Show Clients Options Without Re-Rendering

A client choosing between slate and cedar usually means rendering both — and then rendering both again when they ask what the cedar looks like in the evening. Each photoreal render in the Design Studio is 100 credits, and each one is a picture: it answers the question it was asked and nothing else. There is a cheaper first step. Save the options on the model itself and let your client switch between them on the link you already send.

Step 1: Save each option on the model

In the Design Studio, set the house the way the first option looks — its cladding, roof, trim and interior finishes, daylight or the evening lights, and the camera that shows it best — and choose States → Save state in the 3D toolbar. Change the finishes, the lights and the view for the next one and save again. A design keeps up to 24 of them. An option changes only the look: every option is the same walls, rooms, doors and roof, so the floor plan and the numbers never differ between them.

Step 2: "Switch day, evening and alternative cladding live on the link, no install"

Turn the design's share link on and send it. Save up to 24 options on a Design Studio design — each one a camera, a set of materials and day or evening lights — and its share link gets an Options row: one tap repaints the house, sets the lights and glides the camera there in 600 ms, with no reload. It works in Walk inside and Explore too, and ?state= opens the link on one option.

On our production check, an option switch on the link changed the cladding, the camera and the lights 605 ms after the click, with no reload. Switching costs no credits, because nothing is rendered: what your client sees is the model's own real-time 3D view, the same one they orbit, walk and explore.

Step 3: Render only the option they pick

The options on the link are not photoreal renders, and they are not meant to be. Once your client has narrowed it down, render the winner — or use the Render rail's Options mode to render exterior schemes from one saved camera at 100 credits each, one confirmation for the batch. That is design options: fewer renders, each one answering a question the client has actually asked.

Step 4: "Compare two versions with the numbers"

When the question is not "which finish" but "what changed", open Version history → Compare… in the Design Studio. Compare two saved versions, or two options, side by side and send it as a read-only link: rooms added, removed, renamed or resized, gross and net area per level, total and exterior wall run, door and window counts and a rough cost, each figure the same number the Studio's Data tab shows. "Copy link" sends the same comparison on the design's share link, read-only, with no account needed to open it.

On our acceptance run we dragged one garage wall 2 ft and compared the design against the version before it: Garage 576 → 635 sf (+59 sf), total wall run 240 → 244 ft, exterior wall run 160 → 164 ft — every figure on each side the number the Data tab showed for that version. Two options compare the same way: the numbers stay put and only the look changes.

Step 5: "Leave a note on the 3D design"

Feedback by email arrives as "the window on the left, upstairs" — and you guess which one. On the link, your client presses "Leave a note", taps a spot on the 3D model or the floor plan, types a note (up to 500 characters) and their name, and it lands in your Review tab — the first 10 of a day also reach your inbox. Notes are stored beside the design, never in it, so your own autosave cannot overwrite one; you import them as redlines in one undoable step. "Viewers can leave notes" is on for new links, opt-in for older ones, and a link takes up to 50 notes a day.

Once imported, a note is an ordinary redline: it is on the plan, it exports on the DXF's redline layer and it lists in the sheet set's revisions block, and you resolve it when it is done. "Viewers can leave notes" is on for new links, opt-in for older ones — a link you shared before notes existed takes none until you switch it on, in the Share menu or the Review tab.

What this is not

• Not a shared editing session. Your client looks, switches, compares and leaves notes; only you change the model, and they see a change after you save it and they reload the link.
• Not photoreal. The link shows the model in its real-time 3D view; a photoreal image of an option is a render, priced like any render.
• Not a substitute for drawings. The numbers in a comparison are the model's, read from the walls and rooms as drawn — not a survey of a built house.
• Links can expire: set "Link expires on…" a date up to 5 years ahead, or "Turn link off" — and on again with the same URL. A closed link shows "This link is closed", with no design and no contact form. It works for design, 360° tour, 360° panorama and 3D scan links; 3D model links cannot expire, and a Client Room has its own off switch.