A good property CGI shot list names every image you need, the viewpoint for each, the job it does and the standard it must meet. Do that before the first render and you avoid paying for extra views, last-minute changes and images that look lovely but cannot go into a planning submission.

This guide is written for developers, architects, planning consultants and agents who commission CGI for schemes that are not built yet. It covers the shots, the order, the camera decisions and the traps.

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TL;DR

  • Build the list around jobs, not rooms: planning, sales launch, brochure, investor deck. Each job needs different views.
  • Start with one hero exterior, then a context view, then a street or approach view, then interiors, then amenity and lifestyle shots.
  • Planning views are a separate category. Under Landscape Institute TGN 06/19, verified views (Type 4) are for sensitive contexts, while Type 3 suits general applications.
  • Write down viewpoint count, time of day, season, people and cars, and the number of revision rounds before work starts.
  • Brief the marketing images so they never imply more than the scheme delivers.

Table of Contents

Start with the job each image must do

The usual mistake is to list rooms: kitchen, living room, bedroom, front elevation. That gives you a pile of pictures with no purpose. Start instead with the people who will look at them and what they must decide.

Audience Decision they make Images that serve them
Planning officers and committee Is the scale, massing and setting acceptable? Photomontages from agreed viewpoints, verified views where required
Off-plan buyers Do I want to live here? Hero exterior, lifestyle interiors, amenity views
Investors and lenders Is this credible and well positioned? Aerial context, hero exterior, typical unit interior
Neighbours and consultees What will I see from my window or street? Street-level and approach views
Agents and portals Will this stand out in a listing? Hero exterior, one or two interiors, floor plans

Once you know who the images are for, the list almost writes itself. Our property architect visualisation checklist goes further into what to have ready from the design side.

The core shot list for a residential scheme

This is the sequence we recommend for most new-build or refurbishment schemes. Trim it for small projects, extend it for large ones.

1. The hero exterior

One image that carries the scheme. It usually goes on the website, the hoarding, the brochure cover and the portal listing, so it earns the largest share of attention and budget.

Choose the angle from where people will actually approach the building, at eye height or just above, with the main entrance and the best facade visible. Avoid dramatic wide-angle distortion. Buyers notice when a CGI shows a building bigger or grander than it will be on site.

Specify: lens feel (natural, not fisheye), time of day (golden hour is the default, but say so), season, and whether landscaping is shown at completion or at maturity.

2. The context or aerial view

An aerial or elevated view shows the scheme in its surroundings: the road, neighbours, green space, transport links. Investors and planners both like it because it answers the question “where does this sit?” at a glance.

If the aerial will be used for planning, treat it as a photomontage rather than a pure render, built on a real aerial photograph. We cover this under aerial CGI photomontage and verified views.

3. The street or approach view

This is the shot that neighbours and committee members care about most: what someone walking or driving past will see. Pick the position where the building is most visible from the public realm, not the most flattering one. Credibility matters more than polish here.

4. The rear or garden elevation

For houses and low-rise apartments, the garden side sells the lifestyle. For larger blocks, a courtyard or podium view does the same job. Show the real gap between buildings and the real boundary treatment.

5. Lead interiors

Pick the spaces that decide a purchase: the main living and kitchen area, the principal bedroom, and the bathroom if it is a selling point. For apartments, one typical unit is enough to start with, and you can add layouts later.

For interiors the brief needs a specification: floor finishes, kitchen manufacturer or colour, worktop, tiles, lighting, window treatment. Without it the visualiser guesses, and guesses come back as revisions. Our interior CGI work follows whatever specification you supply, so the more exact it is, the fewer rounds you need.

6. Amenity and shared spaces

Lobby, gym, co-working space, roof terrace, communal garden. These matter most in build-to-rent and larger apartment schemes, where the shared spaces are part of what the buyer or tenant is paying for.

7. Detail and lifestyle shots

A close-up of the entrance, a balcony at dusk, a kitchen island with morning light. These are the images that make social posts, email headers and brochure spreads work. Keep them to two or three, and make sure the details shown are the ones that will be built.

8. Floor plans

A 2D or 3D floor plan completes the set for any residential listing. Buyers expect one, and it also helps the interiors make sense. We produce both 2D and 3D floor plans alongside the CGI.

A worked example: twelve-unit townhouse scheme

Here is how this plays out for a small scheme, using a hypothetical set of twelve townhouses on an infill site.

  • Planning stage: two photomontages from the nearest public viewpoints agreed with the planning consultant, plus one from the neighbouring rear garden if the officer has asked for it.
  • Launch stage: one hero exterior at golden hour, one street view with realistic parking and planting, one garden-side view.
  • Sales stage: living and kitchen interior, main bedroom, a second interior in the alternative finish scheme.
  • Collateral: a floor plan for each house type, plus a short flyover or 3D animation if the budget allows.

That is roughly ten to twelve images, but only the first group has to meet a technical standard. The rest can be shaped freely, which is why we split the list in two.

Planning shots are a different list

Marketing CGI is persuasive. Planning visuals are evidence. The two can use the same 3D model, but the brief is different.

The Landscape Institute’s guidance, Technical Guidance Note 06/19, sets out the types of visualisation. In short, Type 3 visualisations give reasonable accuracy for a wide range of projects, while Type 4 verified views are for demanding contexts where scale and location must be checked against survey data. The same document lists annotated photographs, wirelines, photomontages and 3D simulations among the usual static forms of technical visualisation.

What this means for your shot list:

  1. Agree viewpoints with the planning officer or your consultant first. Do not choose them yourself after the design is fixed. Officers often name locations in pre-application advice.
  2. Ask which type is required. Heritage settings, protected views, tall buildings and sensitive landscapes usually push towards verified views. A modest infill scheme may not need them.
  3. Keep the photography record. Date, time, camera position and lens details are what make a photomontage defensible.
  4. Do not use planning views as marketing images, or the reverse. Neutral weather and honest scale belong in planning. Sunset skies belong in the brochure.

For a deeper explanation, see our practical guide to CGI renders for planning applications and the page on CGI for planning applications. Our piece on the role of visuals in planning permission explains how officers read them.

If you want to understand why clear visual communication matters in the first place, this overview of visual content in marketing makes the general case. The planning case is narrower: the images have to be right, not just attractive.

Check the upload limits before you finalise

Planning submissions go through portals with file rules. The Planning Portal’s guidance on supporting documents lists the supported image and video formats, and it is worth checking limits before you commission high-resolution files. That page covers building control applications, so confirm the rules for the type of application you are making.

Technical decisions to put in the brief

A shot list is more than a list of locations. For each image, write down:

  • Viewpoint: a marked position on the site plan or a photograph, plus eye height.
  • Direction and framing: portrait or landscape, how much of the sky and ground.
  • Time and light: morning, midday, golden hour, dusk. Say whether the image should look sunny or overcast.
  • Season and planting: summer, winter, planting at day one or mature.
  • People, vehicles and street furniture: how many, what type, and where.
  • Materials: reference samples, product codes or photographs.
  • Resolution and format: web only, print brochure, hoarding, planning portal.
  • Revision rounds: how many are included and what counts as a change versus a correction.

A useful rule: if a decision is not in the brief, it will be made by the visualiser and reviewed by you later. That is slower than writing it down.

Interiors versus exteriors: how to split the list

Exteriors are usually produced first because the design is fixed earlier and they serve planning and early marketing. Interiors tend to follow once finishes are chosen. If you are pre-selling, though, buyers often respond more strongly to interiors, so do not leave them too late.

For a developer launching quickly, a pragmatic split is one hero exterior, one street view and two interiors, then add the rest as sales progress. Our exterior CGI and interior CGI pages describe each service in more detail.

Accuracy and honesty in marketing images

A CGI is a promise. If it shows something the building will not have, you may have a problem later, not just with a disappointed buyer.

The Property Ombudsman’s advice for agents, issued under the Consumer Protection Regulations, discusses a case where marketing pictures show nearby parking and the agent has to be clear that no spaces are allocated. You can read it in the TPOS assured advice on various situations. The principle carries over to CGI: do not let an image suggest parking, views, amenities or neighbouring land that are not part of the offer.

Practical checks before you approve any image:

  • Does it show the final specification, or an upgrade?
  • Are the views from windows real, or invented?
  • Are planting and trees shown at a believable stage of growth?
  • Is there any neighbouring development shown that does not exist or may change?
  • Does a caption or note explain that the image is an artist’s impression?

Our perspective

We produce every image in-house, with one experienced operator handling the work from brief to delivery. That shapes how we think about a shot list.

The biggest saving is rarely in cutting images. It is in settling the list at the start. When a client sends the viewpoints, the specification and the purpose of each image together, there is one conversation, a predictable timetable and very little rework. When the list grows image by image, deadlines slip and the set loses consistency.

Our perspective — overview diagram

We also like to separate planning and marketing early. They draw on the same model, so there is no wasted effort, but they are judged differently. A planning view is judged on accuracy. A marketing image is judged on whether someone wants to visit the site. Treating them as one job usually weakens both.

Our advice: start with the hero exterior, agree the planning viewpoints with your consultant, and keep two or three slots free for images you only discover you need once sales begin.

— Paride

Shot lists for other types of project

The sequence above is residential, but the logic holds elsewhere.

Care homes and healthcare schemes. Lead with the entrance and the garden, since families and commissioners respond to arrival and outdoor space. Follow with a typical bedroom, a lounge, a dining room and any therapy or treatment spaces. Our page on CGI for care operators goes into this.

Estate agents and virtual staging. For existing properties, the list is closer to a photography shot list: wide room shots from corners, then medium shots, then details. Virtual staging fills empty rooms in those photographs so that buyers can imagine the space.

Architects at concept stage. Fewer images, looser finish, focused on massing and mood. The RIBA Stage 2 concept design phase is when the design team makes its first response to the brief, and a handful of views is usually enough to test the direction. See our guide to why architects use 3D visualisation.

Shot lists for other types of project — overview diagram

Garden and landscape designers. Show the planting at day one and at maturity, and include a view from inside the house looking out. Accurate species and heights matter, as we explain in why accurate planting visuals help approval.

Common mistakes

  1. Too many near-identical views. Three exterior angles of the same facade add cost but little information.
  2. No planning input on viewpoints. You end up re-doing images when the officer asks for different positions.
  3. Marketing images used as planning evidence. Dramatic skies and flattering angles do not belong in a submission.
  4. Incomplete specification. Interiors with placeholder finishes invite change requests.
  5. Ignoring the neighbours. Showing a scheme in isolation looks evasive. Show the context.
  6. Approving late changes after the model is locked. Design changes after sign-off should be treated as new work.

Working with us on your shot list

If you have a scheme and are unsure which images you need, send us the drawings, the site address and the purpose of each image. We will help you shape a list that separates planning from marketing and avoids paying for views you will not use. You can see everything we offer on our services page, read about our property CGI work, or get in touch through our site to talk through the brief. Our work covers the whole UK, with local pages for London, Cambridge and Reading.

FAQ

How many images should a property CGI set include?

For a small residential scheme, eight to twelve images usually cover planning, launch and sales. Larger schemes add amenity spaces, more unit types and aerial views. Start with the hero exterior and a few interiors, then add as the project needs them.

Do I need verified views for planning?

Not always. Landscape Institute guidance reserves verified views (Type 4) for sensitive contexts, while Type 3 visuals suit a wide range of applications. Ask your planning officer or consultant at pre-application stage which applies to your site.

Can the same render be used for planning and marketing?

The 3D model can be shared, but the images should be set up separately. Planning views need agreed viewpoints and neutral presentation. Marketing images can use stronger light, composition and styling.

What should I send a visualiser to start the shot list?

Send drawings (plans, elevations, sections), a site plan, a materials and finishes schedule, reference photographs, and the purpose and format of each image. If planning views are involved, include any viewpoints named in officer advice.

Sources