Professional Virtual Tours without Breaking the Bank
Affordable Virtual Tours for Architecture and Design
Virtual tours are a fantastic way to visualize and showcase your architecture concepts to your clients. Most people want a virtual tour that’s photo-realistic to catch their client’s attention and draw them in. But most people also don’t want to spend a fortune for said tour either.
That is exactly why Trinity Animation is your go-to animation studio for budget friendly virtual tours. We have created virtual tours for assisted living spaces, industrial plants, apartment buildings and hospitals. Our most recent project consisted of creating a virtual tour of a data center. But the data center wasn’t the main focus of the video. Instead, the star of the show was the security products you would typically find at a data center.
Tackling Complex 3D Projects with Efficiency
This was one of our more challenging projects as the client had quite the long list of products they wanted to showcase. They were able to supply most of the 3D models, and we happily built the remaining models from scratch.
However, all the models needed materials. Crafting each material by hand would take hours upon hours, wasting time and money. That’s why we use V-Ray materials. Their photo-realistic textures and materials are easy to apply and edit, all without slowing down render times.
Using a combination of reference photos and the product’s websites, we were able to accurately recreate the model’s finishes and paint finishes while keeping the budget and costs down to a minimum.
Scene Optimization for Smooth Virtual Tours
Due to the sheer number of 3D models and the polygon density of each model, putting all the models into one scene bloated the scene’s file size making it near impossible to work with.
Our solution was to prep each model in its own scene and then use a proxy reference for each model in the main data center scene. Optimizing the scene file size is crucial to the animation process because we need to be able to move around the scene freely to set up the scene, place each security product in its correct setting and animate a fly-through camera.
If the scene file size is bloated, the software will freeze and lag costing more time and money. Our optimized workflow prevents that from happening.
Creating Seamless and Engaging Camera Animation
Once the scene was set, it was time to animate the camera. It can be quite tricky when animating a camera for a virtual tour. For this project, we used one camera for the entire walk through for a seamless yet engaging experience. By using this technique we can make the audience feel like they were walking through the facility themselves.
We made sure to stop or “pause” the camera at each security product so the audience could get a look at what each product looked like and where it was installed.
Time-Saving Post-Production Techniques
Another neat trick we like to use is to only stop the camera for a frame. While editing the animation in post, we can extend that frame to take up as much time as the client wants. By extending the frame time period in post, rather than in the 3D software, we don’t have to spend money on rendering out those extended time frames. It’s almost like free animation! Just another way Trinity Animation tries to save you money.
These extended “pauses” also allow us to include text callouts and other images to be able to provide critical information about each product easily yet professionally.
Once the animated virtual tour has been edited complete with title cards and engaging background music, we send it off to the client.
Ongoing Support and Easy Revisions
Another great reason to work with Trinity Animation is that we can make changes to your virtual tour whenever you need! We save all the project files so we can return to its latest iteration and pick up where we last left off. Changes can be made easily and swiftly as most of the scene, products, and post animation work is already completed, once again saving you money.
Your Partner for Cost-Effective 3D Virtual Tours
Through utilizing V-Ray materials, scene optimization, time-saving camera tricks, and file organization and archival, we here at Trinity Animation never stop finding new ways to make your virtual tour shine while saving you money.
It’s a win-win for both parties!
Do you need a virtual tour created for your architectural concepts? Send us a message and let’s chat!
Phone: 816-525-0103
Email: sales@trinityanimation.com
