Walk mode, hop and the 3D plan

The three ways buyers move around a tour, how each one works, and how to choose which ones your tour offers.

A tour can offer three ways to move: Walk, Hop and 3D plan. Buyers switch between them with the round buttons at the bottom of the tour. On a computer, hovering shows each button’s name.

Walk mode: move anywhere

Walk mode is what makes ArchviewVR different. Buyers aren’t stuck on the spots you rendered. As they move, the tour paints the nearest renders onto the model and blends up to four of them together, so the view changes smoothly with every step, like walking through the home.

• Walls stop them. Buyers can’t walk through the model’s walls, so they move through doorways like a real visit.
• Stairs work. Eye height follows the renders around them, so walking up a staircase lifts them to the next floor.
• It settles on a render. When they stop for a moment, the view glides to the nearest render they can see, where the picture is sharpest. You can turn this off.

Tuning the blending

You choose how walk mode mixes renders, in Set up tour › Options › Moving. The preview updates as you drag.

• **Blending between renders** sets how fast the nearest render takes over. Soft mixes nearby renders more, so walking feels smoother, with a little more ghosting where renders overlap. Crisp lets the nearest render take over sooner, so detail stays sharper but the change from one render to the next is easier to see. Halfway between two cameras it’s always an even mix, whatever you choose.
• **Full render near each view** sets how close the blending starts. Within this distance of a camera (up to 1.5 m), buyers see only that render, pixel for pixel.

Tip: a good starting point is Soft blending with about 0.5 m of full render. Walking feels smooth between cameras, and each render is crisp when buyers stand on it. Cameras far apart suit Soft; cameras close together suit Normal or Crisp.

Tip: buyers can press the ? button in the tour for a quick picture guide to the controls on their device.

Hop: tap to glide

Hop is the familiar way to move, for buyers who’d rather not steer. They tap or click a spot, and the tour glides to the render nearest that spot that they can see from where they stand. If there’s nothing that way, they see No view in that direction. In walk mode and hop, rings on the floor show where each render was taken (you can turn them off).

3D plan: the whole place at once

The 3D plan flies the camera up and out to show the whole level as a model, with the ceiling cut away so buyers look down into every room. It’s painted from your renders: each surface takes its colour from the closest render that can see it. There’s nothing extra to render or set up.

• Drag to spin it. Scroll or pinch to zoom. Right-drag to pan on a computer.
• Tap a spot to fly down into the render nearest it, looking at that spot.
• Floor buttons switch levels when the home has more than one. See Levels and floor buttons.
• It spins slowly when nobody is touching it.

A slider on the left lowers the cut. Drag it down to slice lower through the walls, right down to the floor the circles sit on, to see the floor plan more clearly. It goes back to the usual height when you change level, and a double-click puts it back too. You can turn it off with Slice slider in the 3D plan in Tour options.

Plain white patches are surfaces no render can see, like the top of a tall cupboard. See Grey patches in the 3D plan.

Switching finishes

At a spot with alternate panoramas, buttons on the left switch between schemes, like Light and Dark. The choice carries on to other rooms with the same scheme. Compare splits the screen; drag the handle to wipe between two schemes.

Choosing what your tour offers

In Set up tour › Options, tick the modes you want under Ways to move. Choose the one the tour opens in with Open the tour in under Start location.

• All three (the default) suits most tours. Buyers can explore, then pull back to the 3D plan to see how rooms connect.
• Hop only is the simplest for buyers who don’t play games, but loses the feeling of walking.
• Open in the 3D plan works well for a big home or a multi-level layout, where the shape of the whole place is the selling point.

If you only offer one mode, the mode buttons are hidden. On a computer, buyers can also press 1, 2 and 3 to switch modes.

Tip: walking feels best with a camera every 2–4 metres. Fewer cameras still work, but buyers see more blending between views. See Placing and naming cameras.

You can also set the walking speed, the glide time, the joystick side and whether the view snaps to the nearest render. See Tour options.