Adding a House

In Realtime Landscaping Architect you can design a house
that approximates the exterior of your client’s residence. Designing a house in
Realtime Landscaping Architect is a very simple process, and works very
differently than typical home design programs. Houses can be designed from
scratch, or a pre-built house can be added to your landscape using the House Wizard.
To add a house:
1. Click the
Add House button found near the top of the screen under the
Building tab.
2. Draw
the outline of the house by clicking the left mouse button to add points. Press
the Backspace key to remove the last point added, and press the
Esc key to cancel. If you would like to input the distance and angle
manually, place at least one point and then press the Enter key.
3. To
finish drawing the house, place the last point on top of the first point.
Alternately, right-click to place the last point; it will automatically connect
to the first point.
The picture below is an example of a simple house created
and viewed in the Plan view.

The picture below is the same house viewed during a
Realtime Walkthrough. The roof has been automatically added.

Tips:
• If
your client wishes to have an exact view of their house, use Realtime
Landscaping Photo (included) to create a 2D design over a photograph of their
residence.
• It is
easier to add a house in the Plan View, but houses
can also be drawn in the Perspective view.
• The
snap-grid makes accurate houses easy to draw; see Snap Settings for details.
•
Doors, awnings, shutters, and windows can be added to your house from the
appropriate objects under the Building tab. See Adding
a Door and Adding a Window for more
information.
•
Multiple house objects can be used together to create more complex
houses. For example, two house objects can be overlapped to achieve unique roof
lines.
Gable Roofs
The default roof type is “hip”, but individual roof lines
can be changed to “gable” if needed.
To convert from a hip to gable roof:
1.
Click the Edit Roof Type button found in the properties to enable roof editing
mode.
2.
Click the house wall underneath the part of the roof you want to change.
Clicking will toggle between hip and gable styles.
3.
After you are finished editing the roof, click the Edit Roof
Type button to disable roof editing mode.
Below is a picture of a house with two of its rooflines
“gabled”:

Designing Multistory Houses
Multistory houses can be created by simply stacking a top
floor over a bottom floor. To do this, create the bottom story as detailed
above, and then use the Add House tool to create the upper story. When
the upper story is complete, increase the Elevation property of the house
until the top story sits on the bottom story. For most multistory houses, it is
best to set the Roof Pitch property of the bottom story to a value
of “0”. This technique was used to design the house in the image below:

Tip: To better understand how multiple story
houses are created, use the House Wizard to add a
pre-built multiple story house. Next, click the Ungroup button to break
the house into individual pieces. By moving the pieces you should have a good
idea of how the house was put together.
In the Plan View, it is usually best for only the bottom
story of the house to appear because that will be the house’s “footprint”.
Therefore, the upper stories of the house can be hidden in the Plan View. The
steps below can be used to cause any object to appear in only the Plan view or
just in the Perspective view.
To prevent an object from appearing in the plan
view:
1.
Click the desired object to select it. If more than one object needs to be
selected, hold the Shift while clicking on additional items.
2.
Click Edit and Advanced Object Properties.
3.
Click the Render to Plan view check-box to uncheck
it.
4.
Click the OK button.
For more information on other options in this dialog, see
Advanced Object Properties.
Designing Roofs with a Single Slope
Roofs with a single sloping surface can be designed, which
are often used when creating sheds, rectangular bay windows, carports, and
more.
To design a roof with a single sloping surface:
1.
Click the house you wish to edit to select it.
2.
Click the Edit Roof Type button found in the properties to enter roof editing
mode.
3.
Click each of the house walls below the roof you want to change, except for the
wall that will have the lowest roof edge.
4.
When you are finished, click the Edit Roof Type button again to leave
roof editing mode.
The bay window in the picture below was added as a separate
house object, and the above steps were used to give it a single slanting
roofline.

Designing Carports
A carport can be designed by creating a roof without walls,
which is also useful for creating covered patios, overhangs, and more.
To design a roof without walls:
1.
Click the Add House button and create a house normally.
2.
Move the Wall Height property to 1” or 0”.
3.
Move the Elevation property to the desired roof height.
Customizing the Plan View
Houses can appear as either a floor plan or a realistic
top-down view of the structure in the Plan view. If you wish your house to be
displayed as a floor plan, select the house and click on the Custom
appearance in each view checkbox (found to the right
of the screen). You will now see two tabs appear to the right of the screen:
Plan and Perspective. The Plan and Perspective tabs allow you to customize how
the selected house will appear in each view. For example, you could set a house
to look like a floor plan sketched with colored pencils in the Plan view, but to
look like a realistic house in the Perspective view. To make the house look
realistic in the Perspective view, simply ensure that the Custom
appearance in each view checkbox is not checked.
Doors, lights, windows, and awnings will appear as symbols
in the Plan view when displaying the house as a floor plan.
The default style for a floor plan is a white interior with
a black outline. The outline can be changed by clicking the Line
Style… button that appears to the right of the screen when your house is
selected. The background of the floor plan can be modified by selecting your
house and clicking the right mouse button on the small picture next to Roof
material (see image below). There are three available background types for floor
plans: pictures, gradients, and solid colors. For example, if you wish your
floor plan to look like it was sketched with colored pencils, click the right
mouse button on the image next to Roof material, select Picture, and then
choose the colored pencil style of your choice.

A floor plan’s line style, background, and transparency can
be modified to provide a large combination of styles. In the image below, a
floor plan is shown that uses a gradient background.

A picture background has been selected for the floor plan
below, and the picture selected is of a light blue colored pencil sketch. Other
hand drawn background styles are also available, such as colored marker.

Building Pads
A building pad can be created when placing a house on
uneven terrain by flattening the terrain or using a patio as a building surface.
For more information, see Area Grader and
Adding a Patio.
See also:
House
Properties Selecting Objects Editing Points Adding a Door Adding a
Window Editing Objects Adding an Area Grader Adding a Patio
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