What a Developer Supplies for Renderings
Supply the architectural drawings, plans, elevations and sections at the current design stage, the finish and material schedule, the site information including survey and context photographs, the unit or view list you need images of, and any brand or marketing direction the images must follow. Drawings and finishes are the two blocking items. Everything else can arrive during production, but without a settled finish direction the images will be produced twice.
Production time is predictable. Input time is not, and on the projects we have run for developers the schedule risk has consistently lived in the handoff rather than in the rendering. This is the checklist we work from when starting a real estate rendering package.
Blocking items
Architectural drawings. Floor plans, exterior elevations and enough section information to establish heights. Native CAD or a model if it exists, PDF if it does not. These do not have to be construction documents. They do have to be current, and it is worth stating which revision is current rather than sending several.
Finish and material direction. Exterior cladding, roofing, glazing and trim for exteriors. Flooring, cabinetry, countertops, tile and paint for interiors. A finish schedule is ideal, a material board is workable, and verbal direction alone means the first pass is a proposal rather than a depiction. Interiors need furniture and fixture direction as well, covered in specifying FFE and materials.
Needed, but not blocking a start
- Site information. Survey, topography, and photographs from the actual approach directions. Essential for any exterior or context view, and the item most often forgotten.
- The view list. Which units, which rooms, which exterior angles. If this is not settled, we can propose one from the drawings, but the developer's marketing plan should drive it.
- Landscape direction. Hardscape, planting character and maturity. Landscape occupies a large share of an exterior frame and left unspecified it becomes our invention rather than your design.
- Brand and marketing direction. Project identity, target buyer, tone, and where the images will be used. A lender submission and an Instagram campaign are not the same crop.
- Output requirements. Print, web, large format signage, aspect ratios. Covered in resolution and print specs.
What stalls projects
Finishes still under discussion while renderings are already commissioned. This is the one we encounter most often by a wide margin, and it converts a single production pass into two.
Drawings at different revisions across disciplines, so the plan and the elevation describe different buildings.
No named approver, which turns each review into a negotiation between stakeholders with different opinions.
A view list that grows during production. Adding views is fine and we expect it, but it is a scope change rather than a revision, and treating it as one keeps the schedule honest.
How to sequence a package
Start with the views whose inputs are settled. On most developments that means exteriors, because the envelope is usually resolved before the interior finish package is. Interiors follow once selections are made. Sequencing this way keeps production moving instead of waiting for the whole project to be decided at once.
The schedule that results is covered in how long real estate renderings take, and the question of whether you need renderings at all at your stage is covered in listing photography versus renderings and 3D rendering versus virtual staging.
Send us your drawings and whatever finish direction exists today and we will tell you what can start now and what has to wait for a decision.