Zform - Convert Depth Maps And Images To 3D Mesh

Viz Life Studio in Addons


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This item has an average rating of 5 from 9 ratings by the community.

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  • Nicault
    2 months ago

    Very nice addon, very useful, in the old version of Blender I used a similar addon for detph map, free but with no feature as zForm. This addon does'nt work with the 4.x versions so I bougth zForm and I'm really happy, it's better than my previous option and the developper upgrade his product with some goods features.
    The price is fair and really honest.

    • Robert Green

      2 months ago

      Thanks a lot Nicault! I really appreciate it and the support.

  • Mario
    3 months ago

    With the last update my dream of exploring the 360 universe in Blender with creativity and ease, applied to images, (without needing to have knowledge of UVs and all technicalities....) has come true thanks to Z-Form, thanks to the unstoppable and brilliant contribution of Robert, an excellent person who always attends you with speed, generosity and wisdom. For me he is my favourite addon creator.

    • Robert Green

      3 months ago

      Thanks a bunch for the kind words and rating Mario! It's people like you who make what I do enjoyable and gratifying. I'm so glad to hear the newest Explore 360 features have fulfilled what you hoped to do in Blender with your images. Thank you : ) It's been a pleasure and I'm wishing you great success in the journeys ahead!

  • Christine
    4 months ago

    I think it is very useful to convert depth maps / height maps to geometry quickly. I would just like to let you know I did have to flip the normals to get it to export correctly, I'm not sure why that was. Also the "make solid" utility in Mesh Mixer is useful ;-). All the best.

    • Robert Green

      4 months ago

      Thank you, Christine! I'm glad to hear my tool has been useful for you. And I also appreciate you letting me know about flipping the normals...I'll take a look into that.

  • Cj Laufeyson
    4 months ago

    charging for this and then whacking a $20 addon to generate the depth map is actually incredibly annoying. is that a marketing tactic? so some one like my self will buy the addon thinking its a bargain, but then realise the really important part isn't included.....

    YES I know there are many many many fantastic websites to generate the map, but this doesn't feel right at all.

    Bait and Switch: The initial low price acts as bait, drawing you in with the promise of a solution. Then, the essential feature being extra feels like a switch, leaving you disappointed and potentially feeling tricked. This is a common tactic, but it doesn't make it ethical in the eyes of many consumers.

    Misleading Pricing: Even if technically legal, the pricing structure is misleading. The advertised price isn't representative of the actual cost of a functional product. It hides the true price, making it difficult to compare with alternatives.

    Value Proposition: The $5 price point suggests a certain level of functionality. When that expectation isn't met without the $20 add-on, the perceived value of the initial purchase plummets. It makes the $5 feel like a waste of money if it can't be used effectively on its own.

    Alternative Solutions: The fact that free alternatives exist for depth map generation highlights the developer's choice to monetize this specific feature. While developers deserve to be compensated for their work, the way this particular product is packaged feels exploitative, especially when free options are available.

    600+ sales. how many of them knew you had to buy the $20 vital part? I'd love to know honnestly.

    NOW if this was one package, at $15 -$20, i'd rate it excellent, but alas you've approached this with this tactic, and its not ethical.

    • Robert Green

      4 months ago

      Hi CJ,

      I'm sorry you feel this way. Please don't hesitate to reach out and I can gladly give you a full refund...no issues. I always try to provide the best support I can for those who message me.

      To be fair and accurate though, the very first sentence of the product description includes "zForm is a tool designed to transform your pre-existing depth maps", meaning the tool does not create depth maps. I also show in my tutorials you import your own depth maps rather than the tool generating them.

      There were several reasons why I decided to separate both products and none of them were to be misleading. The first of which is how I personally use both tools in my workflow, it was that simple.

      Merging all the features of zForm in combination with all the features of Depth Map Batch made the user interface way too cluttered and over complicated the simplicity of using specific parts of my workflow, and managing code updates. Not only that, the clean separation of products gives me the most flexibility on what paths and direction I want to take each tool in the future without handcuffing me to be dependent on the other.

      And given there are ever growing options and alternatives out there to generate depth maps, I wanted to offer a product with a very reasonable and fair entry price point for these folks rather than making them pay more for features they had no interest in using. Rather than having a much heavier and bulky add-on that required several python libraries installed to use the tool, the tool is instead lightweight and quick to install without additional dependencies.

      In this use-case zForm still offers a lot of value and saves people time transforming their pre-existing depth maps to 3D versus having to manually do all the repetitive steps involved, particularly if you want to do this with several images. I mean, that's why I built the tool to begin with. Isn't that what most add-ons in Blender try to accomplish is to help save them time rather than manually trying to do all the steps involved?

      And for those who want a tool to generate depth maps in Blender, I provide in the product description a separate link to my other product as an option if they want to take a look. That way I can offer zForm as a very low entry point for everyone to give it a try to see if it's something you like.

      Long winded response, but I hope that all makes sense.

  • Joji Nomura
    6 months ago

    I made a review on his other depthmapbatch and like I said, this addon also rocks! Great dev!

    • Robert Green

      6 months ago

      Thank you so much, Joji! It's been a pleasure helping you use my tools and the feedback you've provided along the way.

  • Christopher Nichols
    6 months ago

    I love the program, but I am having trouble using it on a video created in Blender. Could you give me a rough overview of the process? It would be helpful.

    • Robert Green

      6 months ago

      Hi Christopher, I'm so glad overall you're enjoying zForm...thanks a bunch. I'd really like to help you get started using the video feature and happy to help. Please message me using the "Contact Creator" button on my homepage and we can get you using video soon.

      In the meantime I'll give a rough overview of the video process and getting it to work. The most important step is probably making sure your depth maps are compiled into a video file just like the original video file, and ensuring they match the same frame sequence. The way I currently compile my depth maps into a video file is using Blender’s video editor tool.

      I plan to create a short video tutorial on how to do that. But, if you message me directly I’ll be happy to help you do that and walk you thru the process.

      Then, once you the depth map video file is ready to go, you will use the “Open Video” to reference the original video file, and then reference the depth map video file in the “Depth Map” prompt. 

After both files have been referenced in the tool, you can then just click on “Apply Depth Map”.

      There is actually one alternative method I also use sometimes for videos in zForm. Both work, but I sometimes like to use this method instead. For a preliminary step I will extract each frame of the video into separate images. And then I will use the “Directory” feature instead of “Video”.

      If you choose to use this method instead, make sure that each frame of the video matches the file name structure of the depth maps because that’s how the tool matches images to depth maps. For example, the first frame might have “frame_0001.png” for the original video frame and “frame_0001_depth.png” for the video. Both have a consistent file name structure with “frame_0001” and it’s required the depth map have “_depth” at the end.

      Then just click “Apply Depth Map”. Using Blender’s timeline each frame will be played in the timeline. I also plan to create a tutorial on this as well.

      As a next step for me, I’m going to commit to adding inside of zForm a little help section that people can click on to get some pointers on how to use each section of the tool and more documentation on using video.

  • Bob Watt
    7 months ago

    Works great. It would be cool to have the ability to do the depth mapping directly in the plugin.

    • Robert Green

      7 months ago

      Hi Bob, thank you so much for the great rating and feedback on zForm—I really appreciate it!

      I’ll definitely take your suggestion into consideration. My initial design goal for zForm was to be lightweight, quick to install, and reliant on Blender's native libraries, but I’ll keep an open mind about this for the future.

      Thanks again for your support and thoughtful feedback!

  • salah
    8 months ago

    just got this today. It works great.

    • Robert Green

      8 months ago

      Appreciate that, thank you!

  • Christer Andersén
    8 months ago

    Awesome program. And a very helpful author. Recommended!

    • Robert Green

      8 months ago

      Thank you, Christer!

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Details
Sales 800+
Rating
9 ratings
Dev Fund Contributor
Published 9 months ago
Blender Version 4.4, 4.3, 4.2, 4.1, 4.0, 3.6, 3.5
Extension Type N/A
License GPL