User talk:Raving Realtor

Deletion debate of Single property website

Just to be clear as well, the deletion debate isn't centered around your additions to the article and you shouldn't think it is. In the opinion if a number of people, the article has never been anything more than a badly written article about a non notable subject anyway. It was full of problems long before you started editing it. It is of very dubious encyclopedic merit with few if any links to/from other articles, I doubt if anyone in the real estate business finds the subject that interesting (and I am married to a realtor), let alone the general public. Mfield (talk) 04:55, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH THIS STATEMENT - BADLY WRITTEN AND SELF PROMOTION. WIKIPEDIA THIS IS NOT. Viva-Verdi (talk) 01:40, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

You should talk Viva-Verdi, the proper English would be "poorly written" not "badly written". And yell all you want, you still screwed up a perfectly good citation revealing yourself to be a very sloppy editor at best. And don't add back in the citation unless you plan to add back in the sentences it was referencing. (Raving Realtor (talk) 16:54, 8 July 2008 (UTC))

Well, that's because many RE agents are lazy :). These things are a pain to create. And I'd disagree, this year alone, I've had 7 agents in my market call me up and say "how do you make those web sites?" I of course respond with "are you familiar with the concept of 'strategic advantage'?" Anyway, I'd like to know how one could demonstrate a single property web site without being flagged as self-promotional.

Fair enough, but it seems that encyclopedias are FULL of things useless to 99.999999999999% of us, no? So you still stitch tours or how do you do it? Doing video tours yet? success? Just curious.(Raving Realtor (talk) 05:16, 7 July 2008 (UTC))

I stitch them, because I/we prefer to use much higher resolution VR than most of the 320x240 crap you see. Mine are full screenable with cube sides at 1024 which makes them look a lot more impressive (try this - make sure it maximizes to full screen). This means min 6 shots stitched from a full frame DSLR. That process is fully automated though, takes about 10 mins to spit out flash and quicktime versions ready to upload. Video not yet, not sure its really that exciting compared to high rez VR. How much stuff is moving that needs capture and/or if you use it to walk-though then you need to be steadycam'd up or it just looks cheap and terrible. Mfield (talk) 05:23, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Also, if you guys haven't taken any CRS courses yet, you are REALLY missing out. They are think tanks of top agents. In 2006 I took my first course and know it made me another $30k that year and more to follow. 4% of Realtors have the CRS, yet they do over 25% of the transactions...(Raving Realtor (talk) 05:34, 7 July 2008 (UTC))

That's very impressive, beats the crap out of my quality and you have about 150 degrees vertically? more? Very nice, perhaps too much work again though. I'm hoping the spherical ones have as good as quality as you have there. Distortion was minimal too. Best stitching tour I've ever seen, that I know of. And nice to meet you Matt, I'm Brendan.(Raving Realtor (talk) 05:37, 7 July 2008 (UTC))

Its actually full 360/360 but the sun was really strong in that one and there were some shadows from the tripod legs I couldn't be bothered to PS out so i set a tilt limit to prevent you getting down there. Here's one in full 360. Mfield (talk) 05:42, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Amazing. I do have a nice professional manifrotto tripod. But please, tell me the names of the other equipments and softwares I should use, I yield to your expertise...also, how the heck Do you have a whole web site with ZERO scripts????? lol (Raving Realtor (talk) 05:44, 7 July 2008 (UTC))

and what's DSLR?(Raving Realtor (talk) 05:45, 7 July 2008 (UTC))

to do it my way you need- a cheap Canon or Nikon digital SLR (single lens reflex) camera like a Canon 450D or a Nikon D80, a Sigma 8mm4.5mm fisheye lens and a cheapish panorama head like a NodalNinja 3 or 5. (The pano head is ESSENTIAL, it allows the camera and lens to spin around the nodal point of the lens rather than the camera tripod mount so that you get no parallax problems that prevent stitching). Then you need a turnkey stiching solution (i use Realviz (now Autodesk) Stitcher Unlimited). This can stitch directly to QTVR. I use another cheap piece of software - Pano2VR - to convert to flash. All this is not going to be that simple, that I am not kidding about. It has taken me a fair amount of learning to get to the point that I can produce VR tours to the level that I now can. There will be a learning curve, you need to learn about the panorama head especially. The more you get right in the field, the easier the software can deal with it. As for the websites - no scripts? Not sure about that - are you saying that's a good or bad thing?! I hate scripting, that I know, so most things I get around with simpler code. The flash VR generator embeds all the fancy stuff into the SWF file so its pretty transparent programming wise. Mfield (talk) 05:54, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate the advice, you're clearly an expert on the panoramas (you can cite me lol). No scripts is a good thing of course, I just don't see too many web sites without them. I like them personally. I know it would be a lot of work, I'm used to that. Hard work is how I survive. I opened my own agency this year after only 2 years in the business, and I'm already #10 out of 25 agencies, and I don't even have an office yet lol (well, it's been under construction all year). And there was a bit of a learning curve on the stuff I use now too. Do you think my manifrotto tripod would suffice? It's a standard tripod with typical fixins.(Raving Realtor (talk) 06:01, 7 July 2008 (UTC))

Panorama expert - thanks - LOL. What model is the tripod, I have a couple but I usually pick up the lighter one (a Manfrotto 3001Bpro) for real estate stuff. You would be removing the head and screwing the pano head directly to the legs. As long as you can remove the head it'll be fine for QTVR probably, it doesn't need to be eye height, I prefer shooting them from chest level anyway as I am too tall for most people's POV - you just have to take care it stays put whilst spinning the head between shots. Hang some weight from the bottom of the center column (an actual weight or just a bean bag or cans of dog food etc.) if its too light and easy to jog e.g. on a hardwood floor. You can get suction cup and/or spike adapters for tripod feet to account for carpets/hardwood/snow etc. Mfield (talk) 06:13, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Also, typically with these panoramas, you would use a script to sense WHICH viewer the audience computer has, so it knows if they use quicktime to play the QTVR file, and if they have flash it knows to play the swf file and if they have neither if gives them download links....one example of perhaps a useful script... you just offer the separate files or what? (Raving Realtor (talk) 06:04, 7 July 2008 (UTC))

Yeah, I've thought about that. Right now I mostly just use flash for real estate VR as its ubiquitous and more platform independent (as much as I detest it for the most part). The quicktime performs better but only if the viewer has it obviously. If you go back to my VR menu page you'll see I list those which I have in both formats and then i put links under the VR window to swtich back and forth. That was the quick solution at the time. Mfield (talk) 06:13, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Cool, I'd definitely like to be able to offer quality like that. Can you recommend me to any good sites for the equipment? Thanks for all your help!(Raving Realtor (talk) 06:25, 7 July 2008 (UTC))

I buy all my online stuff from Amazon and my realworld stuff from Calumet. B&H are supposed to be great too but I have never used them] The most difficult thing to find in stock will be the fisheye so go with whoever has that in as the prices between Amazon and B&H will be similar. I would go the Canon rather than Nikon route if I were you, the sensors are better in low light on the cheaper Canon bodies than the Nikon ones. Pick up a 400D or 450D and make sure you get the Sigma 4.5mm fisheye in a Canon EF mount for that as it will come in various mounts. The panorama head - I use a NodalNinja, there are other options but the NN3 Mk2 is good value and does everything you need, especially for that light and compact of a body/lens combo. You have to buy that direct from the manufacturer. Last thing - you will want a remote cable release so you aren't touching the camera when you shoot - you can get cheap chinese copies of the Canon original for about $5 on ebay Mfield (talk) 06:45, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Note - this will not give you quite the quality you are seeing in mine as you will be only shooting 3 shots in the round so you won't have as many pixels in the final image. I am shooting 6 shots with a sharper more expensive lens and a body that costs 6 times as much. But, that said, they won't be all that far off - especially to Joe Public - for web use if you polish your technique. Mfield (talk) 06:51, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

And to think I learned all this as a result of chewing out the Vide guy lol. Thanks for all your advice, it will be well heeded and I guess I know how I'll be spending my fall now.(Raving Realtor (talk) 07:11, 7 July 2008 (UTC))