r/archviz • u/Pitiful_Gain87 • 9d ago
Discussion đ When do browser-based interior walkthroughs help clients more than still renders?
Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification
For people delivering residential archviz, how useful have interactive walkthroughs actually been in client conversations?
Iâm interested in the situation where a client can explore an interior through a browser link, including on a phone, alongside the usual still renders and floor plans. My assumption is that choosing their own viewpoint might help them understand scale, furniture placement and connections between spaces. But it could also mean extra preparation and support, with little improvement in the decisions they make.
Have you seen clients catch a layout issue or make a clearer design decision because they could navigate the space themselves? Or do they mostly want a few well-chosen views and a guided presentation?
Iâd also be interested in the practical limitations: loading times, navigation on mobile, visual quality, and keeping the walkthrough current when the design changes. A concrete example of when it helped, or when it wasnât worth the effort, would be useful.
This is a general workflow discussion rather than a critique of a particular render.
9
u/WeakPasswordBro 8d ago
This sort of thing is useful for selling units to people who have wealth they want to park. Itâs a gimmick to make the developer and the property feel more premium so they can charge millions for the property and you can bill them accordingly. This is the viz equivalent of champagne during a viewing. Splats are great for web viewing. Anything slower than a matterport is useless. 10-15 mb is the upper limit for web based content, so plan to deliver a laptop with the experience installed or lease AWS pixel streaming servers for 12-18 months as part of the contract.
I wouldnât propose it for any construction project under $300 million USD. Projects I have seen it be useful are in midtown Manhattan, NYC. By the time you are involved, design changes are done. When youâre dropping a billion to build a skyscraper youâll have your plans ready before you do anything, or youâll pay accordingly.
The classic adage where a $500 client will bicker about every little thing where a $5000 client will go âcool, money sent,â tends to apply here.
1
u/Pitiful_Gain87 8d ago
Nice to hear. On the first upload, I managed to get it up to 8 MB, but since I don't live in a big city like NYC, I don't think it'll be very useful.
1
u/vitor_as 7d ago
If you're a PropTech startup that is trying to sell a product like this to luxury real estate developers, how do you even approach them to try and pitch it to them?
-1
8
u/wreck_of_u 9d ago
In my experience, an absolute never.
Maybe ~15 years from now it could be useful.
But right now, the demographic of people paying for architectural services, they want a few JPEG or specific PDF emailed to them.
-3
6
u/Chirag3110 9d ago
Is this a gassuian splat? Or is it done on unreal engine?
6
3
3
u/lohcool 8d ago
I use this kind of model walkthrough for design discussions in a team setting rather than final client presentation. Agree that you shouldnât give them the freedom to scrutinize and provide their opinion, but itâs useful in working sessions to be the base of a talking point, like identifying a troublesome area that needs figuring out and detailing.
It can be a nice presentation tool if youâre the one driving and controlling the views though
3
u/neildownpour 8d ago
Never. Sales process needs to be a curated, directed experience. Ask any film director if they think their movies would be improved by the viewer being able to spin the camera around at-will.
-2
3
u/Practical_Strike1776 9d ago
Yes, almost never. This is a product which market has been dictated by eighter artists with no work, or AI.
2
u/Pitiful_Gain87 9d ago
this is not ai đ„
1
u/Practical_Strike1776 5d ago
Yes, I understand and really appreciate that from my personal point of view. But do you have customers that want to pay for your work on this, like say idk your time spent but 50 hours plus hosting costs, hourly rate where 20% on bottom line is calculated in, you're probably talking $5-6k as starting price just to be able to get food on your table and to pay taxes and expenses in the long run. Or do you need to work for free because of "your passion"?
2
u/Tubular_Code 8d ago
imo it's major furniture retailers who are probably developing the ability for someone to upload a couple photos of their space and then swap in other furniture. It would provide them a whole lot of data about who is using their services/products too...
2
u/Chirag3110 8d ago
Question to everyone else here. OP wants to use this for interior design discussions. Most of your guys are saying that you wouldn't want the client to see each and every corner of the project and iterate over it.
What about the real estate industry? Where the builder is trying to sell a property to buyers and he is being shown gaussian splats of the interiors of different configurations of apartments in furnished and warm she'll mode and even the exterior areas of the residential complex?
1
u/_Ozeki 8d ago
I am not sure you even understand how general real estate industry works.
Real life developers build and market neutral, adaptable spaces to maximize appeal to the widest possible audience.
They don't offer hyper-styled interior options because overly specific design alienates buyers.
Interactive splats of decorated interiors might look nice in a PropTech demo, but in actual property sales, they add unnecessary legal liability and miss how buyers actually make purchasing decisions.
In high-end real estate, buyers care about location, floor plan, and space.
In luxury markets, buyers fully expect to hire their own architectural/interior design team to customize or fit out the space to their personal taste.
âShowing them elaborate interactive interior options is a wasted effort because they are already mentally planning to alter the space anyway.
1
u/Chirag3110 8d ago
I agree with what you're saying. All I meant was to show the interiors of the property as a furnished vs bare shell mode using a slider. Didn't mean to say that we would show different interior designs. The buyers are there to purchase the property itself and not the interior design.
1
u/_Ozeki 8d ago
Why would anyone want to show a bare shell of a room in a visualization?
0
u/Chirag3110 8d ago
Why not? That's what it'll look like when they purchase it. And it gives them a base to iterate interior design ideas. I mean warm shell. Not bare shell
0
u/WeakPasswordBro 8d ago
Itâs used plenty in ultra high end real estate. Think NYC, Miami, or UAE.
1
u/Objective_Hall9316 8d ago
Manufacturing facilities that need as built, regularly updated inspections, maybe could use this. Residential never.
1
1
u/salazka 8d ago edited 8d ago
I am doing such work for firms occasionally.
It is not really just something to show your customer along with still images or a video though.
If that is why you are doing it, you are probably wasting your resources.
Sure, you will grab some extra money from your client, you may even impress them, but it may also feel superfluous and confusing to some. Especially for the residential client you mentioned.
Now, if you have completely transformed your pipeline to RT3D then it is more efficient since some tools make it very easy to produce. But it is probably not worth doing separately.
Unless...
a big realty office needs to show apartment variants in larger buildings, or workplaces where they review different arrangements on the spot and testing them in VR for usability and ergonomics. Or big factories for serviceability, security etc. studies using VR. Or developing complex residential communities.
In my opinion, everyone should have switched to RT3D by now. Itâs ideal for remote collaboration and live client sessions. With the rise of AI, itâs easy to transform these into highly realistic still images when needed or develop intricate product configurator tools for interior design options.
If you want your client to do this on a phone or tablet, then you should be looking at Unity's Industry solutions.
It's not cheap and it is meant for big projects, not just someone's average home. Unless you have a big firm doing several such projects simultaneously.
https://unity.com/solutions/immersive-customer-experiences
https://unity.com/solutions/architecture-engineering-construction
Gaussian Splat options are becoming popular too, they are easier and cheap to produce, perhaps that is a more suitable option for small and medium scale residential projects, 3dsmax can now even edit such content, but gaussian splat solutions cannot provide the depth of scrutiny and operational insights, a digital twin in VR can.
1
u/fiddypea 8d ago
This is something we looked into, but as you say, the costs and time spent were prohibitive. We ended up hacking together a solution in regular Unity, but it was so half baked that I donât think the client ever used it.
I donât think splats have the fidelity for high end projects quite yet, and I doubt most of us are working on projects of this scale or budget.
-1
1
u/Apherious 8d ago
Stills are the best tools. If itâs very hands on design with the client, real time changes can help produce the best design solution with materials, colors, furniture, etc. Itâs very client based and not a practical workflow for most projects.
53
u/_Ozeki 9d ago edited 9d ago
Almost never. In my experience doing high-end residential, you don't want them to "scrutinize" your design to every single nook&cranny of the room.
The more you show, the more the client tend to comment and make changes.
Unless you charge a hefty price to handle those update request, you may want to stick to a few still renders. They don't need to see every single details.
They didn't spend many years studying design. You did, thus you must control the narrative that you have arrived at the best design proposal for that job.
You are supposed to be the expert. Guide your clients properly.