Treeline Community Mixed Reality Experience

THE CLIENT

Part of the Perot family of companies, Hillwood Communities is a Texas-grown, large-scale, independent mixed-use community developer known for more than 100 master-planned lifestyle communities, including the award-winning communities of Harvest and Pecan Square in Dallas-Fort Worth, and Pomona in Houston.

THE CHALLENGE

Hillwood challenged themselves in thinking differently about the traditional ways in which community developers promote their communities. Realtors and Home Buyers typically receive paper layouts of up and coming communities. Hillwood felt there had to be a better means to immerse their audiences in a more dynamic way, visualizing all that their communities have to offer. They approached their Agency of Record, Anderson Hanson Blanton (AHB) to think of a more modern and innovative solution to showcase their newest up and coming community, Treeline to 150+ DFW area realtors, in order to attract potential home buyers.

Treeline is Hillwood Communities’ new DFW master-planned community with a planned 2,700 homes nestled amidst the serene allure of rural Denton County, just minutes away from the thriving AllianceTexas corridor, in Justin, TX. Hillwood wanted viewers to immerse themselves in the community, exploring the amenities and features that make Treeline and Hillwood Communities best-in-class. This experience would drive engagement and excitement around the new Treeline Community currently in development.

AHB also had plans to produce an event onsite, on the ground, at the future Treeline site in Justin that would unveil the new community to attendees. Beyond the event, they sought a scalable solution that could also be utilized at meetings and other venues. The objective being to drive leads to explore Treeline and ultimately decide to build and/or purchase a house in Treeline.

THE SOLUTION

AHB reached out to 900lbs to partner with them to create an interactive mixed reality experience on both the Apple Vision Pro headset, the latest innovation in Mixed Reality, and the iPad Pro (iPad OS).

Together, we aligned our focus on the following features that would be critical to ensuring a holistic view of everything Treeline would offer, including:

• Unique Art Style: We created an art style that blended both the Vision OS and iPad OS minimalist “glass morphism” with Treeline’s vibrant and colorful style.
• Introduction: The experience should start with a community tour teaser video and welcome message.
• Drone View: Viewers should be invited to see the beautiful Treeline community spread out across the lawn all around them in miniature scale (Drone View, AKA, Godzilla View).
• Amenity Hotspots: Hotspots should be available to showcase the major amenities with 3D rendered videos and informational descriptions, and immersive sound effects (ex. birds chirping, sounds of the swimming pool and pickleball courts, etc.).
• The Treehouse (Full Scale View): We aimed to surprise and delight viewers through one hotspot that looks different from the rest, showcasing a full scale Treehouse amenity. We aimed to mesmerize viewers, allowing them to look up to the top of an exciting 3 story community building, with the ability to walk around and look in all directions.
• Two Tour Modes: For scalability and ease of use, we aimed to create both a “Self Led Tour” and “Guided Tour” based on the event type.
• Wristband Map: The experience should allow for the ability to view a community map to orient cardinal directions while looking around.

Our team worked with Hillwood’s community CAD files to create and optimize beautiful game-ready assets, showcasing the full breadth of the Treeline Community, including the rich details and textures of the amenities, and the full spread of roads, houses, shrubbery, and architecture of the vast community - emphasizing the geographical “tree line” naturally occurring in the landscape.

900lbs coordinated onsite support with AHB for their events at the Treeline community, allowing for multiple Mixed Reality stations to ensure fast throughput at events so that all Realtors could view the community quickly.

THE RESULTS

To announce the upcoming Treeline community, over 150+ realtors visited Treeline and participated in the new Mixed Reality experience at their unveiling event. Participants raved about the unique way in which Hillwood visualized their new Treeline community for them to immerse themselves in the community through the lens of Mixed Reality. Realtors commented on how they had never seen such an amazing experience and way of seeing what the community would look like.

Since the unveiling event, Hillwood has showcased the new Mixed Reality experience at other events, including sharing this exciting new experience with the greater Perot Companies at their annual company event.

iPads were distributed to Hillwood’s top builders in the Treeline community, making the experience available for potential home buyers visiting the builders’ model homes in the community.

Through this unique method of visualization, we were able to take traditional static 4-color images and bring them to life in a new, immersive solution that places viewers right in a 3D environment of the community!

The feedback has been immense, and AHB submitted this innovative project to the “McSam Awards, hosted by the Dallas Builders Association.” They were nominated for “Most Innovative Use of Technology” and took home the award!

“We’re proud to share this award with 900lbs, our technology partner, whose innovation and collaboration were key to our success." Bringing out of the box thinking to our clients in a way that makes sense for Real Estate is what we do best!”

Ana Blanton
Partner
Anderson Hanson Blanton