3D Walkthrough Services

Film or interactive tour: which 3D walkthrough do you need?

"3D walkthrough" means two different things in this industry. On this page it means a film: we set the camera route, the viewer watches it, and it plays the same on a pitch-room screen, a sales gallery or LinkedIn. The other meaning is an interactive tour the viewer steers, which we build as a 360 virtual tour. A walkthrough is one kind of architectural animation, the kind shot at eye level along a route a person could walk. Films shot from outside, around the building and over the site, are architectural animation.

Interior walkthrough animation

Eye level, walking pace, from the entrance through the main spaces: an office from reception to boardroom, an apartment from the front door to the balcony, a hotel from the lobby to the suite.

Exterior and aerial films

Flythroughs around the building, aerial and masterplan films and films that go from the street inside are on our architectural animation page. They come out of the same model, so one project can carry both.

Do you make walkthrough animation for real estate developers?

Yes. For off-plan sales the film moves a buyer from the street to the lobby, the amenity floor, the apartment and the view. It runs on the sales gallery screen, on property portals and in social ads, and it is cut from the same model as the launch stills on our real estate rendering page.

Do you only make office walkthroughs?

No, although offices are where most of our 30+ walkthrough films were made, the longest about five minutes, and why fit-out firms should treat one as marketing content rather than a one-off is in office walkthrough animation. The same pipeline runs for residential schemes, show homes, stores, hotels, restaurants and lobbies, where the route follows the path a customer or a guest takes.

Eye level, walking pace, a scripted route

A camera on rails drifting past the architecture with no point of view feels robotic, whether it flies or walks. We shoot a building the way a person experiences it, because that is what makes a client picture themselves in the space instead of reading a plan.

We start by finding what sells the scheme: the double-height reception, the light across the floor at a certain hour, the move from a cramped current building to an open, daylit one. The camera is scripted around those moments, slows down where the value is, and uses transitions to show how one space leads to the next.

Dynamic Flow Video. For a global advertising group moving more than 1,000 staff onto several floors, one continuous tour could not carry that much building. We built a way of pacing and connecting the spaces so a large plan reads as one story rather than a long corridor of rooms.

Our stack

• 3ds Max with V-Ray and Corona for the model and the photoreal rendering that has to survive a 4K screen in a pitch room.
• Chaos Vantage for real-time look development and fast iteration on camera and light.
• DaVinci Resolve for the colour grade.
• Our own render farm: six nodes, each an AMD Threadripper with an RTX 5080.

AI handles voiceover and populating scenes with people; where it helps and where it does not is in how AI fits into a 3D walkthrough.

Do you build in Unreal Engine 5?

No, by choice. A small apartment corner looks great in a UE5 reel, but at the scale of a full office floor or an apartment building the real-time route costs more time and money than it returns, and the client is paying the difference. We get the same cinematic result faster in Chaos Vantage. When a project needs the viewer to steer, we build a browser 3D tour from the same model instead, see 360 virtual tours.

Can you work from 2D drawings or do you need a 3D model?

Both. A Revit or SketchUp model speeds us up, but we build the whole environment from 2D CAD, PDFs or dimensioned sketches when that is all that exists. What to send:

• floor plans and sections, or the model (Revit, AutoCAD, SketchUp, Rhino or FBX);
• the finishes and furniture you have chosen, or a mood board;
• the deadline that matters and where the film will be shown;
• any brand assets for the opening and closing frames.

From brief to delivery in seven steps

1. You send the files and the deadline.
2. We reply with an estimate within 1 hour.
3. We agree the camera route on the plan.
4. You review a rough preview of the route before anything is rendered.
5. Two rounds of revisions on the preview and the look are included in the estimate; more are available on request.
6. We render, edit, grade and add the voiceover.
7. You receive the 4K master, with the final 48 hours before your deadline held for render and post.

The same process, step by step with who does what, is on how we work.

How much does 3D walkthrough animation cost?

£2,500 covers setup and the first 60 seconds of 4K animation, then £1,000 for each additional 30 seconds. These prices cover the film, not the 3D model of the project: building the space from your drawings is quoted on top, by size and detail. When the walkthrough comes with a CGI package for the same space, the model is already built and is not charged twice. The calculator is on our price list, and the reasoning is in what a 3D walkthrough costs in the UK.

How long should a 3D walkthrough be?

The route sets the length, not the floor area. A small fit-out reads fine at 60 seconds; a multi-floor headquarters needs longer. We set the runtime against your plan in the estimate, because a film that overstays loses the viewer.

What is the turnaround time?

From two weeks upward, scaling with the size of the building. The NEOM Innovation Hub, 1,500 square metres in Saudi Arabia, took 28 days for a 74-second film and 9 stills. Tell us the deadline first and we plan back from it.

• The film: a 4K master in MP4 or MOV, with sound design and AI voiceover included in the edit.
• Social cuts: shorter vertical and square versions for LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok.
• Hero stills: high-resolution frames pulled from the animation for brochures and boards.
• Interactive tour (add-on): a browser 3D tour built from the same model, when the viewer needs to steer.

Do we get the source 3D files?

We deliver the final video and image files. Releasing the source project files is a transfer of intellectual property and is handled as a separate licence.

Many clients order the film and the stills together: the office visualization stills come from the model we have already built, so the combined package prices well.

What should I look for in a 3D walkthrough animation company?

Three things. Camera work at eye level: ask to see a route a person could walk. A render farm behind the deadline, so the last 48 hours are a commitment rather than a hope. And a price you can put in a budget before the first call, not after it. Our guide to what a 3D walkthrough is covers when the format earns its place, and walkthrough vs flythrough covers which one sells a given project.

Do you produce walkthroughs for projects in Dubai, the UAE or Saudi Arabia?

Yes. We have produced office projects in DIFC, our main Dubai client is Inc Solutions, and Siro One Za'abeel shows the pipeline on a UAE scheme. In Saudi Arabia we made the NEOM film for BeRepublic Group. Reviews run on the same pipeline from London; only the timezone changes.

See the approach on fit-out work: the Techspace London office, The Hickman in Aldgate and offices in Clerkenwell.