What Length a 3D Walkthrough Should Be
Most 3D walkthroughs should run between sixty and ninety seconds. That is long enough to enter three or four spaces at a pace people can follow, and short enough to survive an unattended web page. Longer is justified when the audience is captive and invested, such as an investor meeting or a board review. Shorter is required for paid social. The reliable rule is to set length from where it plays, then choose how many spaces fit inside it, never the reverse.
Length is the first thing clients ask about and the wrong place to start, because it is a consequence of two other decisions: the venue and the number of spaces.
Here is how we set duration on a 3D walkthrough before storyboarding begins.
The venue decides the ceiling
A piece playing unattended on a project website competes with a back button. A piece playing in a meeting where someone introduced it has an audience that will stay. A piece in a paid feed has a few seconds before a thumb moves.
You do not get to choose how much attention the venue grants. You only get to choose whether the edit respects it.
The spaces decide the floor
Each space a viewer enters needs enough time to be understood: an establishing view, a moment to read the volume, and a transition out. Rushed below that, the space registers as a blur and the time spent on it is wasted rather than saved.
If your space list will not fit the venue's ceiling, cut spaces. Do not compress them. A ninety second piece covering four spaces well beats a ninety second piece skimming nine.
Duration matrix
| Option | Technical constraint | When it is the right call |
|---|---|---|
| Six to fifteen seconds | One space, one move, no narration, must read with sound off | Paid social, feed placements, lobby loops |
| Thirty seconds | Two spaces at most, no room for a build or an ending | Pre-roll, email embeds, a single amenity or unit type |
| Sixty to ninety seconds | Three to five spaces, one clear ending, narration optional | The default for project websites and leasing pages |
| Two to three minutes | Needs narration or on-screen structure or attention drifts | Investor presentations, board and committee review |
| Over three minutes | Requires a captive audience and a presenter to frame it | Rare. Usually a signal the piece should be split |
| Split series of short pieces | Each needs its own opening; costs more to edit than one long cut | Multiple audiences, or a phased release schedule |
The cutdown question, decided early
If you know you need a fifteen second vertical alongside the main piece, plan the main edit so the vertical exists inside it: at least one shot composed to survive a square or vertical crop, and one moment strong enough to stand alone.
Cutdowns planned during storyboarding cost very little. Cutdowns requested after delivery mean reopening scenes and re-rendering, which is a new job.
What makes a walkthrough feel long
Pace, not duration. Slow camera moves through empty corridors, doorway transitions shown in full, and holding on a space after its idea has landed all make sixty seconds feel like three minutes.
The opposite is also true. A well cut two minute piece with a reason to keep watching rarely gets described as long.
Tell us where the piece will play and how many spaces matter and we will propose the duration before you commit to it.
How to decide in one pass
Write down the venue. Write down the spaces the audience must see, not the ones you would like them to see. If the second list does not fit the first, the second list is wrong. That conversation takes ten minutes and saves a revision round.
Related reading: delivery resolution is the other venue-driven spec, how to storyboard one is where length becomes a shot list, student housing projects and retail and mixed use projects show sectors where the space count fights the clock.
Send us the venue and the space list and we will come back with a duration and a shot count.