Overview. What is MyVirtualHome?

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2 Welcome to MyVirtualHome, the easiest way to build a virtual home; it is also supported by numerous manufacturers so that you can preview their products directly in your own home. You will not be building and decorating with just any old brick, window, benchtop or paint, you will be placing an accurate representation of a real product available for purchase from manufacturers and suppliers in your area. Designing, decorating and furnishing a house has never been this easy. Experiment with colour schemes before you have bought a single drop of paint. Renovate your kitchen and show your tradesman exactly what you want. See It First! Use MyVirtualHome to not only save you time and money, but allow expanded creative choice when designing your personal living space. Overview What is MyVirtualHome? MyVirtualHome (MVH) is a visualisation tool specifically designed to be the simplest, quickest and most visually accurate way to design and build a home on your own PC. Houses are quickly built by placing together pre-made rooms to produce a basic layout. Furniture, fixtures, colours and other elements can then be customised to suit. MyVirtualHome is also a communication tool. As you select products, you can review the products details and reference manufacturers, retailers and post-sales services of that product which are local to you. Your virtual homes can be shared with other MyVirtualHome users, which include industry accredited builders, designer, decorators, services suppliers and tradesmen. This makes it an ideal collaboration tool for working with your real home. Within MVH you can build homes, refurbish bathrooms and redecorate bedrooms. You can put in a basement, add a second (or third, or fourth, or fifth... ) level to your home. Drop in a pool, add a sunken garden.

3 Prerequisites You are expected to be familiar with basic Windows terminology, for example dragging the mouse and right-clicking. You do not require any 3D design experience. Minimum Specification OS Windows XP (SP2), Windows Vista or Windows 7 CPU System memory Video card Disk Internet Connection Pentium 4 450MHz Must support the SSE instruction set 1Gb RAM 3-D capable video graphics card with support for either OpenGL (version 1.2) or DirectX 9.0c (October 2006 or later) 1Gb free space for installation 5kb dial-up connection MVH must be able to connect to the internet to run. Recommended Specification OS CPU System memory Video card Disk Internet Connection Windows Vista (64-bit) or Windows 7 (64-bit) Any Quad-Core CPU 4Gb RAM NVIDIA Series 200 or ATI 4000 Series with 1Gb RAM 1Gb free space for installation Broadband internet connection Conventions Ctrl+Alt+Del 1 st option > 2 nd option > 3 rd option Keys to press. The example means to press the Ctrl, Alt and Del keys all at once and then let them all go. Select the 1 st option, which reveals the 2 nd option for selection. In a similar fashion, select the 2 nd option to reveal the 3 rd option, and finally select the 3 rd option to complete the instruction. For example: Select Start > Programs > Accessories > Notepad. Select Start, then from the revealed menu select Programs, then the option Accessories and finally the option Notepad.

4 Table of Contents Overview...2 What is MyVirtualHome?... 2 Prerequisites... 3 Conventions... 3 Getting Started... 9 Starting and Exiting MyVirtualHome...9 Starting MyVirtualHome... 9 The MVH Launcher... 9 MVH Updates Launcher Options Exiting MyVirtualHome Your MyVirtualHome Profile MyChannels MyDetails MyBusiness The Screen Your First Home Load the Home Walk around the home Explore the Camera Modes Paint a Wall Build a Home Decorate your Home The User Interface Hiding the Interface Current User and MVH Build Number Help Menu Bar Tool bar Camera Controls Zoom Camera Modes Rotate \ Tilt the Camera Free-look Mode Move Camera Walkthrough Mode Walking & Turning Walking Through Walls Resetting the camera Left Panel Breadcrumbs Notifications Bar Download Progress Bar Lightmapping Progress Bar Right Panel Info Tab Customise Tab Alternatives... 33

5 Workspace Context Menu Loading and Saving Homes Starting a New Home Loading Homes Loading a Home from the Catalogue Loading a Locally Saved Home Loading a Home from HomeShare To load a home that you have saved to HomeShare: To load someone else s home from HomeShare: Recovering lost work Saving Homes Saving a Home Locally Deleting a saved home Copying Homes Copying a Saved Home Copying a Catalogue or HomeShare Home MVH HomeShare HomeShare Codes HomeShare Links Building a Home Floorplans Loading a Floorplan Resizing a Floorplan Rotating a Floorplan Locking a Floorplan Floorplans & Multi-Level Homes Hiding Floorplans Deleting Floorplans Placing a North Marker Rooms and Walls Adding Rooms Moving Rooms Moving rooms between levels in the home Rotating Rooms Cut, Copy and Paste Rooms Cut a Room Copy a Room Paste a Room Aligning Rooms Aligning Rooms with a Floorplan Aligning Rooms with other Rooms Joining Rooms Resizing and Reshaping Rooms Using Nodes Using Walls Splitting Walls ( L Shaped Rooms) Restrictions to Resizing and Reshaping Rooms Interior and Exterior Walls Deleting Walls (Open Plan Spaces) Half-Height Walls Multi-Level Homes Adding a Level... 56

6 Adding a Basement Removing a Level Removing a Basement Moving Between Levels in the Home Stairs Camera Modes & Level Controls Void Floors Doors and Windows Internal and External Walls Ceiling Height Doors Placing a Door Moving a Door Replacing a Door A Door s Opening Direction Customising a Door Windows Placing a Window Moving a Window Replacing a Window Customising a window Stairs Furnishings and Electrical Hide Furniture Clear Furniture Placing Furniture Removing Furniture Customising Furniture Replacing Furniture with the Alternatives tab To Replace an Item Rotating Items Cut, Copy and Paste Items Cut an item Copy an item Paste an item Decorating with MVH Materials Applying Materials (Paints, Carpets, Tiles etc) Applying Materials to Linked Surfaces The Roof To Show \ Hide the Roof Rooms without Roofs The Roof-line Layout of the Rooms Roof Specific Wall Properties Tiles, Shingles or Sheeting? Changing the roof material via the catalogue Changing the roof material via the Customise tab Outdoors Time of Day Simple Lighting and the Time of Day Advanced Lighting and Time of Day Location To set the Location of your Home Terrain Options To Change the Terrain... 74

7 Show \ Hide the Terrain Grid Show \ Hide the Terrain Panoramas Changing Panoramas Custom Panoramas Custom Cube map background Custom Cylindrical map background Custom Spherical map background Fences To Build a Fence Moving a Fence Paths & Driveways To Build a Path or Driveway Moving a Path or Driveway Pools, Spas & Saunas Placing a Pool, Spa or Sauna Restrictions on placing Pools Customising a Pool Gardens Make your Home look its best Lighting Lightmapping Lightmapping Settings When to Lightmap Actions that will invalidate lightmaps are: Actions that do not invalidate lightmaps: To Start Lightmapping To Clear Lightmaps Display Settings Screen Size To adjust the screen size: Image Settings Optimisation Tips and Tricks Editing with the Eyedropper Tool Why won t my door make a doorway? Painting Painting all the walls at once Technical Issues Appendices Menus File Menu Edit Menu Editing Locks Sub-menu Measurements Menu Options Menu Edit Preferences Sub-menu Visibility Options Sub-menu Keyboard Shortcuts Camera Controls Rotating the Camera... 97

8 Moving the Camera... 97

9 Getting Started There are a number of general controls and a common toolbar to help you with your home design. This section explores the general functionality of the standard controls. Starting and Exiting MyVirtualHome Starting MyVirtualHome To start the program, double-click the MyVirtualHome program icon on your desktop. If you cannot find a program icon, the standard install provides an icon in your Start menu. See, Start > (All) Programs > MyVirtualHome > MyVirtualHome This will start the MVH Launcher. If you will be loading MyVirtualHome regularly, the easiest way to manage the starting of the program is to copy the program icon into the Quick Launch area of your Windows Taskbar, see your Windows documentation for more information. The MVH Launcher The MVH Launcher fulfils a number of tasks: presents MVH News to the MVH community manages MVH Updates contains basic display options and details concerning how MVH connects to the internet contains maintenance facilities for your MVH installation

10 Version number Version details (click to view) News Start MVH MVH Options MVH Updates When the launcher is run, it contacts the MVH Server and checks to see if there is an updated version of MVH available. If there is the launcher downloads and applies the update, ensuring that your copy of MyVirtualHome is always up to date. Launcher Options The Launcher Options are initially set during the installation process. These settings may be reviewed and modified as required by clicking the Options button. The Display settings tab contains settings for which Renderer to use (for the best visual quality we suggest you set this to DirectX9) and display resolution. The Display Resolution should be set as high as your monitor allows. The Internet settings tab details how MVH connects to the internet and to test MVH's ability to connect using the specified settings. The Maintenance tab need only be used if you encounter issues launching MVH after applying an MVH Update. In this instance apply each option one at a time from the top down, attempting to run MVH after each change until MVH launches successfully. If issues still present themselves, contact MVH Support in your region. Exiting MyVirtualHome To exit MyVirtualHome select the red square with the X ( MyVirtualHome window. ) at the top-right of the

11 Your MyVirtualHome Profile To use MVH you must create an MVH User Profile, this profile is used to associate you with your MVH preferences and the home designs that you have saved to the MVH HomeShare server. This allows you to access your MVH content on any PC you use and to protect your shared designs for future reference. The first time you run MVH you are asked to create an MVH profile. Fill in the details and click Register for MVH. If you have registered and have run MVH previously you are considered an existing user and will be presented with a login dialog rather than the registration dialog. Once you have registered \ logged in you can access your MVH Profile page.

12 The Profile screen contains three sections, MyChannels, MyDetails and MyBusiness. These sections are accessed by clicking the relevant button. MyChannels In MVH, a Channel features a reduced catalogue containing a selection of assets and rooms specific to the purposes of that channel. E.g. A bathroom renovation channel providing, the assets to plan your new bathroom, instructions for D.I.Y. ers and links to local business that can be of assistance with your renovation job. Since each channel will contain focused content, you may need to move between channels to access all of the content you require for a specific design project and you designs are never lost while moving between channels.. The Australian Home Building Channel will always contain the complete catalogue of free-touse assets and is recommended for all general building and design projects. Some content contributors create their own channel to present their products and services. These channels may also alter the look and fell of MVH by re-colouring the interface with their own corporate colour-scheme. The MyChannels section lists the channels which have been linked to your MVH User Account. Selecting any of these Channels will present: details regarding the channel an option to receive updates from the channel owner about changes within that channel a Start button to launch the channel MyDetails The MyDetails tab can be used to view and update your profile information such as passwords and addresses.

13 MyBusiness The MyBusiness tab provides information regarding associating your business with products available in MVH. The Screen When you first start MyVirtualHome, the initial screen looks like the screenshot below. Greyed-out elements are inactive Active dialog There is an active dialog (the MVH Help screen) displayed and the rest of the User Interface (UI) has been greyed-out to indicate that it is currently inactive. In these instances the active dialog must be completed or closed before the rest of the UI becomes active. For now: close the active dialog by clicking the red X in the top right-hand corner of the dialog click anywhere on the green \ white grid, this will show the right-hand panel

14 The screen now contains the workspace surrounded by the various elements which comprise the MVH User Interface (UI). Some UI elements, such as the left and right panels can be collapsed or set to fade out when not in use, in order to maximise the amount of available workspace. Menu Bar Current User and MVH Build Number Tool Bar Help Camera Controls Left Panel Right Panel Workspace Notification Bar Download Progress Lightmapping Progress Interface Element Menu Bar Tool Bar Left Panel Camera Controls Right Panel Workspace Notification Bar Download Progress Lightmapping Progress Help Current User and Build Number Function Contains the various MVH menus Contains the most commonly used Tools and Actions Contains the MVH Catalogue and Search; look here to homes, rooms, furniture, paints, plants etc Use these to control to move and look around your home Contains details about the selected MVH object and options to customise that object This is the space where you construct and decorate your homes Present various alert and information messages concerning your current actions Charts your progress through downloading objects to place in your home Charts the progress of the MVH Lightmapper Access the MVH Help system Details the User currently logged in to MVH and the Build (version) number of MVH in use Note: for further details on all Interface elements, their contents and their use, see the section titled The User Interface

15 Your First Home The quickest and easiest way to see just what MVH can do is to load a pre-built home from the MVH Catalogue. Load the Home To do this: select the Homes category in the MVH Catalogue select MyVirtualHome Homes select Small Tutorial Home Complete This will load the Tutorial home and place you in the Walkthrough camera mode. If you installed MVH from a DVD then you can load homes from the catalogue quite quickly. If you downloaded MVH from a website then some homes may take a few minutes to load the first time as some files will need to be downloaded from the MVH Data Server. Any subsequent loads of the home will be much quicker. Walk around the home Now that you are inside the home: Use the camera controls to move about the home (or use arrow keys on your keyboard) Hold down the right mouse-button and move the mouse to look around the home practice moving around the home in this manner Explore the Camera Modes click the camera mode icons to change the camera mode (or use the spacebar on your keyboard)

16 experiment with the camera controls to get an idea of how you can move the camera in the various camera modes Camera Controls Camera Modes When you are familiar with the camera controls and the various camera modes: return to the Walkthrough camera mode once more Paint a Wall click a wall to select it Clicking on any object will select the object and present information about the object in the Right Panel. select the Customise tab in the right panel scroll down to the Materials section in the Customise tab (you can click a section headers to expand\collapse that section) Note: in MVH, Material is used to describe anything that can be applied to the surface of an object or room. Materials include paint, wallpaper, carpet, tiles, fabrics, polished metal finishes, pavers, bricks and many others.

17 You will notice that the wall object contains three editable Material slots; Wall, Cornice and Skirting. select the Wall slot The bottom half of the Customise tab now shows selection of categories containing alternative Materials that can be applied to the wall click to browse the categories and select an alternative material to apply to the wall The wall is immediately updated with your new selection. click Back to Customise experiment with changing Materials on other objects within the home Note: clicking on the floor will select the entire room.

18 Build a Home We will now build the MVH Tutorial Home from scratch. reset the MVH Catalogue by clicking the Home icon panel above the catalogue in the left browse the catalogue to the MyVirtualHome Homes category, select Homes > MyVirtualHome Homes select Small Tutorial Home - Floorplan This will load the floorplan and place the camera in Plan Mode. From the catalogue, within the MyVirtualHome Homes category: select the Living Room (Tutorial Home) The room is loaded and attached to the mouse pointer. you will notice an area on the floorplan labelled Living Room move the room to the correct position and click to place the room into the workspace To move the room once it is in the workspace: click the floor of the room and the room will show a blue border to indicate that it has been selected hold down the left mouse button and drag to move the room release the mouse button to place the room When aligning rooms with a floorplan it is a great idea to hide the floor of the rooms so that you can see the floorplan underneath. To do this: from the Menu Bar select Options > Show\Hide... click the Show\Hide Floors button, then click Close The floors are now hidden and you can see the floorplan beneath the room. align the room with the floorplan select the Kitchen and place it into the scene drag the kitchen to snap it against the living room Note: when two (or more) rooms are snapped together, their shared walls become internal

19 plasterboard walls. This change from External (brick) to internal wall impacts many things in MVH including the way lighting is calculated for the rooms, the availability of doors and windows for the affected walls and the shape of the roof. Sometimes two walls can appear to be snapped when they are not. To indicate this, the nodes of the adjacent walls are coloured red. continue down the category, selecting and placing the rooms onto the floorplan Note: if you have Auto-place doors and windows set in your MVH Preferences, then MVH uses some simple logic to place suitable doors and windows in suitable locations throughout your home. This same process may also hide some internal walls, such as when an open kitchen is snapped to a living room. This can be seen in the MVH Small Tutorial Home. Once all the rooms have been placed: return to the Show\Hide menu and click Show\Hide Floors again to reveal floors once more Well done! You successfully built a home in MVH. Decorate your Home select the Walkthrough camera mode to view your home from the inside select an object or surface within your home You can use the Alternatives tab in the right panel to quickly swap an object with another of a similar type.

20 You can use the Customise tab in the right panel to modify the configuration and look of any object you select. modify the furnishings, redecorate and customise the colour scheme as you see fit

21 The User Interface Hiding the Interface When you are simply viewing a home rather than building or decorating you may like to hide the entire UI, this can be done via the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Spacebar. The UI can then be revealed once more using the same shortcut. Current User and MVH Build Number Located in the top right-hand corner of the MVH window are details of the current MVH user and the MVH Build number. These details may be useful in the event that you contact your local MVH Support Department. Help The Help icon such as: a Quick-start Guide launches the MVH online Help dialog which contains useful information various Tips and Tricks to get the most out of MVH Keyboard Shortcuts to more efficiently use MVH Credits, an acknowledgement to those whose time and effort have made the MyVirtualHome project a reality Menu Bar The Menus in MVH are similar to all other software applications; they can be opened by clicking the menu name and each hold a number of different options. Menus in MVH are grouped together in the Menu bar. Each menu opens a drop-down containing a number of options. These menus are covered in the Menus section. Tool bar The Tool bar provides quick access to the most commonly used tools in MVH. Function Shortcut Use Ctrl+S Save the current Home

22 Change the cursor to the Selection tool Change the cursor to the Interact tool. Many objects in MVH have actions that can be triggered via the Interact tool, e.g. doors open and close, fans spin, lights turn on\off Select a material or component of the current selected object Ctrl+Z MVH records your last 20 changes in the MVH History. Move back 1 step in the history Ctrl+Y MVH records your last 20 changes in the MVH History. Move forward 1 step in the MVH history Show \ hide the roof. The roof is always shown when in the walkthrough camera mode Show the Home Properties in the right panel The Tool bar also features the MVH Home Level Controls. Current Level Open dropdown menu Levels currently in the home, click to select as active level. Dropdown menu Level actions Basement actions Camera Controls Rotate Camera Highlight indicates active camera mode Zoom Camera Modes Move Camera Zoom Camera zoom functionality only works in the Plan and Isometric camera modes, you cannot

23 zoom in the Walkthrough camera mode. Function Alternatives Use Zoom in Mouse-wheel forward Home key Mouse-wheel backwards Zoom out Insert key To zoom the camera in on an object to view the object very closely you can use Focus Mode. To enter Focus mode: left-click the object to select it right-click the object to view the context menu OR view the Actions section of the Customise tab select Focus camera on object To exit Focus mode: view the context menu OR view the Actions section of the Customise tab select Leave object focus mode Camera Modes Icon Plan Mode use to layout your rooms Mode Isometric Mode a standard architectural 3D model of your home and contents Walkthrough Mode a realistic representation of walking through your home. Note: walls are 'locked' and may not be edited in this mode. Rotate \ Tilt the Camera You can rotate the camera using any of the icons in the outer-ring of the camera controls or from their associated keyboard shortcuts, but some rotations are only available from some camera modes.

24 Plan Mode Rotate Clockwise Rotate Anti-clockwise Note: holding down the right mouse button and using the mouse will allow you to move the workspace in relation to the camera while in the Plan or Isometric camera mode. Isometric and Walkthrough Modes Tilt up Rotate Left Rotate Right Tilt Down Free-look Mode In the Walkthrough camera mode you can enter a free-look mode in which you can point the camera in any direction. You can access free-look by holding down the right-mouse button. Then simply move your mouse to point the camera in the direction of the movement. Move Camera You can move the camera using any of the icons in the inner-ring of the camera controls or from their associated keyboard shortcuts. Move Forwards Move Left Move Right Move Backwards Note: remember that holding down the right mouse button and using the mouse will allow you to point the camera in any direction while in the Walkthrough camera mode.

25 Walkthrough Mode MVH s Walkthrough camera mode is great way to appreciate and to showcase your home designs. It is also the ideal camera mode for fine tuning the placement of furniture and applying materials such as paint, tiles and carpet. The Walkthrough mode, as the name suggests, allows you to walk through your home. Walking & Turning You can use the (up arrow) and (down arrow) keys while holding down the Right Mouse Button to move the camera and change the direction that the camera is facing at the same time. Press and hold the Right Mouse Button. Press and hold the (up arrow) key to move forward. Move the mouse to the left or right to change direction while moving. This method of moving is very useful and quickly becomes a natural way to navigate your home. Walking Through Walls Be default, the camera cannot move through a wall when in walkthrough mode. In some situations you may wish to be able to move freely throughout your home without this restriction; to do so hold down the Shift key while moving. Likewise, closed doors will block your path. These too can be bypassed by holding down the Shift key while moving or by opening the door. Doors may be opened by a number of methods, including: Double-clicking the door Right-click to activate the doors context menu and then select Open Door Left click the door to select it then select Open Door from the Actions section of the Customise tab Select the Interact tool from the Tool Bar, then click the door to open it. Resetting the camera If at any time you become los, the Backspace key on your keyboard will reset the camera position. If you are still lost, then press the Spacebar to change to a different camera mode. Left Panel The User Interface (UI) panel on the left of the MVH window contains the MVH catalogues; the Homes, Rooms, Fixtures, Furniture and Materials (paints, carpets fabrics etc.) which can be used to build and decorate your home.

26 Whenever you want to place a room or object into your home, you will find it in the left-panel. Expand \ Collapse Category Reset Breadcrumbs Fade Panel Tabs Catalogue Expand \ Collapse Feature Expand \ Collapse Category Reset Fade Panel Tabs Use Click to expand and collapse the tab Click to set the catalogue back to the root categories Click to toggle the Panel Fade feature. When active, the panel will fade out when the mouse leaves the panel and fade in when you mouse over the panel. Click to change tabs Browse browse and select objects from the catalogue Build Help a quick guide through the basic steps of building a home in MVH Search search the MVH Catalogue for objects to place, or search the MVH Directory for the businesses in your area associated with those products Catalogue Breadcrumbs Click to browse categories. Click a Home, Room or product to select it Describes your current location within the catalogue and can be used to jump between categories. See the Breadcrumbs section for details. Breadcrumbs The MVH Catalogues contain many thousands of products, including entire furnished homes

27 and everything to put into a home from a bathroom to a single piece of cutlery, photo-frame or door handle. These objects are sorted into categories and placed into catalogues; the breadcrumbs feature in the left-panel is used to indicate your current location within a catalogue. The Reset Catalogue icon will return you to the root (start) level of any catalogue you are viewing. Your current category is always the right-most entry in the breadcrumb trail, and the contents of this category are displayed below the breadcrumbs. Parent categories describe the path from the root of the catalogue, to your currently selected category. A maximum of three (3) parent categories are displayed at any time and these categories are links back to that category. click on a parent category to navigate back to that category In the example below, we have: selected the Furniture and Electrical category from within that, selected the Furniture category from within that selected the Bedding category and finally, from within that selected the Single Beds category Parent Categories Current Category Reset Catalogue Category Contents The contents of the Single Beds category are displayed.

28 Notifications Bar The notifications bar displays confirmation and information messages relating to your current actions. Download Progress Bar Charts the progress of downloading files for the rooms and objects that you place in your home. Lightmapping Progress Bar This bar charts the progress of lightmapping each room and outdoor area within your home. Lightmapping can be set to occur automatically from within the MVH Preferences, but can always be triggered manually by clicking the Start button next to the progress bar. Once Lightmapping has begun: the Start button becomes a Clear button which removes all lightmaps when clicked. mouse over the progress bar to reveal details regarding the current lightmap target Current Lightmap Target Lightmapping Progress Start Lightmapping \ Clear all lightmaps Right Panel The right panel offers detailed information on every object (home, room, fixture, furniture and material) in the MVH Catalogue and the ability to customise these objects to your satisfaction. The right panel offers the same panel controls as the left:

29 Fade Panel Expand \ Collapse Tabs Expand \ Collapse Feature Expand \ Collapse Fade Panel Tabs Tab Contents Use Click to expand and collapse the tab Click to toggle the Panel Fade feature. When active, the panel will fade out when the mouse leaves the panel and fade in when you mouse over the panel. Click to change tabs, each tab contains different contents This are provides the information and functionality available for the currently selected object. Info Tab The Info Tab provides product information specific to the currently selected object.

30 Object Name Manufacturer \ Supplier Object Name Description MVH Directory Search Feature Object Name Manufacturer \ Supplier Description MVH Directory Search Use The full name of the currently selected object The business logo of the Manufacturer \ Supplier of the currently selected object. Clicking the logo will open your default web browser and then load the Manufacturer s MVH Directory page. The full description of the currently selected object. Search for businesses, related to the currently selected object, which operate in your local area. Customise Tab The Customise Tab allows you to interact with and modify the selected object. The contents of this tab are separated into collapsible sections. Actions Properties Feature Use Various ways to interact with the currently selected object. Click an action button to interact with the current object All editable properties for the selected object are presented here. Components Materials All editable components are presented. Click a component slot to change the current component All editable Materials are presented. Click a material slot to change the current material

31 Actions Click to interact with the selected object Click to Expand \ Collapse Properties Modify to suit

32 Click a component slot to change it Components

33 Materials Click a material slot to change it Click the Paintbrush tool to select this material. Use the Paintbrush to apply the selected material to other objects in the home Alternatives The Alternatives tab is a quick method to replace one object in the workspace with another. The alternatives tab will show all categories which contain objects that are similar to the currently selected object. These categories can then be browsed and a replacement object selected. Once selected, the chosen replacement is automatically placed into the workspace, replacing the previous object. Note: The Alternatives tab is not available when you have selected one of the following MVH Object Types: - MVH Home - MVH Room Workspace The MVH Workspace is your window into the MyVirtualHome world; a place where you can design, build, renovate and decorate homes and gardens then share these creations with other users, businesses and tradespersons. Objects, be they couches, doors, bathrooms or entire homes, are selected from the catalogue

34 and placed into the workspace. Once in the workspace they can be customised to suit your needs. Context Menu The context menu offers a range of commonly actions specific to each room or object in MVH at the click of a button. To view the context menu for an object (or room): right-click the object Note: right-click means to click the object with the right mouse button instead of the left mouse button. The majority of the options presented in this menu are actions, and as such can also be found in the Actions section of the Customise tab. Typical MVH Room Context Menu

35 Loading and Saving Homes Starting a New Home When you run MVH you are initially presented with a clear workspace, ready to build a new home. At any time while using MVH you can return to this state by: File Menu > New Home or Ctrl+N If there are any objects in the workspace when you select New Home, then you will be presented with a dialog asking if you would like to save the existing home before starting a new home. Note: if this dialog does not appear it means that no changes had been made to the existing home since the last time it was saved. Starting a new home will not cause you to lose any of your previous work. Loading Homes Loading an existing home will place the home on your workspace and place the camera in the position it was when the loaded home was last saved. Homes can be loaded from your local MVH Homes directory on your computer, from the MVH HomeShare server or from the Homes section of the MVH Catalogue. Loading a Home from the Catalogue MVH v2.1 introduced Homes is the MVH catalogue. The homes presented are those from commercial Home Designers, Developers and Builders; these are real homes available for purchase. Many of the homes provide in the catalogue come in two varieties, furnished and unfurnished and all are constructed to specifications provided by the Home Designer. The furnished homes have been furnished and decorated to showcase the great features of the home and many are copies of existing display homes. Note: due to the number of objects present in these fully furnished homes, the homes may take a few minutes to load the first time as some files will need to be downloaded from the MVH Data Server. Any subsequent loads of the home will be much quicker. Unfurnished homes are just that complete but unfurnished. These homes have been fully constructed and all fixtures (doors, windows, fixed cupboards etc) have been added; the home

36 is built and ready for your furnishings and decorations. To load a home from the catalogue simply browse the catalogue and click a home to select it. You will be presented with a loading screen that offers a preview image and some basic details about the home and a progress bar which details the progress of the loading process. Loading a Locally Saved Home Locally saved homes are homes that you have saved to your computer. Usually these are homes which you have created yourself but these can be homes that you have loaded from the MVH Catalogue or from the MVH HomeShare Server and then resaved locally. To load a locally saved home you can: File Menu > Load Home OR Ctrl+O This will open a standard windows dialog allowing you to browse your computer to the location in which you saved your home. Usually this is in your My Documents \ MyVirtualHome folder. Use the dialog to locate the home you wish to load, select the home and click OK. Loading a Home from HomeShare HomeShare is an MVH feature which allows you to share your homes with other MVH users. This allows you to showcase your designs, communicate your expectations with tradespersons and view the designs of others. For more details on HomeShare, see the section titled MVH HomeShare. To load a Home from the MVH HomeShare Server: select File > Load from HomeShare This will open the HomeShare dialog which features two tabs: My Shared Homes a list of the homes that you have saved to HomeShare

37 Search for other shared homes a search dialog where you can search for homes that other users have saved to HomeShare To load a home that you have saved to HomeShare: browse the list of homes in the My Shared Homes tab click Open to load the home into the workspace To load someone else s home from HomeShare: select the Search for other shared homes tab enter the HomeShare Code for the desired home and click Search browse the results of the search select the home to load and click Open Recovering lost work By default, MVH saves your home every 10minutes, in this way if your system crashes during an editing session, there will be an AutoSave file that contains most of the lost work. After restarting MVH: press Ctrl+O to display the Load dialog OR select the AutoSave.home file located in your My Documents > MyVirtualHome folder click Open Saving Homes Any home that you build can be saved and then accessed again at a later date. Homes may be saved locally to your computer, or, to the MVH HomeShare Server and from there shared with other MVH users Saving a Home Locally You can save any home that you create to your computer to be accessed at a later time. You can also save a copy of other homes that you have loaded from the catalogue or from the MVGH HomeShare Server. Note: when you save a home a screenshot of your home is taken to use as the preview image for the home. You may wish to position the camera in a particular mode or focus on a particular feature prior to saving the home. To save a home locally to your computer: File Menu > Save

38 OR Ctrl+S This will open a standard windows dialog allowing you to browse your computer to the location in which you want to save your home. By default, the dialog will open with the location you last used to save a home. browse to the location in which you wish to save the home enter a name from the home click Save Once you have saved a home for the first time, any subsequent saves will not show the Save dialog, instead MVH will just save your home to same location with the same name. To save the home under a different name or ina different location see the topic, Copying a Saved Home. Deleting a saved home You can delete your locally saved homes from your operating system s file browser, simply: open your file browser navigate to the saved homes directory (typically this is My Documents \ MyVirtualHome) select the file and hit the Delete key You can delete homes that you have saved to HomeShare by: opening the HomeShare Dialog (File > Load from HomeShare) browse your shared homes and click the Delete button associated with the home you wish to delete Copying Homes Copying a Saved Home You can make a copy of one of your locally saved MVH homes by using your operating system s file browser. Simply navigate to the directory in which you save your Homes and make a copy of the home file as you would any other file. You can also do this from within MVH by: loading the home File > Save Home as... This will open the normal Save Home dialog allowing you to select a location in, and name under, which to save the home. Copying a Catalogue or HomeShare Home You may wish to load an unfurnished home from the catalogue or a HomeShare home and

39 then see how it looks with your furniture inside. Simply load the home and: File Menu > Save OR Ctrl+S This will open a standard windows dialog allowing you to browse your computer to the location in which you want to save your home. By default, the dialog will open with the location you last used to save a home. browse to the location in which you wish to save the home enter a name from the home click Save MVH HomeShare HomeShare is a feature that allows you to save your home to the MVH HomeShare server and from there other MVH users can access your home. When your home is saved to HomeShare it is assigned a unique HomeShare code. Sharing this code with someone else allows them to download, view, and if you allow it, edit your home. If another user downloads your home, edits the home and then attempts to save your home back to the HomeShare server, then they are assigned a new HomeShare Code ensuring that your original version is always safe for future reference. Note: you are the only person that can ever modify or delete the home that you have saved to HomeShare. HomeShare is: a great way to share your design ideas with friends, family and teachers a quick and simple way to share your vision and expectations with tradespersons a powerful way to showcase your home designs to potential home purchasers, wherever they are at any time of day If you are a manufacturer (or salesperson) of items that are available in MVH, then you can even use HomeShare to present a virtual showroom full of your products. This option is best used in conjunction with HomeShare Links. HomeShare Codes When you save a home to HomeShare, the home is assigned a unique HomeShare Code. This code is displayed in the HomeShare dialog once the save is complete. This code may be shared with other MyVirtualHome users, enabling them to download, view and edit a copy of your home. HomeShare Code HomeShare Links HomeShare Links are Copy HomeShare Link

40 similar to HomeShare Codes in that they allow you to share homes that have been saved to HomeShare. A HomeShare Link is created along with the HomeShare Code whenever a home is saved to the HomeShare Server. This link can be added to an or website or as you would any other hyperlink, or the text of the link can be printed on a flyer or brochure and users can type the link into their web browser. If the user doesn t have MyVirtualHome installed, they will be taken to a webpage describing what MyVirtualHome is and where they can get it. If the user has MVH installed, then clicking link will launch MVH and, once they have logged in, load the home.

41 Building a Home

42 Floorplans Floorplans can be used to guide your build in order to quickly construct an accurate model of a real home. Note: floorplans are entirely optional; you do not require a floorplan to build a home in MVH. But if you have one, they are a great place to start. MVH can use almost any image as a floorplan so you can scan your paper floorplan or photograph it and import that into MVH. Most home builders and designers can now offer an electronic version of their floorplans for you to view on your PC and there are many websites which offer floorplans for download. Loading a Floorplan Almost any image can be loaded into MVH to be used as a floorplan. MVH may make some changes to the image in order to handle the floorplan; the image may be resized and rendered in gray-scale (no colour) once it is in MVH. Note: no changes are actually made to the image, only to the way the image is presented in MVH. To load a floorplan: select File > Load Floorplan This will open a dialog allowing you to browse your computer to find your floorplan. Once you have located your floorplan: select the floorplan and click Open This will import your floorplan into MVH. Resizing a Floorplan The first and most important thing to do when working with floorplans is to ensure they are to correct scale. When you placed the floorplan, two survey pages were also placed. Between the two pegs is a yellow measurement line which displays the current distance between the two pegs. This measurement is updated as you drag a peg.mvh provides two survey pegs as an aide when setting the scale. select one of these survey pegs and drag it to one edge of a measurement on the floorplan

43 drag the other peg to the other end of the selected floorplan measurement Chances are that the measurement between the survey pegs doesn t match that of the floorplan. We need to resize the floorplan so that these two measurements match; to do this: select one a corner of the floorplan and drag it to resize the plan until the floorplan measurement matches the survey peg measurement Your floor plan is now to the correct scale. From this point forth, the dimensions in MyVirtualHome will match the dimensions on your floor plan. Rotating a Floorplan Floorplans, like all other MVH objects have a rotation handle which is visible when the object is selected. click the floorplan to select it click and drag the rotation handle to rotate the floorplan release the mouse button to stop rotating the floorplan This will rotate the floorplan in 5 increments, finer adjustments can be made by holding the Ctrl key while rotating. Floorplans can also be flipped in 90 increments by using the < and > keys on your keyboard to rotate anti-clockwise and clockwise respectively. Locking a Floorplan Once your floorplan has been resized it is a good idea to lock the floorplan to prevent accidentally moving or resizing the floorplan. To lock your floorplan: select Edit > Lock\Unlock click the Floorplan icon to lock your floorplan Unlocked Locked Note: when using a floorplan it is useful to hide floors to aid in aligning the rooms with the floorplan. To hide floors: - select Options > Show\Hide - click the Show\hide Floor icon to hide the floors Floorplans & Multi-Level Homes When building a multi-level home you may have floorplans for each level. A single floorplan can be placed for each level of the home. To place a floorplan on a specific level: use the level controls to select that level select File > Load Floorplan

44 browse to the location of the desired floorplan and click to select click Open You may notice that floorplans placed on the upper levels of homes are slightly transparent allowing you to see the rooms that lie on the level below. This allows you to align the floorplan with the floor below. Transparent Upper-Level Floorplan The MVH Home property Force opaque floorplans can be set to prevent floorplans from be presented in the translucent state. To set this property: Ground Level Floorplan click the Home Properties icon on the Toolbar scroll down Properties section of the Customise tab until you locate the Force opaque floorplans property and click to select it Note: rooms placed on upper levels will snap to align themselves with rooms on the level below as well as those on the same level to assist in room placement. Snapping behaviour can be overridden by holding the Ctrl key while placing the room. Hiding Floorplans Once placed, floorplans can be hidden at any time. This may be useful when you are designing outdoors. To hide floorplans: select Options > Show\Hide click the Show\Hide Floorplans icon Floorplans can be made visible once more by clicking this icon again. Deleting Floorplans To delete a floorplan: click the floorplan hit Delete on your keyboard OR right click the floorplan and select Delete Object from the context menu Placing a North Marker MVH accurately calculates the position of the sun in the sky as well as the intensity and the

45 quality of sun-light for any location on Earth. The aspect of a home greatly affects amount of natural light that a room will receive and in order to determine the aspect of a home, you will need to place a North Marker. Note: if a North Marker is not placed, then MVH considers north to be in the direction of the top of the screen when a new home is created. To place a North Marker: select Measurements > Place North Marker move the mouse to position the marker and click to place the marker into the workspace North Marker rotate the North Marker as required by dragging the marker s rotation handle Some floor plans indicate the direction to true north; this is usually the case for floorplans of homes already built or ready to build. Rotation Handle A north marker s location in the workspace is not important, only the direction in which it is indicating north. Rooms and Walls In MVH, the Room is your core building component; think of it as a child s wooden block, you build a home by placing blocks next to and on top of each other. Some rooms are obvious, such as a Bedroom or Kitchen, others not so obvious, such as a Hallway, Built-in Wardrobe or Linen Cupboard. While most rooms are part of the indoor space, some rooms are considered to be outdoors, such as the Patio and Courtyard. All of these spaces are considered to be rooms. Rooms are very flexible and what you can do with one room, you can do with any other. If you have an idea for a space, be it inside or out, you can almost certainly realise your vision, just start with a room. The sunken garden below began life as an Entry Foyer. Most rooms in MVH are at least partially furnished. This allows you to recognise the room at a glance and most importantly, provides an immediate sense of scale. Most people do not know the width of their bedroom in metres but they do know how much room they on each side of the bed at least visually. Pre-furnished rooms provide you with this scale immediately, to give you an impression of the real size of the room and are great to work with when not using a floorplan. Note: a room cannot be placed inside another room.

46 Adding Rooms Rooms are located in the Rooms category of the MVH Catalogue. This category is a root (toplevel) category so it can be accessed quickly from anywhere in the catalogue by clicking the reset catalogue button. click the Rooms category to view the category contents The rooms are grouped into various categories to allow you to quickly locate the type of room you are looking for. browse the categories and click a room The room is then attached to the mouse cursor. If MVH needs to download any files for the room (or its contents) then the room is displayed as a crate until the download is complete. The download progress is displayed in the Download Progress Bar in the lower right of the MVH window. Once the room is attached to the mouse you can move the mouse to drag the room around the workspace. If other rooms have already been placed in the workspace you may notice that the room attached to the cursor will snap Room is shown once download complete The room is shown as a crate while downloading to the edges of existing rooms and snap to be in-line with the edges of existing rooms. This is to assist in aligning or joining rooms. hold Ctrl while moving the mouse to override this snapping behaviour Note: Rooms cannot be placed on top of another object on the same home level. Moving Rooms Once placed into the workspace rooms can be moved in the same manner that all MVH objects are moved: click the floor of the room to select it and continue to hold down the left-mouse button, the cursor will change to the move cursor Note: if the room contains furniture, be sure to click the floor and not the furniture. Move Cursor The selected object can always be recognised by the blue highlight room drag the mouse to move the selected release the mouse to place the room

47 Moving rooms between levels in the home Homes in MVH can consist of multiple levels, five above ground levels and a single basement level. Rooms can be easily moved between levels of the home by: right-click the room to show the room s context menu select Move Above or Move Room Below to move the room to another level Note: these options (like most options in the context menu) are also available in the Actions section of the Customise tab. This action will move the room to the selected level. If the level does not currently exist, the level is created and then the room is moved to the new level. If the level already exists the Rooms cannot be moved between levels if the move would cause the room to collide with another object, if this is the case the action is not available. Rotating Rooms Rooms, like all other MVH objects have a rotation handle which is visible when the object is selected. click the room to select it click and drag the rotation handle to rotate the room release the mouse button to stop rotating the room This will rotate the room in 5 increments, finer adjustments can be made by holding the Ctrl key while rotating. Rooms can also be flipped in 90 increments by using the < and > keys on your keyboard to rotate anti-clockwise and clockwise respectively. The room will not rotate if the new orientation would cause the room to overlap another room or object already in the workspace. Cut, Copy and Paste Rooms The basic editing tools of Cut, Copy and Paste can be applied to rooms in just the same manner that they are applied to other objects in your MVH Home. These tools are considered to be Actions in MVH, so in addition to being available from the Edit menu in the Menu Bar they can also be found: in the context menu (right-click an object, room to view it s context menu) in the Actions section of the Customise tab (available after the object has been selected) Cut a Room When you cut a room the room is removed from the workspace but a copy of the room is held in the clipboard. The room can be returned to the workspace via the Paste action.

48 Restrictions you cannot cut a room that is snapped to another doors and windows are removed when the room is cut Copy a Room When you copy a room, a copy of the room is held in the clipboard and can be returned to the workspace via the Paste action. Restrictions you cannot copy a room that is snapped to another doors and windows are removed from the copy of the room, the original room is unaffected Paste a Room The Paste action copies the contents of the clipboard and attaches this to the mouse cursor, ready to be placed into the workspace. If the clipboard contains a room, then the room is attached to the mouse cursor, ready for placement. The normal rules and restrictions regarding the placement of rooms applies. Aligning Rooms Aligning Rooms with a Floorplan Prior to placing rooms on a floorplan you should ensure that you have: used the survey pegs to resize the floorplan to the correct scale locked the floorplan to avoid accidently moving it during the building process placed the camera in the Plan mode to better view the floorplan It is easy to select rooms and place them on the floorplan, but even a few centimetres out can make a difference a few rooms later. To assist you in placing rooms as accurately as possible when using a floorplan, MVH allows you to temporarily hide the floors of rooms so you can see the floorplan underneath. To do this: from the Menu Bar select Options > Show\Hide... click the Show\Hide Floors button, click Close then The floors are now hidden and you can see the floorplan beneath the room. Aligning Rooms with other Rooms When placing rooms you will notice that as you move the room about the workspace the room occasionally snaps to a point in the workspace. These snapping lines coincide with:

49 a parallel wall of another room the mid-point of a perpendicular wall of another room Snap-lines of the new room Snap-lines of existing rooms Snapping occurs when a snap-line of the room being moved aligns with a snap-line of an existing room. Joining Rooms Homes in MVH are built by joining one room to another. Joining one room to another in order to build a home in MVH is, quite literally, a snap. place a few rooms into the workspace select one room and drag it towards another When the two rooms are quite close together, the room you are dragging will jump the remaining distance and snap to the other room. When two rooms snap together: exterior walls become interior, plasterboard walls any doors or windows that were located where any two walls snapped are removed The change from external to internal wall impacts many things in MVH including the way lighting is calculated for the rooms, the availability of doors and windows for the affected walls, and the shape of the roof. Sometimes two walls can appear to be snapped when they are not. MVH uses flashing, red nodes to indicate this issue..

50 If this occurs you will need to either: drag one of the affected walls towards the other until the snap occurs; this will affect (slightly) the room dimensions OR select one of the rooms and reposition it to achieve the snap Resizing and Reshaping Rooms Using Nodes Rooms are quickly and easily resized in MVH. The main control points for a room are the Nodes of the room. A node is created where two or more walls intersect and are indicated by a translucent blue cube. Nodes can be selected and then dragged like any other object in MVH and by doing so you can resize and reshape a room. Note: nodes where 3 or more walls intersect cannot be dragged. place a room and click a node to select it drag the node to resize the room release the mouse when done Select the node and drag to resize \ reshape the room You may notice a couple of things while doing this: 1. that the room dimensions are shown while you are dragging the node 2. that the angle of the walls that form the node does not change a 90 corner remains a 90 corner To change the angle between two walls: select the node use the node s selection handle to drag the node away from the centre of the room to reduce the angle OR use the node s selection handle to drag the node towards from the centre of the room to increase the angle

51 Select the nodes rotation handle and drag to change the angle between walls Using Walls Rooms can also be resized and reshaped using the walls of the room. When using nodes to resize a room you will notice that it is very easy to resize the room in two dimensions (length and width) but not so easy to resize the room in just one; it can be a little tricky to make a room longer without changing how wide it is. Wall Selected If you want to change modify a room s size and shape in just one dimension it is much easier to accomplish using a wall than it is a node. When using walls, you select a wall to use as a handle and then drag the handle- wall; the handle doesn t change size, but the two walls attached to the handle do. place a room click a wall to select it Ensure that only the wall is selected, you can confirm this by the blue border that surrounds the selected object and by the name of the selected object at the top of the right panel. Drag the handle-wall to alter the length of the walls that are attached to it The length of each affected wall is shown and is automatically adjusted as you drag the handle-wall. Drag the selected wall to resize the walls attached to it

52 release the mouse button when done Splitting Walls ( L Shaped Rooms) Most rooms in MVH are either square or rectangular in shape when they are placed into the workspace, but they do not need to stay that way. By splitting walls you in effect turn a single wall into two separate walls. To split a wall: right-click the wall show the wall s context menu select Split Wall from the menu Note: splitting walls is another action so you will also find it in the Actions section of the Customise tab. You will notice that splitting a wall adds a node halfway along the wall creating two wall segments. Each segment can be selected separately and treated as an individual wall. To reshape the room: select one of the wall segments drag the wall to reshape the room In some instances walls are automatically split when you snap rooms together, you may have noticed already. This occurs when a node from one room is snapped to a wall of another. Before snapping the selected wall consists of a single segment After snapping the selected wall is split into two segments. These can be edited separately. Restrictions to Resizing and Reshaping Rooms You cannot resize a room such that the furniture within the room no longer fits. Note: if you attempt to do this, the furniture will be hi-lit red to indicate the problem. You

53 may need to move, replace or delete the furniture to achieve the room size\shape you are after. Furniture can be quickly removed from a room using the room action Clear Furniture located in both the context menu and the Actions section of the Customise tab. No single room can cover an area larger than 40m 2 No single wall can be longer than 50m No wall can be shorter than 4.5cm No internal wall angle can be less than 5 o No internal wall angle can be greater than 345 o Interior and Exterior Walls Whether or not a wall is considered to be an interior wall or an exterior wall is quite important in MVH. The nature of the wall impacts many things in MVH including the way lighting is calculated for the rooms, the availability of doors and windows for the affected walls, and the shape of the roof. A wall is considered to be exterior when it borders the home i.e. there is no room, only the outdoors, on one side of the wall Outdoor rooms are rooms that have a gap in an exterior wall. This gap can be due to a hidden wall, a half-height wall or the wall type (e.g. balustrade walls). Note: doors and windows are not considered a gap in wall, even when they are open. A wall is also considered to be an exterior wall when it borders an outdoor room. (WALL A) a balustrade wall, making the room to the left of it an outdoor space and it an external wall. (WALL B) has a deleted wall, making the room to the left of it an outdoor space and it an external wall. (WALL C) features a half-height wall, making the room to the left of it an outdoor space and it an external wall. (WALLS D & F) both border an outdoor space making them external walls. (WALL E) does not border an outdoor space and is therefore the only interior wall (WALL A) is a full brick wall. It is an unbroken external wall making the room to the left of in an interior wall. (WALLS B, C, D, & E) are all interior walls

54 Windows can only be placed on exterior walls Exterior doors can only be placed on exterior walls Interior doors can only be placed on interior walls all door and window placement restrictions may be overridden by holding down the Ctrl key while placing or moving the door \ window Deleting Walls (Open Plan Spaces) Walls in MVH are never really deleted, instead they are hidden. Any wall can be hidden by: right click the wall to show the context menu select Hide Wall OR click the wall to select it select Hide wall from the Actions section of the Customise tab If you have Auto. place doors and windows set in the MVH Preferences, then the hiding of walls may sometimes occur automatically. In this instance MVH may remove walls that separate one Hallway from another or a Hallway from an Entry Foyer Half-Height Walls Whether or not a wall is a half-height

55 wall is considered to be a property of the wall. As such, once you have selected the wall you can find the Half Height Wall setting in the Properties section of the Customise tab. To set a wall as a half-height wall: select the wall browse the Properties section of the Customise tab select Half height wall Once set, a new property, Wall height, is made available. enter a height for the half-height wall Multi-Level Homes MVH allows you to build multiple-level homes; five levels above ground and a single basement level. When you start a new home and begin to place rooms and objects, everything is placed onto the Terrain, the ground level. When you add a new level to MVH it is as if you had made an invisible copy of the terrain and laid it on top the existing rooms. You may then select the new level and place an additional floorplan or start to add rooms without any concern for them falling through to the level below, even when there is nothing below to support them, but objects other than rooms are a little different. Many objects do not care about home levels; instead they are primarily concerned with a surface such as the terrain, the floor of a room, a bench-top, the ceiling or a wall. If you place a couch, it will simply drop until it encounters a floor or, failing that, the terrain. When placing a ceiling fan you will notice that it can only be placed on a ceiling, if you attempt to place it outside of a room with a ceiling it will simply disappear. Note: the ceiling height of a level is determined by the height of the walls of that level. This height is maintained across all walls on a level, if you modify the height of a wall, then that change is reflected in all (non-half-height) walls on that level. The Level Controls in the Tool Bar indicate the level of the home that you are currently working on and provide the tools to manage the various level of your home.

56 Level Controls Current Level Open dropdown menu Levels currently in the home, click to select as active level. Dropdown Menu Level actions Basement actions Adding a Level Levels are always added to the top of the home, you cannot insert a new level into the middle of a home. To add a new level to your home you can either: Click the level control to open the dropdown menu Select Add a new top level OR place a room on your existing top level move that room to level above (creating the new level in the process) via the rooms context menu or the Actions section in the Customise tab Adding a Basement Basements are always added below the ground floor of the home. To add a basement level to your home you can either: Click the level control to open the dropdown menu Select Add a basement OR place a room on your ground level move that room to level below (creating the basement level in the process) via the rooms context menu or the Actions section in the Customise tab There is also a setting in the MVH Preferences that, when set, will automatically add a Basement level to every new home you create. This preference may be set by: selecting the Options menu select Edit Preferences from the General tab select Include basement by default and click OK

57 Note: only a single basement level may be included in each home. Removing a Level Levels are always removed from the top of the home down; you cannot remove a level from the middle of a home. Note: prior to deleting the topmost level of your home you must delete all rooms on the level. To remove the top level of your home: Click the level control to open the dropdown menu Select Remove the Topmost level Removing a Basement To remove the basement level of your home: Click the level control to open the dropdown menu Select Remove the basement Note: prior to deleting the basement level of your home you must delete all rooms on that level. Moving Between Levels in the Home While you can use the Level Controls to select a level on which to build Stairs Stairs are located within the Structural & Fixtures category and may be placed both inside and outside the home. Stairs can be placed in any camera mode and can be used (you can walk up \ down the stairs) in Walkthrough mode. The default stairs can be modified to fit your needs with a range of settings in the Properties section of the Customise tab. Stairs in MVH auto-generate banisters, railings and landings and these can be modified as required, again from the Customise tab. The default Stairs in MVH are separated into categories based on the ceiling height of the room that you will be placing the stairs in. These stairs also have a property, Auto Set Height which, when set, will ensure that your stairs adjust to any changes in the ceiling height. Camera Modes & Level Controls If you have a multiple level home but are yet to place stairs, then you can use Camera modes to move between home levels. In either Plan mode or Isometric mode, the Level Controls are enabled and can be used to select a level to focus upon; this is how you select a default level for new room placements. Once a level has been selected. entering Walkthrough mode will place the user on the selected level.

58 Void Floors The most common form a void floor is the straight staircase stairwell, but void floors in MVH can also be used to create particular bulkhead arrangements, and high ceilings in a specific room. The Void Floor property can be set on any upper level room with a floor that sits entirely over one or more rooms (i.e. the room doesn t stick out from the side of the home, has no overhangs). Like all properties, Void Floor can be set from the Properties section of the Customise tab. Doors and Windows Doors and Windows are part of MVH s Structural and Fitting category of the catalogue. Unlike many items the furnishing category, doors and windows cannot be placed wherever you like; they require a wall. Because of this doors and windows do not spend much time attached to your cursor once you select them in the catalogue, instead the jump to the wall nearest your mouse cursor. As you move your mouse cursor around the workspace you will notice that the door (or window) follows the mouse as best it can but tends to stay attached to wall whenever possible. There are two main points to consider when choosing doors and windows to place in your MVH home and they: is the wall they are going on internal or external wall will they fit on the wall Internal and External Walls The Doors category is split into two main sub-categories: Internal Doors External Doors Internal doors can only be placed on internal walls and external doors can only be placed on external walls. Since internal and external walls can sometimes be a little tricky to distinguish in MVH each type of door will only snap to the correct type of wall, making it much easier to place the item. For further details on internal and external walls, see the Interior and Exterior Walls section.

59 Ceiling Height The height of the ceiling is uniform across all rooms on a particular level of the home (but can vary between levels) and can restrict the selection of doors and windows that can be placed on the walls of that level. Ceiling height is a room Property so it can be accessed by: click a room to select it browse the Properties section of the Customise tab for Level Ceiling Height As this property is shared amongst all rooms on a level, setting this value for any one room will set the value for all rooms on that level of the home. Once set, any rooms added to this level are automatically adjusted to have the same ceiling height. Note: interior \ exterior door and window placement restrictions may be overridden by holding down the Ctrl key while placing or moving the door \ window. Doors Placing a Door To place a door: select Structural and Fixtures > Doors & Windows > Doors in the catalogue Note: if you cannot see the Structural and Fixtures category, then reset the catalogue using the button above the catalogue. browse the categories and click the door of your choice The door is loaded into the workspace and attached to the nearest, valid wall (for the selected door type) to your mouse cursor. move the mouse to relocate the door as required click to place the door If the door is placed correctly, the door has snapped to the wall and has cut a hole in the wall creating the doorway for you to walk through. If the door has been placed but the wall has not been cut and no doorway has been created, then the door is not snapped to the wall.

60 Click the door and move the mouse to have the door snap to the wall. If the door refuses to snap to the wall it is because the wall is not a valid location for the door, due to at least one of the following reasons: The door is too tall for the level ceiling height. Select another door or adjust the ceiling height The door is too wide to be placed on the selected wall. Select another door or adjust the length of the target wall. You are attempting to place either an internal door on an external wall or an external door on an internal wall. Select the correct door type for the target wall. Note: interior \ exterior door placement restrictions may be overridden by holding down the Ctrl key while placing or moving the door. In this way, exterior doors can be placed on interior walls and vice-versa. Moving a Door click the door to select it drag the door with the mouse The door will not stay attached to the mouse cursor as will most objects; instead it will travel around the walls of the home staying as close to the mouse cursor as it can. release the mouse button to place the door Replacing a Door Once placed, doors can be easily and quickly switched for an alternate door. This is especially useful if you have Auto. place doors and windows active. select the door select the Alternatives tab in the right panel

61 browse the categories and click a replacement door to select it The replacement door is automatically placed into the scene in the same location as the original door. A Door s Opening Direction As in the real world, doors in MVH can be set to open inwards or outwards and be hinged on either the left or right side. To alter the direction in which the door opens: click the door to select it hit the Enter key on your keyboard Customising a Door Doors are an integral aspect of your home and come in a great many varieties and once placed you will find that doors, having a number of component and material slots, can be quite heavily customised. Like all objects in MVH, customisation can be done by modifying the Properties of the object as well as the contents of the various Component and Material slots. These settings are all available from the Customise tab once the object has been selected. You can use the Wrench and Paintbrush tools to apply select changes to other doors. Windows Placing a Window To place a Window: select Structural and Fixtures > Doors & Windows > Windows in the catalogue Note: if you cannot see the Structural and Fixtures category, then reset the catalogue using the button above the catalogue. browse the categories and click the window of your choice The window is loaded into the workspace and attached to the nearest, valid wall to your mouse cursor. move the mouse to relocate the window as required click to place the window If the window is placed correctly, the window has snapped to the wall and has cut a hole in the wall allowing you to see in\out the window. If the window has been placed but the wall has not been cut, then the window is not snapped to the wall.

62 Click the window and move the mouse to have the window snap to the wall. If the window refuses to snap to the wall it is because the wall is not a valid location for the window, due to at least one of the following reasons: The window is too tall for the level ceiling height. Select another window or adjust the ceiling height The window is too wide to be placed on the selected wall. Select another window or adjust the length of the target wall. You are attempting to place window on an internal wall. Select an appropriate wall or hold down the Ctrl key to override the placement restriction. Note: some window placement restrictions may be overridden by holding down the Ctrl key while placing or moving the door. In this way, exterior doors can be placed on interior walls and vice-versa. Moving a Window click the window to select it drag the window with the mouse The window will not stay attached to the mouse cursor as will most objects; instead it will travel around the walls of the home staying as close to the mouse cursor as it can. release the mouse button to place the window Replacing a Window Once placed, window can be easily and quickly switched for an alternate window. This is especially useful if you have Auto. place doors and windows active. select the window select the Alternatives tab in the right panel browse the categories and click a replacement window to select it The replacement window is automatically placed into the scene in the same location as the original window. Customising a window The placement, shape, size and style of windows contribute greatly to the overall feel of a

63 home and your MVH Homes are no different. The Windows category contains a very wide variety of windows and these may be fitted with binds, curtains Like all objects in MVH, customisation can be done by modifying the Properties of the object as well as the contents of the various Component and Material slots. These settings are all available from the Customise tab once the object has been selected. You can use the Wrench and Paintbrush tools to apply select changes to other windows. Stairs Stairs can be placed both inside and outside your Home and are used to link and move between the various levels in your home. Balusters, newels and railings are automatically generated for your stairs, and as you modify the size, shape and layout of a staircase, theses components adjust to suit your changes. Once a staircase has been placed in a room, the staircase then treated as contents of the room: copying the room copies the staircase as well deleting the room deletes the staircase If the staircase links room on different levels the staircase is considered contents of the room at the base of the stairs; no changes to rooms on the levels above will affect the position or layout of the stairs, but may affect the layout of the upper landing. Stairs are separated into categories to suit various standard ceiling heights. Once a staircase has been placed within a room, modifying the ceiling height for that level of the room will modify the staircase to suit Furnishings and Electrical Most rooms in MVH contain default furnishings to instantly give you a sense of scale, to provide instance recognition of the type or purpose of the room and because it looks nicer than the empty shell of a home. These default furnishings can be temporarily hidden or permanently removed at any time. Hide Furniture There are a couple of options to hide furniture; ghosted or hidden. ghosted furniture is shown as a transparent white outline allowing you to concentrate on other aspects of home building while still being aware of the location of furniture hidden furniture is not removed, but is made invisible The options to hide furniture can be found in the Show \ Hide dialog: select Options > Show\Hide The three options relating to furniture are: Furniture

64 Show furnishings Ghost furnishing furniture outlines are visible but details are hidden Hide furnishings These settings are applied to the entire home. Clear Furniture Clear Furniture is a room action that will delete all furniture and all non-structural fixtures from the selected room\rooms. This action can be undone via the Undo command (available in the Edit menu and the Toolbar) but once MVH has been closed, this action cannot be undone on any subsequent load of the home. Note: clear furniture will not delete structural fixtures such as doors, windows and serveries. Clear Furniture is a room action so it is available from the Context Menu (right-click the room) and from the Actions section of the Customise tab. You can select multiple rooms by holding the Shift key while clicking rooms to select them and them clear the furniture from all selected rooms with a single action. Note: individual items of furniture can be removed by selecting them and hitting Delete on your keyboard. Placing Furniture Furniture items are located in the Furniture & Electrical category of the MVH Catalogue. This category is a root (top-level) category so it can be accessed quickly from anywhere in the catalogue by clicking the reset catalogue button. click the Furniture & Electrical category to view the category contents The items are grouped into various categories to allow you to quickly locate the type of furniture you are looking for. browse the categories and click an item The item is then attached to the mouse cursor. If MVH needs to download any files for the item then the item is displayed as a crate until the download is complete. The download progress is displayed in the Download Progress Bar in the lower right of the MVH window. Once the item is attached to the mouse you can move the mouse to drag the item around the workspace. If rooms have already been placed in the workspace you may notice that the item will snap to the walls of the rooms. hold Ctrl while moving the mouse to override this snapping behaviour Some objects, such as paintings and mirrors, are placed on walls, these objects will snap to the nearest wall as you move the item around the workspace. Some objects, such as vases, free standing televisions and table lamps, can be placed on most horizontal surfaces. These surfaces include tables, dressers, bench-tops and the floor. While you are attempting to place an object, the object may sometimes be shown as ghosted

65 to indicate that the object cannot be placed in that location. Some objects can be placed on horizontal surfaces, such as shelves and benches Some objects can be placed on walls Removing Furniture Previously placed furniture may be removed by any of the following: selecting the item and hitting the Delete key on your keyboard right-clicking the object to access the Context Menu and selecting Delete object selecting the item and choosing Delete Object from the Actions section of the Customise tab selecting the item and choosing Edit > Delete selecting the item and hitting Ctrl+X on your keyboard (this method will place the object in your MVH clipboard and you can paste the object back into the scene if you like) Note: furniture can be temporarily hidden as well as permanently removed from the workspace. To hide furniture select Options > Show \ Hide See the section titled Hide Furniture for more details. Customising Furniture Most furniture items have editable Component and \ or Material slots. These slots contain a default component or material which you can edit to customise the item to suit your needs. Components are layout or structural changes to the item. Bathroom cabinets may have alternative drawer \ cupboard layouts and a kitchen cabinet may have a range of sink and tap layouts as well as various door handles. Object Name Slot Type Slot Name Materials refer to the surface type and colour; polished brass, carpet, decorative tiles and paints are all materials. To view an item s editable slots: click the item to select it select the Customise tab Slot Contents

66 Scroll down to the Component or Material section Each slot has a name to identify it and details the current contents of that slot. select a slot The bottom half of the Customise tab now shows selection of categories containing alternatives for that slot click to browse the categories and select an alternative to apply The item is immediately updated with your selection. click Back to Customise to return to the slots view Replacing Furniture with the Alternatives tab The majority of the rooms available in the MVH Catalogue are generic rooms furnished with generic furniture and electrical items. You may want to replace these generic items with real items available from local businesses. You may want to model your own home and populate it with the real contents of your home, or see how your furniture fits into a home designed by a local builder. Sometimes customising an item isn t enough and you will want to replace the item with another. The easiest and quickest way to do all of these tasks is via the Alternatives tab. The Alternatives tab contains a selection of alternatives for any selected object in your home, saving you having to browse the catalogue or search for a specific item type. Selecting an item from the Alternatives tab automatically places removes the current item and inserts your selected alternative in workspace in place of the previous item; this saves you having to manually delete the current item and then select and place the alternative. To Replace an Item click the item to select it select the Alternatives tab browse the categories presented and click an alternative The alternative is automatically placed into the scene in the same location as the original item. Rotating Items Furniture and Electrical items, like all other MVH objects have a rotation handle which is visible when the object is selected. click the item to select it click and drag the rotation handle to rotate the item release the mouse button to stop rotating the item This will rotate the item in 5 increments, finer adjustments can be made by holding the Ctrl key while rotating. Items can also be flipped in 90 increments by using the < and > keys on your keyboard to rotate anti-clockwise and clockwise respectively.

67 The item will not rotate if the new orientation would cause it to overlap another item or intersect a wall. Cut, Copy and Paste Items The basic editing tools of Cut, Copy and Paste can be applied to Furniture and Electrical items in just the same manner that they are applied to other objects in your MVH Home. These tools are considered to be Actions in MVH, so in addition to being available from the Edit menu in the Menu Bar they can also be found: in the context menu (right-click an item to view it s context menu) in the Actions section of the Customise tab (available after the item has been selected) Cut an item When you cut an item, it is removed from the workspace but a copy of the item is held in the clipboard. The item can be returned to the workspace via the Paste action. The Cut action is available from any of the following: right-clicking the object to access the Context Menu and selecting Cut selecting the item and choosing Cut from the Actions section of the Customise tab selecting the item and choosing Edit > Cut selecting the item and hitting Ctrl+X on your keyboard (this method will place the object in your MVH clipboard and you can paste the object back into the scene if you like) Copy an item When you copy an item, a copy of the item is held in the clipboard and can be returned to the workspace via the Paste action. The Cpoy action is available from any of the following: right-clicking the object to access the Context Menu and selecting Copy selecting the item and choosing Copy from the Actions section of the Customise tab selecting the item and choosing Edit > Copy selecting the item and hitting Ctrl+C on your keyboard (this method will place the object in your MVH clipboard and you can paste the object back into the scene if you like) Paste an item The Paste action copies the contents of the clipboard and attaches this to the mouse cursor, ready to be placed into the workspace. If the clipboard contains an item, then the room is attached to the mouse cursor, ready for placement. The normal rules and restrictions regarding the placement of rooms applies. The Paste action is available from any of the following: right-clicking the object to access the Context Menu and selecting Paste selecting the item and choosing Paste from the Actions section of the Customise tab

68 selecting the item and choosing Edit > Paste selecting the item and hitting Ctrl+V on your keyboard (this method will place the object in your MVH clipboard and you can paste the object back into the scene if you like) Decorating with MVH Materials Rooms, Fixtures and Furnishings are all objects which can be placed within the workspace of MVH. These objects come into the scene with a default set of features (MVH Components) and surfaces (MVH Materials) which can be modified from the Customise tab. The surfaces of any object can also be modified by selecting Materials from the catalogue and applying these materials to the surface and in this way you can quickly experiment with paints, carpets or laminate bench-tops. The Materials section of the catalogue covers a very wide range of assets including Paints, Tiles, Wallpaper, Bricks, Cladding and Renders, Carpets, Concretes, Pavers and Timber Flooring, Ceramics, Glass, Laminates, Metals, Stone, Clay and Fibreglass, Fabrics, Leathers and Suedes. And for the outdoor areas we have Soils, Aggregates, Grasses and Mulch. The MVH Materials section covers alternatives for every surface in your home from your driveway and garden-beds to your roof and everything in between. Materials are applied in the same manner regardless of the material you are applying or the surface you are applying it to. Applying Materials (Paints, Carpets, Tiles etc) The Materials category is a root (top-level) category so it can be accessed quickly from anywhere in the catalogue by clicking the reset catalogue button. click the Materials category to view the category contents The materials are grouped into various sub- categories to allow you to quickly locate the type of material you are looking for. browse the categories and click an item to select it

69 The cursor will change to a Paintbrush to indicate that a Material has been selected and the material is now attached to the paintbrush. click any surface within the MVH workspace to apply the selected material to that surface Download required If you apply the material to a surface and instead of the material being applied to the surface you see something like the image to the left, then MVH needs to download a file or two for the material. Once the download is complete (just a few seconds) the material is automatically applied to the previously selected surface. Download complete Note: the download progress is displayed in the Download Progress Bar in the lower right of the MVH window. The selected material will stay attached to the paintbrush until you select another material from the catalogue or until you select another tool from the Toolbar. to switch back to the selection tool from the Paintbrush, select the Selection Tool icon in the Toolbar Applying Materials to Linked Surfaces Holding the Shift key on your keyboard while clicking a surface will apply the material to that surface and all linked surfaces. In this way you can paint every wall in the house or carpet every room with a single click. This can be used to apply marble bench-tops to all kitchen benches or a laminate to all bathroom cupboards.

70 The Roof MVH automatically creates a roof for your home. The roof is always visible when in the Walkthrough camera mode but may be hidden when in the Plan or Isometric camera modes. To Show \ Hide the Roof click the Show \ Hide Roof icon on the Toolbar Note: the roof cannot be hidden when in Walkthrough camera mode Rooms without Roofs Not all rooms have a roof by default, Patios and Courtyards for example, but any MVH Room can be set to have (or not have) a roof. click the floor of a room to select the room select the Customise tab scroll to the Properties section and locate the Room has a Roof setting tick the checkbox to assign a roof to the room, un-tick to set the room to have no roof Rooms without roofs are considered outdoor rooms and all the characteristics of outdoor rooms with respect to lighting, lightmapping, valid doors and windows apply to all rooms without roofs. The Roof-line The shape of the roofline is determined by a couple of factors: the layout of the rooms the roof specific properties of the wall below each roof segment Layout of the Rooms The placement and shape of the rooms that make up your home provide the basic guide for your roof. The roof is generated from the line of all external walls of rooms that have the room Property of Room has Roof checked. This outline of your home is used to generate the basic roofline but can be modified by the wall properties of these external walls of your home. Roof Specific Wall Properties External walls of rooms which have roofs have additional properties which define the shape of the roof that will be generated from that wall-line. select Walkthrough or Isometric camera mode and move the camera to outside the

71 home where you can see the roof click one of the external walls to select it select the Customise tab and browse to the Properties section locate the Roof Type property and use the dropdown list to view the available roof types Note: if you are not familiar with roof types then try them out to see the effect it has on you roofline. Each roof type will enable certain roof properties such as pitch and slope which can be modified to further customise your roof line. Tiles, Shingles or Sheeting? The roof, like almost all surfaces in MVH, can be painted with a material to change its look. This can be done by either applying a selected material from the catalogue or via the Customise tab. Changing the roof material via the catalogue from the catalogue select Materials > Roofing browse the categories and click a material to select it The cursor will change to the Paintbrush tool; the material is attached to the paintbrush and is ready to be applied to the roof. click the roof to apply the selected material Changing the roof material via the Customise tab select the roof select the Customise tab scroll to the Materials section of the Customise tab select the Roof slot The lower section of the Customise tab will change to present categories containing alternative materials. browse the categories select an alternative material; it will be applied to the roof automatically select Back to Customise

72 Outdoors While a great deal of attention has been given to home design and construction, indoor furnishings and decoration, MVH also applies the same level of detail, and simplicity of customisation, to the outdoor aspects of your home. The MVH Catalogue contains a specific Outdoor category at the root (top-most) level of the catalogue that contains all your outdoor need; everything from outdoor furnishings, garden features and plants through to fences, garden paths and carports. Note: all root (top-most) level categories can be accessed from anywhere in the catalogue by simply clicking the Reset Catalogue icon. Time of Day The time of day in which your MVH Home exists can be altered and the light quality and intensity specific to your location, at that time of day, is accurately represented by MVH. With this level of detail you can view an accurate representation of the how light\dark a particular room may be to help select appropriate wall and floor colours. There are two methods of controlling the time of day within MVH: Simple Lighting Advanced Lighting To determine if you are using simple or advanced lighting: click the Home Properties icon in the Toolbar scroll down the Properties section of the Customise tab until you locate the Simple Lighting property If Simple Lighting is checked then you are using MVH s simple lighting controls, if un-checked, you are using the advanced lighting. Simple Lighting and the Time of Day This setting is available when using Simple Lighting select a sun position to set the time of day It may take a second or two before the new lighting is calculated and applied to the workspace.

73 Note: altering the time of day will invalidate any lightmapping causing it to restart. Remember, for lightmapping: Build -> Furnish -> set Time -> adjust lights -> Lightmap -> adjust Materials Advanced Lighting and Time of Day When using the Advanced Time of Day settings a number of properties become available: Time Timezone Daylight Savings adjustment Date Edit these settings to achieve a precise representation of the light quality for you home design at your specified location. Note: to achieve accurate lighting you should always place a Northmarker and then rotate it to ensure that you have the desired aspect for your home design. Location The location of your home can greatly affect the quality and quantity of daylight that the home receives. For many building projects in MVH this level of detail is not required but if you are remodelling an existing home and wish to have an accurate preview of the light available and the impact this light has on colours within the home, then we suggest that you set the Location property to closest available option. To set the Location of your Home click the Home Properties icon in the Toolbar scroll down the Properties section of the Customise tab until you locate the Location property

74 use the drop-down to select the closest location to you home Terrain Options The Terrain in MVH is considered a Material Slot of the home, allowing you to change the material used to display the terrain. To Change the Terrain click the Home Properties icon in the Toolbar scroll down the Materials section of the Customise tab click to select the Terrain slot The lower section of the Customise tab will change to show the available categories contain the alternative materials for the Terrain. browse the categories and select an alternative material; it will be applied to the terrain automatically Show \ Hide the Terrain Grid The default material used to display the terrain shows a 1m x 1m grid (adjusted to 1y x 1y when using imperial measurements). To show or hide this grid: select Options > Show \ Hide This will display the Visibility Options sub-menu. click the Show \ Hide Grid icon to alter the visibility of the grid Other terrain materials may display a grid for measurement and placement references when building, but only the default terrain material has a grid that can be hidden at any time. Show \ Hide the Terrain By default, all new homes have the Terrain set to visible, but this option can be changed if desired. An example of when you may wish to hide the terrain is when you replace the default Panorama with a custom panorama and this new panorama contains an image to be used as the ground. Note: for more information on changing the Panorama see the section titled Panoramas. To show or hide the terrain: select Options > Show \ Hide This will display the Visibility Options sub-menu. click the Show \ Hide Terrain icon to alter the visibility of the terrain

75 Panoramas The MVH Panorama refers to the scenery that surrounds the workspace; anything on the horizon, the skyline, the sky itself and in some cases the ground. Like everything else in MVH the Panorama can be customised to suit your needs, in this way you can achieve a very high level of accuracy to a real world location; if you are modelling a home in a know location, then you can have the view out a window in MVH accurately represent the real world equivalent. The MVH Panorama is considered a Component of the MVH Home and Panorama settings can be accessed from the Customise tab after selecting the Home. Changing Panoramas select the Home Properties icon from the Toolbar scroll down to the Components section of the Customise tab click the Panorama slot to select it The lower section of the Customise tab will change to show the categories which contain alternative Panoramas for you to choose from. browse the categories and click an alternative Panorama to select it The new Panorama is automatically applied. Click Back to Customise Custom Panoramas MVH also allows you to create your own panorama from images of your own. With this method you can achieve any look for the scenery, skyline and sky. select the Home Properties icon from the Toolbar

76 scroll down to the Components section of the Customise tab click the Panorama slot to select it The lower section of the Customise tab will change to show the categories which contain alternative Panoramas. select Custom Panorama Backgrounds The options presented are alternative configurations for a custom panorama. These are cube, cylinder and sphere; each requiring a different layout of images to create the panorama that will wrap around your MVH Home. Custom Cube map background This configuration takes 6 images, one for each side of the cube. To create a custom cube map panorama: select Custom Cube map background You previous panorama is removed and the default cube map is loaded. Now you can modify the default cube map with your own source images, creating your custom panorama. select Back to customise You will notice that there are now 6 Material slots, one of each side of the cube select one of the material slots select User Image browse to the location of the image you wish to use, select it and click Open The selected image is applied to the panorama. repeat this process for the remaining material slots scroll up to the Properties section of the Customise tab There are a range of properties relating to your custom panorama which can be edited for fine tweaking. These settings cover details such as the distance from the centre of the workspace to the panorama and the position and colour of the sun. These last two groups of settings, the Sun colour and Sun position can be used to precisely align the lighting with that in the panorama images

77 Custom Cylindrical map background This configuration takes 3 images, a panoramic image for cylinder tube and a circular section for each end (top and bottom). To create a custom cylinder map panorama: select Custom Cylindrical map background You previous panorama is removed and the default cylindrical map is loaded. Now you can modify the default map with your own source images, creating your custom panorama. select Back to customise You will notice that there are now 3 Material slots, one of each required image select one of the material slots select User Image browse to the location of the image you wish to use, select it and click Open The selected image is applied to the panorama. repeat this process for the remaining material slots scroll up to the Properties section of the Customise tab There are a range of properties relating to your custom panorama which can be edited for fine tweaking. These settings cover details such as the distance from the centre of the workspace to the panorama and the position and colour of the sun. These last two groups of settings, the Sun colour and Sun position can be used to precisely align the lighting with that in the panorama images Custom Spherical map background This configuration a single 2:1 aspect image to create a custom panorama: select Custom Spherical map background You previous panorama is removed and the default spherical map is loaded. Now you can modify the default cube map with your own source images, creating your custom panorama. select Back to customise select the material slot select User Image browse to the location of the image you wish to use, select it and click Open The selected image is applied to the panorama. scroll up to the Properties section of the Customise tab There are a range of properties relating to your custom panorama which can be edited for fine tweaking. These settings cover details such as the distance from the centre of the workspace to the panorama and the position and colour of the sun. These last two groups of settings, the Sun colour and Sun position can be used to precisely align the lighting with that in the panorama images

78 Fences Fences are an integral part of most homes; consequently MVH provides a wide range of fencing options for your MVH Home building projects. Fences in MVH are modular and each fence segment can be snapped to another to quickly and easily construct a fence-line. MVH fences, like most other objects, can be modified through the Customise tab and have a range of different materials applied to change the look of the fence. To Build a Fence from within the catalogue select Outdoors > Privacy & Shade > Fences, Gates and Screens OR enter Fences into the Search tab browse the Fence categories and select a fence panel to place into the scene The fence panel\post is attached to the cursor and is ready to place into the workspace. drag the panel\post to the desired location and click to place Note: if you drag a panel or post adjacent to an existing panel or post, it will snap to the previously placed object. repeat to place more panels, dragging each panel adjacent to the last to allow the panels to snap to one another use fence posts to mark the corners Note: all four sides of a fence post will allow a single fence panel to snap. Moving a Fence A fence that is made of many snapped panels and posts can be selected and moved as a single object. click a fence panel or post to select it click the selected panel \ post again to select it and all snapped fence components drag the selected fence to the desired location and release the mouse button Note: you can also select an entire group of snapped objects by holding down the Shift key on your keyboard while clicking one member of the snapped group.

79 Paths & Driveways Paths and Driveways are made up of segments that can be snapped together to form a path, like laying segments of railway track, some are straight, some curved and some capped. Once segments are snapped you can move and edit the segments as a single component. To Build a Path or Driveway from within the catalogue select Outdoors > Paths & Driveways browse the categories and select a path segment to place into the scene The path segment is attached to the cursor and is ready to place into the workspace. drag the path segment to the desired location and click to place the segment Note: if you drag a segment adjacent to an existing segment it will snap to the previously placed segment. repeat to place more segments, dragging each adjacent to the last to allow them to snap to one another Moving a Path or Driveway A path that is made of many snapped segments can be selected and moved as a single object. click a path segment to select it click the selected segment again to select it and all snapped segments drag the selected path to the desired location and release the mouse button Note: you can also select an entire group of snapped objects by holding down the Shift key on your keyboard while clicking one member of the snapped group. Pools, Spas & Saunas Pools are a common backyard feature in some regions and MVH has a great range of both above and in-ground pools to choose from. Like all objects in MVH, our pools can be modified to suit your needs from the Customise tab. Placing a Pool, Spa or Sauna from within the catalogue select Outdoors > Pools, Spas & Saunas browse the categories and select a pool to place into the scene The pool is then attached to the mouse cursor. If MVH needs to download any files for the

80 pool, then the room is displayed as a crate until the download is complete. The download progress is displayed in the Download Progress Bar in the lower right of the MVH window. The pool is shown as a crate while downloading once the pool is attached to the mouse you can move the mouse to drag the pool around the workspace Pool is shown once download complete click to place the pool Restrictions on placing Pools In-ground Pools are unlike most other items in MVH in that they cut the terrain. Due to this property of in-ground pools there are certain restrictions concerning where you can place one of these pools. In-ground Pools: can only be placed on the ground level of the home, never on an upper level or the basement level cannot be placed inside a room cannot be placed above a room on the Basement level of the Home Customising a Pool The Customise tab contains the various editable Properties of the pool, as well as the editable Component and Material slots. Some pools have editable dimension of length, width and depth, others have set dimensions. All pools in the MVH catalogue have editable material slots for changing: the coping surrounding the pool the surface of the pool shell; various popular and commercially available fibreglass materials can be applied the water; MVH offers a few water textures including some animated water textures To customise the pool: click to select the pool select the Customise tab scroll to the Properties section and\or the Material section modify Properties as required To change the contents of a Material slot: click the slot to select it The lower section of the Customise tab will change to show a list of categories which contain

81 alternative materials for the selected slot. browse the categories and click to select an alternative material The selected material is automatically applied. click Back to Customise when done Gardens MVH has a wide range of garden furniture, water features and plants ranging in size from ground covers and greases to mature trees. In addition there are a range of pavers, stones, gravels, mulches, pots and flower beds. Everything you need to design, preview and experiment with your garden and outdoor space ideas. Just as you would outside of MVH, we suggest that you plan out your MVH garden and then lay down your garden beds, water features and paths prior to actually doing your planting. Many plants in MVH can be placed in the garden beds, flower beds, pots and planters available, but once a shrub has been planted you cannot slide a garden bed underneath; so leave your planting until last. When planting in MVH start with your hedges and mature trees and work your way down in size. Note: when placing more than one copy of particular plant be sure to use the rotation handle to rote the plant to avoid them appearing as clones of each other. This will achieve a more realistic, organic appearance. All the objects that you will need to create a fabulous garden are located in the Outdoor category of the MVH Catalogue. This category contains a great many items ranging from water tanks, garden sheds, swimming pools and shade sails, through fencing garden paths and water features, from 10cm exotic grasses to 14m Jacaranda trees; everything you need to plan your next garden renovation.

82 Make your Home look its best MVH is by far the best looking home design and decoration package on the market and this fact is something that we take great pride in. There are a few factors which contribute to the appearance of your MVH Home, these are: lighting within the home lighting outside the home; the position of the Sun the lightmapping process the display settings that MVH is using Lighting The lighting within your MVH Home and in the garden will greatly impact the appearance of your home, especially when lightmapping. By default, MVH Rooms are placed into the scene with their ceiling lights, wall lights and lamps switched on. Having all your lights on during the middle of the day can make some rooms, particularly bathrooms featuring reflective light-coloured tiles, somewhat bright. Likewise an over-head light plus two bedside lamps can make a bedroom appear a little washed out. Early morning and later afternoon sun slanting through the windows can make a room look so much better simply due the warm glows and sharp shadows that it provides. Prior to lightmapping think about: which lights in your home to turn off what time of day to use Lightmapping To make the most out of MVH s high quality models and detailed textures, you need to light map your home. Lightmapping refers to a process in which MVH takes into account all the existing light sources (lamps, light fittings and the Sun) and calculates this light bouncing off objects and those objects casting shadows. The more complex the scene, the more objects and lights involved the longer this process will take. Standard desktop computers that you could buy today will lightmap the interior of the fully furnished tutorial home in about 15 minutes. The same tutorial home with the furniture removed takes about 5 minutes. Since lightmapping can take time to accomplish, MVH also has a Dynamic Lighting System which works within a couple of seconds. Place a table, wait a couple of seconds and the table casts a shadow. Turn on a lamp, wait a couple of seconds and the lighting and shadows within the room are recalculated. The quality of the lighting and shadows presented by the dynamic lighting system are not as high as those of the lightmapping process but dynamic lighting takes effect instantly. Dynamic Lighting \ Shadow effects are removed from a room once lightmapping is complete for that room. What difference does lighting make?

83 No dynamic lighting or lightmapping Dynamic Lighting Lightmapped to Low Lightmapped to High Lightmapping Settings MVH can be configured to begin lightmapping automatically a room whenever you have the Home loaded, but are not currently building or furnishing. To adjust this setting: select the Options menu in the Toolbar select Edit Preferences within the General tab locate the setting Auto calculate lighting while building When this setting is checked MVH will lightmap your home when your actions aren t affecting lightmaps. When to Lightmap Simply put, this is after you place all rooms, fixtures and furnishings but before you customise materials. The lightmapping process calculates how light bounces off the objects in your home and the

84 position of the shadows subsequently cast by those objects. Some actions that you can make in MVH will affect these calculations and can make any existing lightmaps invalid. When this occurs MVH deletes the lightmap; this cannot be restored through the undo process, the lightmapping process must be run again. Since the lightmapping process can take some time you should consider when to begin lightmapping. Actions that will invalidate lightmaps are: turn an existing light on or off move and existing light change the time of day \ position of the Sun add an object to the workspace delete an object from the workspace move an object within the workspace From this list it is obvious that it is best to start lightmapping after you have finished building your MVH Home. Actions that do not invalidate lightmaps: changing MVH Materials (painting, laying carpet, changing tiles etc) interacting with an object other than a light (opening or closing doors, turning on fans, opening windows or closing curtains etc) The quality and quantity of light affects how we perceive colour and MVH s lightmapping process produces the very accurate lighting, so you may wish to lightmap before experimenting with MVH Materials. To Start Lightmapping You can begin lightmapping your home at any time by clicking the Start button in the Lightmapping Progress bar. To Clear Lightmaps You can clear any existing lightmaps from your home by clicking the Clear button in the Lightmapping Progress bar. This button becomes active once lightmapping has begun. Display Settings MVH s Display Settings have a major impact on the visual quality of everything that you build within MVH. By default MVH uses fairly low settings to ensure that all users can run MVH reasonably well, even users on older, low end computers or Laptop\Notebook computers.

85 To get the most out of MVH s high quality visuals you will need to adjust the Display Settings and this is quite easily done. MVH s Display Settings can be found by: selecting the Options menu selecting Edit Preferences selecting the Display tab Screen Size Screen Size refers to the amount of the screen that MVH uses, by default this is 1024x768 pixels. Clicking the drop-down menu of this setting will display a list of the screen size settings that your computer is able to use with MVH. The higher you set this value the larger the workspace you have to use when building and if you customarily maximise the MVH window to occupy the entire screen then we strongly recommend that you set this value as high as your system allows. To adjust the screen size: click the dropdown to open the list of available screen sizes click to select a screen size from the list Image Settings Image Settings has the greatest impact upon the visual quality that will be used in MVH. The options available here are: High Performance Medium High Quality Custom By default this is set to High Performance to provide access to MVH to the widest range of user possible. To improve the visual quality of MVH, change this setting to Medium or High Quality. The Custom setting exposes all the Image Quality settings that are rolled up into Image High Performance High Quality

86 Settings. If you are an experienced computer user feel free to browse through these settings and adjust as you see fit. Optimisation Most modern computers do not benefit greatly from this setting, but older computers may. If you are using MVH on a newer desktop computer, then we recommend that you turn this setting off (set to Do not optimize). MVH s optimization engine automatically adjusts the image settings depending on the contents of the workspace. The setting options allow you to optimize MVHs display settings for Performance (by reducing visual quality), Quality (may degrade performance) or a Balance between the two. When the optimization engine is active you may see objects appear in or disappear from the workspace. You may also see distant areas of your home shown as a featureless blue surface, this is the optimization process removing certain elements from the scene to ensure that you do not experience any slow-down in performance while using MVH.

87 Tips and Tricks Editing with the Eyedropper Tool The Eyedropper tool can be used on any object or surface in MVH to select the contents of a Material or Component featured on that object. The selected slot contents may then be applied to other surfaces and objects. click the Eyedropper icon in the toolbar A list of component and material slots are now presented in the Info tab click one of the slot to select it The Info tab now shows information regarding the selected component or material. If you selected a component, then cursor has changed to a spanner \ wrench and if you selected a material then the cursor has changed to a paintbrush. Note: the following example uses a selected component and the wrench tool, the same process applies to a selected material and the paintbrush tool. As you move the wrench around the workspace objects that contain a component slot that the selected component can go in are high-lighted green. click one of these high-lighted objects to apply the selected component to that object This is a quick method to apply changes to similar object throughout your home. Blinds selected; a material and a component slot are shown Select the blind component When the wrench is over another window it is high-lighted Click to apply the blind component to the window

88 Why won t my door make a doorway? Sometimes when you attempt to place a door, the door seems to not want to snap to the wall and when you place the door you can see that it hasn t cut a doorway to walk through. If the door refuses to snap to the wall it is because the wall is not a valid location for the door, due to at least one of the following reasons: The door is too tall for the level ceiling height. Select another door or adjust the ceiling height The door is too wide to be placed on the selected wall. Select another door or adjust the length of the target wall. You are attempting to place either an internal door on an external wall or an external door on an internal wall. Select the correct door type for the target wall. Note: interior \ exterior door placement restrictions may be overridden by holding down the Ctrl key while placing or moving the door. In this way, exterior doors can be placed on interior walls and vice-versa. a wall is considered to be exterior when it borders the home i.e. there is no room, only the outdoors, on one side of the wall a wall is also considered to be an exterior wall when it borders an outdoor room outdoor rooms are rooms that have a gap in an exterior wall. This gap can be due to a hidden wall, a half-height wall or the wall type (e.g. balustrade walls). (WALL A) a balustrade wall, making the room to the left of it an outdoor space and it an external wall. (WALL B) has a deleted wall, making the room to the left of it an outdoor space and it an external wall. (WALL C) features a half-height wall, making the room to the left of it an outdoor space and it an external wall. (WALLS D & F) both border an outdoor space making them external walls. (WALL E) does not border an outdoor space and is therefore the only interior wall (WALL A) is a full brick wall. It is an unbroken external wall making the room to the left of in an interior wall. (WALLS B, C, D, & E) are all interior walls