How to Add Your Own Landscape Scene

The IdeaRoom standard landscapes are included as part of our Professional subscription for sheds and metal buildings (carports, post-frame, and red iron).

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A Scene consists of a GLTF file that is designed using an external 3D design software and is loaded inside IdeaRoom software. A good scene consists of a background dome, a ground plane, and a few 3D objects in the foreground that perfectly blends with the background giving the impression that the whole landscape is 3D.

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IdeaRoom’s Farm Scene.

The image above shows what a scene GLTF file looks like when viewing from the outside the dome. You can see the three main elements of a good scene: A background image, a ground plane, and some 3D elements in the foreground.

Custom landscapes can be added by providing IdeaRoom with the following:

• A GLTF file. This is a standard format for 3D scenes and models.

• We recommend that the scene contains less than 50,000 polygons or triangles and less than 20 MB in file size. Because we load the scenes as part of the IdeaRoom software, performance will dramatically degrade with high polygon counts or large file sizes.

• All textures should be embedded in the GLTF file.

• We recommend all the non-transparent textures be compressed in JPEG format to reduce file size.

• Texture sizes in pixels should be powers of two (64, 128, 256, 512, 1024) for better performance. We recommend that you use the lowest texture resolution as possible, not adding textures higher than 4096px.

• IdeaRoom software won’t process lighting for the Scene objects, all the objects are going to be rendered as Unlit Materials. We recommend that all the lighting for the scene objects should be pre-rendered/baked onto the color textures using external softwares like Blender.

• When baking the lighting for the Scene objects we recommend that the position of the shadows should be consistent with the shadows that are generated for the building inside IdeaRoom configurator.

• Some foreground elements like trees can be marked as hideable in the object’s metadata to ensure they do not obstruct the building when the view is rotated.

• Transparent objects can also be used to ensure the building view is not obscured when navigating

• Virtual space large enough for your buildings to be placed. For example, if your IdeaRoom site has buildings that are 100' long, then your landscape will need a space that can visually accomodate that size of building.

Because working with 3D landscapes is more complex than working with basic 2D graphic formats (like a JPEG or PNG), you or your preferred design agency will need to work closely with IdeaRoom to ensure the landscape meets our quality requirements. We can also work with you to test versions of the design prior to deploying it to your site.

Once you provide us with a file, we may need to make some adjustments for it work properly with IdeaRoom. We will work closely with you throughout this process.

Scenes can be created using any 3D design software that exports to the GLTF file format. Below are some software packages that can be used:

• Blender (https://www.blender.org/ )

• Autodesk Maya (https://www.autodesk.com/products/maya/overview )

• Cinema 4D (https://www.maxon.net/en/cinema-4d )

• 3ds Max® (https://www.autodesk.com/products/3ds-max/overview )

Once you have a graphic designer or agency identified, please contact IdeaRoom at support@idearoom.com, and we will schedule a consultation to ensure the agency is aware of the requirements for the landscape prior to implementation.