I have a listing. OK, this listing is my house and I love this house! Nobody else sees it the way I see it, right??? But I want someone to see it my way. I want the next owner to see it the way I see it. So no one can create a virtual tour that will show the house the way I'd show it.... Quietwater Creek
OK, so this takes some time to get everything just the way you want it. And I'd still change things, but at some point you will probably cry "UNCLE"! I'm guessing it's easier just to hire the companies that create virtual tours for whatever amount of $$$ they want!
My partner has used Picassa to create wonderful slide shows and albums for his design clients. I thought, "I bet that would make a great virtual tour!" It can and does, but it takes a lot of patience!
If you haven't used Picassa before, you're in for a treat. This program goes into your hard drive and collects all your images from all your folders and puts them in one neat archive. You can create more specific albums by highlighting images from various folders and sending them to the chosen album in Picassa. One word of caution here. If you later re-arrange the folders on your hard-drive, the images disappear from chosen album as the path used to find them no longer exists. It takes a few minutes to re-create--moving them back to the album from their new location. Picassa does not re-arrange any of your hard drive folders, so that is not a worry. And if you don't remember where a certain image is stored, you can click on it and there is an option to find on disk--sometimes a lifesaver! Always a time saver!
You can load albums directly to the web. I've used this for clients when I've shot 30-40 pix of a house for them and don't want to overload their inbox. I just send them a link to the online album. You need to make sure you make it public if you want others to see it. If you want it private, then make sure you chose that option! Clients love it as they can look at their convenience, don't have to invest the time of downloading all the images and can send friends the link and have them view it. Again without the major time invest of uploading/downloading all those images.
I know Picassa also has editing capabilities, but I haven't used them as much.
On to creating a virtual tour. Go thru images displayed and highlight the ones you want for your virtual tour. Create new album and add images from tray to album. Now go to album and click create slide show. This gives you options to add music. Remember royalty free mp3! You can then select the order of the slides you want to use, add text over them, change the text color and font or create a "blank" slide where you can add text. If you find you need other images, you can go back to the library and collect more. They are stored in a tray for you to add directly to the show just by drag and drop. When you have completed the tour, click "create movie". This takes awhile to process. If you make adjustments in the future (say you view it and want to "tweak" it a little more) then click replace existing--it takes a lot less time! I had saved a couple of versions and was glad I did. I moved some last minute images from my desktop to the proper folders on the hard drive and lost them in the virtual tour... Was able to find them in one of the saved versions and re-create.
After you have saved the movie, you are given the option to upload to youtube. You need to have a youtube account setup already. Easy to do, just go to youtube and follow instructions on how to setup an account. Then you can load your virtual tour, tell everyone about it and then watch it go viral!!!
Good luck!
Tamara Perlman Coldwell Banker San Rafael, Marin County, CA. Tamara represents buyers and sellers in Lake Tahoe, Truckee, and Napa CA. Please call: 530-550-1299 or email Tamara at tperlman@coldwellbanker.com for more information on either market or general real estate inquiries. Search listings at www.TamaraPerlman.com
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Tamara, I quickly looked over authored statements can't wait till I return home this evening,,,, however provide me "drive time" food for thought while I meet some clients this afternoon... heck where is my driver I could be in back completing websites... while they drive me around LOL