#Budget panel and meter
A running budget for the design on screen — a typical figure and a planning range, repriced as you build.
The Budget reads the scene you are building — the stage, the LED walls, the drape, the truss, the lights, the seating, the props you placed — and prices it line by line. Add a run of drape and the number moves a moment later; delete a wall and it moves back. It is a planning range for the early conversation about money, not a quote, and the panel says so in its own header: Planning estimate — not a quote. The Budget panel and its meter are on every plan.
#What it does
#Opens from the toolbar, floats over the scene
The Budget button sits in the toolbar right after the Spec Sheet button (tooltip Open Budget). It shows while you are editing a project and is hidden in View Mode. The panel floats over the 3D view, and you can drag it and resize it, so you keep building with it open. Once the Budget has run, a small dot on the button reports against your target: grey with no target set, green under it, red over it. Everything you set in the panel saves to the project as you go.
#The Budget Meter: typical, range and chart
The top of the panel is the Budget Meter. Under Estimated total, a ring chart holds the big number — the typical figure, rounded — with the range beneath it. The ring is split by category, and the By category list beside it names each category with its amount and its share of the total. Hover a slice to read it; click a row in the list to jump to that section.
#What the range means
The typical figure is a straight sum of every priced line. The range is not the sum of every low and every high: that would describe a show where every rate lands at its extreme at the same time. Lines priced from the same rate move together, lines priced from different rates are treated as independent, and the range is combined from that. Read it as a planning range around the typical figure.
#Sections, kinds and lines
Below the meter the budget reads like a spreadsheet: one row per category that has something in it — Video & LED, Audio, Rigging & Truss, Staging, Scenic & Fabrication, Soft Goods, Furniture and more — each with its subtotal. Every section starts closed; the arrow on its row shows the lines. Inside a section, like items are grouped by kind, each group with its own subtotal: in Video & LED the LED panels sit together, apart from Processing and Ground support. Identical items fold into one line with a quantity. Each line shows Item, Qty, Rate, × wks, Low – High and Typical; on a narrow panel the weeks and range columns drop away. The room itself — the venue's walls, floor and ceiling — and People are never budget lines.
#Open a line to see how it was priced
Click the arrow on a line and it opens to two short lines: what was measured (for an LED wall, the pixel pitch, the panel count, the area and how it is supported) and the rate that priced it, with its basis — per show week, one-time purchase, per hour or one-time. The info icon holds How this is estimated. The chip beside every rate says where the number came from: EVT for EVT3D's default, My sheet for your Price Sheet, Override for a number you typed, No rate when there is none. The small crosshair button on a line (Select in the scene) selects the object the line came from.
#Switch a section or a line off
The switch right after a section's name takes the whole section out of the total. Its subtotal reads not in total, it leaves the ring, and its unpriced lines stop counting. Every line has its own switch at the end of its row; a line you switch off is struck through and tagged Excluded.
#Labor
Labor sits apart as the last section, under its own divider (Allowances — hours × US non-union rates), and it starts switched off. Each builder works out hours from what it built, and the hours are priced at planning labor rates: US, non-union, straight time. Switch the section on to carry labor in the total.
#Unpriced lines and Incomplete
A line with no rate prices nothing. It is never counted as zero. While any exist, the meter shows Incomplete with the number of unpriced lines beside the ring; click it to open the Unpriced section, which lists those lines under the category each one returns to. Click Enter rate on a line, type your number and click Apply, and the line moves to its category. If a line is not part of this job, switch it off instead. When nothing is missing the meter reads Every line priced.
Two kinds of line arrive with no default rate. Special Effects are priced per unit for the show, one line per kind of effect, and wait for your vendor's number. Prop Shop pieces are built to order, so they are listed under Needs a shop quote with their dimensions, and most have no default rate either.
#Project overrides: your number on a line
Click any rate to open Project override: your number for that line, in this project only. Type Typical, and a low and a high figure beside it if you have a spread; leave those two blank and the number is taken as exact. Change Qty if the count is off, and add a Note on where the number came from. Apply sets it, and Clear override puts the line back. Project overrides are on every plan. To keep a number for every project, see Price Sheets.
#Lines the scene cannot know about
+ Add line is for anything that is not in the 3D design: permits, catering, a number you already have. Give it a label, a category, a quantity and unit, an amount for each, and a low and a high if you want a spread, then click Add. The line lands in its category under Added lines and counts in the total. An added line is a one-time amount, so show weeks never multiply it. The remove button on its row (Remove line) deletes it.
#Target and show weeks
The target is the client's number, typed in the meter. Leave it blank and the meter reads No target set and shows the total only. Type one and the meter reads the amount remaining, On target, or OVER by and the amount; the comparison uses the typical figure. Show weeks multiplies every rental line by the number of weeks. Purchases, labor and one-time services are not multiplied.
#Adjustments
At the bottom of the panel, Adjustments holds Contingency, Markup and Tax as percentages, and a Freight allowance as an amount. All four start at zero. They apply in order — subtotal, then contingency, then markup, then tax — and the freight allowance is a line inside the subtotal. The big number in the meter includes whichever are on.
#Project currency
Currency sets the currency the project's budget is read in. It belongs to the project, not to the language of your interface. EVT3D's default rates are in US dollars; in any other currency they convert at an exchange rate saved on the project and shown under the picker. That rate never changes on its own, so a saved budget reads the same next week. Click Refresh rates when you want today's rates; it appears once the project is in another currency, or when its Price Sheet holds a rate in a currency other than the project's. A refresh never touches the numbers you typed — the target, overrides, added lines, the freight allowance. Changing the currency itself converts them once, so a show that was on target stays on target.
#The Budget Bar
Switch on Show Budget Bar at the top of the panel and a pill appears at the top right of the editor: the typical figure, a bar against your target when you have one (green under, red over) and the count of unpriced lines. Click it to open or close the panel. The switch is your own preference, remembered in the browser you are using; it is not part of the project. The bar is hidden in View Mode and on phones and tablets.
#One budget per Design Option
Each Design Option is its own design, so each is priced from its own scene and keeps its own overrides, added lines and section switches. The target, the currency, show weeks, the Price Sheet and Adjustments belong to the project and are the same in every Option.
#Never on a viewer link
The Budget is yours. A client who opens a viewer link gets no Budget button and no Budget panel, and the saved budget is not sent to their browser. See Share Mode.
#How you use it
- Open the Budget. In a project, click the Budget button in the toolbar (tooltip Open Budget).
- Read the meter. The typical figure is in the ring, the range is beneath it, and By category shows where the money goes.
- Set the frame. Type a target if the client gave you a number, set Show weeks if the show runs longer than one, and pick the Currency if the job is not in US dollars.
- Clear the unpriced lines. Click Incomplete beside the ring, then Enter rate on each line — or switch off what does not belong in this job.
- Check the sections. Open a section with its arrow, open a line to see how it was priced, and click a rate to type a Project override where you know better.
- Add what the scene cannot show. Use + Add line for permits, catering and other costs outside the 3D design.
- Decide on labor and adjustments. Switch Labor on if the total should carry it, and set Contingency, Markup, Tax or a Freight allowance under Adjustments.
- Keep it in view. Switch on Show Budget Bar and keep designing; the pill in the header follows every change.
#Why it matters
The first question about any design is what it costs, and it usually arrives before anyone has priced anything. Without a budget tied to the design, the answer waits on a spreadsheet built by hand from a drawing that has already changed. Here the budget is read from the same scene the client is looking at, so the number and the picture cannot drift apart: a bigger LED wall is a bigger line the moment you draw it.
It is also honest about what it does not know. An unpriced line stays visible and keeps the budget marked Incomplete instead of quietly counting as nothing, and the range tells the client how firm the number is. That makes it a planning tool you can put in front of a producer early, and a list of exactly which numbers to go and get before the real bids come in.