’ll make the creation of a 3D walkthrough as simple for you as possible. This way, your clients can just sit back and not have to do anything.

In 360 Tours, you will not have gyroscope capabilities. What this means for the end-user is that if you are trying to view a 3D Tour on a mobile device or tablet, the 3D Tour itself will not move with you as you move your device from left to right, or up and down. If you are looking for high-quality 360 tours, it’s essential that your 360 virtual tour providers have great photographers/cameras. We highly suggest taking a glimpse at a virtual tour company’s sample work before moving forward with a decision.

Although 360 Virtual Tours do not have the ability to create schematic floor plans, they do give you the opportunity to embed a transparent floor plan, where you can guide yourself through the virtual tour from hotspot to hotspot.

Differentiating yourself is the key to success in any business. The innovative technology of Walkthroughs, Virtual Tours or 360 Degree Tours will simplify the process for any client or viewer to engage with your business. It will inevitably give them the full context of every view and a visually stunning presentation. So with one of these, now you can quickly and easily capture an entire property or design and create a completely immersive, interactive, photo-realistic experience.

Walkthrough Use Cases for Real Estate Agents and Architects

Estate Agents: 3D walkthrough technology has already made its mark in the construction and designing industries. Technological advancements have been shaping methodologies over the years. By integrating 3D walkthrough videos, real estate companies can enable potential customers to visualize proposed designs of buildings before developing them. This technology is also used to interpret the changes in architecture while remodeling homes. It enables customers to get a seamless understanding of the designs and architecture of their homes.

Today, most real estate firms are collaborating with reputed companies for computer-aided design services. These renderings have leveraged their marketing tactics to a new dimension. Traditional blueprints are now a thing of the past. Clear and appealing visual walkthrough designs carry the message more effectively to the clients.

So, 3D rendering walkthroughs can ensure that the real estate company finalizes the design after consulting the clients. Another key importance of house walkthrough is their ability to enable designers to incorporate changes as specified by the homeowners. At the same time, they can detect possible flaws in the construction plan and rectify the same.

Besides this, it is possible to cover all the minute details of the plan using this technology. It helps real estate firms to personalize the 3D home walkthroughs for the homeowners. The user can also visualize the entire plan before the design is finalized.

3D architectural visualization brings one of the most cost-effective solutions to real estate companies for their marketing strategies. Because a lot of the times during the stage of ideation or conceptualization, the project may seem all well and perfect, but it is during the 3D Architectural Visualization Walkthrough stage that developers realize the potential loopholes, imperfections or issues in the overall theme which is quickly resolved proactively during 3D rendering stage saving precious time, cost and most important project momentum.

Also typically, clients visit multiple properties before deciding on the one they want. This requires a lot of time and things get complicated if a property is far from where a client lives. In this case, visiting a property is not only time-consuming but can be expensive. VR technology helps solve these problems, allowing millions of people to virtually visit properties without leaving their homes. Simply put on a VR headset and you can experience immersive, three-dimensional walkthroughs of properties. In a matter of minutes, potential buyers or renters can virtually visit dozens of locations and decide which are worth visiting in person.

Architects: An architectural walkthrough is a tool superior to static 3D rendering when it comes to presenting projects in the best light. Animation in general opens a lot of possibilities for selling ideas, and the better toolset you have to work with to impress investors as an architect, the better.

But the most challenging task for all architects is not designing a building or an interior, but presenting it in a stunning way. Without help from an architectural visualization studio, the only things they could earlier rely on to convince investors were speech, hand-drawn sketches, and being well-connected. The introduction of CGI has made a huge difference since it allowed visualizing objects that didn’t exist yet photo-realistically.

Computer graphics nowadays expand the possibilities of what can be visualized. This is quite appropriate since the new generation is all about unique experiences, impactful memetic content and customization. This calls for a new, even more, exciting solution – an animated architectural walkthrough. Today you’ll find out how 3D animation can enhance any design presentation!

  • Immersing the viewers
  • Helping with place recognition
  • Providing an interactive experience
  • Using visual storytelling techniques

Architectural 3D walkthroughs are thus ideal as a pre-sale and marketing tool for architects to help clients inform their decision-making.

The Walkthrough Experience for Interior Designers on Other Legacy Software

By this point, you are surely wondering, what kind of software can you use as an interior designer to create a 3D walkthrough?

Well, there are a multitude of software packages that offer the benefits of introducing your interior designing genius with a 3D walkthrough. BIM software Revit and ArchiCAD are popular choices to create an architectural walkthrough animation. There are also the 3D interior rendering packages provided by Sketchup and 3Ds Max. One can use these software packages for the walkthrough animation services, and then complete the process with Lumion and Twinmotion. However, creating a walkthrough on most if not all of these legacy software is a daunting task. It is complicated to learn and hard to get one’s head around without spending a great deal of time on it. 

So we recommend Foyr Neo. It is a one-stop solution that provides a fabulous, high-quality 3D walkthrough animation for your interior design and architectural rendering. The high-quality virtual walkthrough provides the best 3D rendering services. Additionally, its cloud-based 3D rendering and architectural visualization marketing tools do not take up space on your system either.

Standard Steps to Create a 3D Walkthrough

Let us look at the standard set of steps you can take to create fabulous 3D walkthroughs to implement your design plans:

1. Outline The Route

The first and possibly the most important step to take in designing a 3D walkthrough is to define the waypoints. If you’re wondering what they are, waypoints are the specific points that you define in the walkthrough, that is clickable to proceed through the architectural and interior visualization. Starting with a 2D drawing, you must define the waypoints at appropriate intervals with possible horizontal and vertical movements. You can start at a given location and follow a well-defined route with waypoints for maximum convenience.

2. Define Camera Settings

This is another extremely important feature of the 3D walkthrough animation. The focal length and frame rate must be clearly defined in order to avoid any blurriness during the walkthrough. Additionally, the time parameter for each frame must also be closely configured. You see, the walkthrough must look smooth and realistic. If the camera configurations are not set correctly, the resulting architectural walkthrough animation will not be of the expected high quality. That is not the kind of walkthrough design you want to share with clients. Precision is key here.

3. Keep Provisions for Vertical Movements

Vertical movements in a 3D architectural walkthrough animation can be quite tricky. For one, it is a necessary implementation when there are higher floors to consider. You must define the height up to which the vertical movement function will be applicable. While designing stairs, you must pay special attention to these features for a high-quality architectural rendering.

4. Integrate and Share

This is a very important step for the real estate industry. If you are a developer working on real estate projects, then you should definitely consider integrating your 3D walkthrough animations with your website and uploading them. This is a helpful feature to attract clients who do not want to take the trip, at least till they are absolutely certain, especially during a pandemic. It helps generate genuine leads for your real estate projects.

Potential clients will check the walkthrough animation to determine their level of interest. Those who are looking to flip a property or investments can get a clear idea of the property with a high-resolution, interactive virtual tour. They engage with the realtors due to the transparency created by the 3D walkthrough.

Some Quick Simple Steps to Create a 3D Walkthrough on Foyr Neo

1. First you need to go to the ‘Walkthrough’ mode.
2. Click on the proceed option and Foyr Neo’s Walkthrough dashboard will open.

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3. In this section, you can change the density between high and low to maintain the quality as per need.

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4. Then you can add a camera and move it around the space as per your need.

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5. If you don’t want many cameras, you can delete them like this as well.
6. You can also switch to a 3D view, preview and rotate the camera and place the starting frame as per your wish.

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7. You can make any camera your starting point: On the left side, just click on ‘Camera’ and set the ‘Starting Point’ and click ‘Done’.

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8. Then click on the 3D view and check your camera position. Once satisfied, click on ‘Generate’ and then ‘Submit’.

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9. Once the rendering task is submitted successfully, it starts processing.
10. Processing will take less than a minute and now you can check in the gallery to review the final walkthrough.

Step 1 Adding Camera

Step 2 Changing starting Point

Step 3 Editing Camera

Step 4 Walkthrough Navigation

Conclusion

In conclusion, 3D walkthroughs are a helpful set of design services that can assist you in creating remarkable 3D animations of your ideas. Foyr Neo provides a particularly smooth experience for both the client as well as the designer. The clients can discuss and sort out any flaws or dislikes they may have with the designers at an early stage. This creates a hassle-free interior design project during the implementation. And everyone comes out happy with the whole plan.

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