  We analyze a sample of 45 Type II supernovae from the Zwicky Transient
Facility (ZTF) public survey using a grid of hydrodynamical models in order to
assess whether theoretically-driven forecasts can intelligently guide follow up
observations supporting all-sky survey alert streams. We estimate several
progenitor properties and explosion physics parameters including
zero-age-main-sequence (ZAMS) mass, mass-loss rate, kinetic energy, 56Ni mass
synthesized, host extinction, and the time of explosion. Using complete light
curves we obtain confident characterizations for 34 events in our sample, with
the inferences of the remaining 11 events limited either by poorly constraining
data or the boundaries of our model grid. We also simulate real-time
characterization of alert stream data by comparing our model grid to various
stages of incomplete light curves (t less than 25 days, t less than 50 days,
all data), and find that some parameters are more reliable indicators of true
values at early epochs than others. Specifically, ZAMS mass, time of explosion,
steepness parameter beta, and host extinction are reasonably constrained with
incomplete light curve data, whereas mass-loss rate, kinetic energy and 56Ni
mass estimates generally require complete light curves spanning greater than
100 days. We conclude that real-time modeling of transients, supported by
multi-band synthetic light curves tailored to survey passbands, can be used as
a powerful tool to identify critical epochs of follow up observations. Our
findings are relevant to identify, prioritize, and coordinate efficient follow
up of transients discovered by Vera C. Rubin Observatory.
