I've been wanting to add some fine detail to a certain V4 character's head for some time, and banged on this until I got it to work.  If anyone's interested, here's the procedure.

1)  From Poser, load your V4 and apply whatever morphs are desired, like so:

2)  File Menu -> Export -> Wavefront OBJ -> Single Frame, and select only the Head from the Hierarchy Editor:

3.  These export options work.  Others might work too.

4.  Supply some filename.  For this activity, scaling did not cause me any issues, although be aware that for other tasks e.g. creating morph targets, you'd want to look into scaling the OBJ file up, and then back down on the way back into Poser.

5.  Open Zbrush 3.  Hit Escape and bypass the Quickstart menu.  Preferences menu -> Importexport -> un-select iFlipY and eFlipY (again other options might work too).

6.  From the Tool palette, click Import.  Locate and open the exported OBJ file.  Draw a copy of the head onto the document window, and press T to switch to Edit mode.  The head will draw facing away from you; it's OK to rotate the view around to the front like so.

7.  Open the Morph Target palette, and click StoreMT to store a morph target.  This is crucial to allow Zbrush to separate the base mesh from the changes made when subdividing and sculpting.  Note the location of the StoreMT button in the above screenshot.

8.  Subdivide (Ctrl+D) as much as you like (I did 3 times).  Sculpt, in this case with a very fine Standard brush with X symmetry turned on (hit X).

9.  From the Geometry palette, switch back to Subdivision level 1.

10.  From the Morph Target Palette, click Switch.  This returns the bottom subdivision level to an un-morphed state, and allows us to make a displacement map.  Stay at subdivision level 1!  This threw me for a long time, because I kept thinking I should switch back up to max subdivision level, but don't do it yet.

11.  From the DIsplacement palette, set options as you like; I set them like so.  I'm sure other settings would work just as well or better. 

12.  Press Create DispMap.  You should see the outline of the Displacement palette rapidly animate over to the Alpha menu at the top left of the screen.  This should place a copy of your displacement map on bottom of the Alpha palette.  Select your displacement map and make it the Current Alpha.

13.  With your displacement map set as the Current Alpha, from the Alpha menu (not the palette, the menu at top left), click Flip V.  This is because, by default, the displacement map is stored upside-down from how Poser expects to read it.

14.  From the Alpha menu, click Export.  Select a file format.  TIF is fine, and can be converted to JPG on the way back to Poser to reduce size if desired.  Zbrush seems a little inconsistent in this department; one session exported 4000x4000 at 31MB, and another one following the exact same steps exported at 259KB.  I don't see any options to set file compression or color depth; this is a 16 bits/pixel image in both cases.    Anyhow, let's bring it back into Poser now.

15.  We have a small problem:  Zbrush displacement maps consider the zero point to be 50% grey.  Poser considers the zero point to be 0% (black).  So we're going to subtract .5 from the color values of the displacement map (thanks Stonemason, BagginsBill).  In Poser, switch to the Materials room -> Advanced view.  Select the 1_SkinFace group.  Click the plug next to Displacement on the root node and select New Node -> Math -> Math_Functions.

16.  In the new Math_Functions node, change the Math_Argument parameter to Subtract.  The Value_1 parameter should be set to 1.0.  Change the Value_2 parameter to .5 (we're going to subtract 50% of color values from the image map, once we add it.).

17.  Click the plug next to Value_1.  New Node -> 2D Textures -> Image_Map.

18.  In the new Image_Map node, locate and set your displacement map.  You may also want to turn off texture filtering (I do).

19.  Complete!  If you like, you can save a Material, or Materialss Collection, that includes this setting; see Poser documentation for use of Materials Collections.  We're now ready to render!  But we need to tell Poser's render engine to Use Displacement maps.  If you use another application for rendering, some more work may be required, see your renderer documentation.

20.  Voila!

Ah, note this isn't tied to Victoria 4 really, and can be used for any figure or other object.

That's very useful, thank you!

Thank you for this great tutorial.  Sharen

Thanks very much, I just starting to use displacement maps in poser and this is a big help.

Holy crap Pjz...I've been trying to get the displacement working for ZBrush 3 for quite a while, thank you for sharing your process.

Have you tried this on a major morph, really altering and moving the mesh as opposed to just little wrinkles.
Don't get me wrong I'm not knocking the little wrinkles, just curious about how far this can go.

Also, have you tried to store a morph target on a mesh that has already been subdivided? What I mean is I've already taken a stock Poser head and morphed/subdivided it x3...do you think that
if I went to the 1st subdivision level and applied the morph target that it would work???

Thanks again, and thanks stone mason and abggins bill too!

If you subdivide and morph, and then store a morph target at a higher subdivision level, the resulting morph target is only applicable to the new geometry - meaning you cannot pass it back into Poser.  

For morphing the whole body, Richardson's method of export all body parts to OBJ -> strip out the groups with UVMapper -> sculpt in Zbrush -> export again -> put the groups back in is very likely the best way to get this done, but I haven't got my head around the mechanics of HOW all that works procedurally yet.  It's kind of beyond the scope of what I want to do anyhow; modifying the base OBJ that V4 is built from is enough for me.  You might ping Richardson and ask for some more detail on how to get it to work.

Fantastic tutorial there!!  I have ZB3 on the way so I was hoping for as many "Poser friendly" tuts as I can find.  I'd like to do some new face and possibly body morphs for Apollo!!  

We would actually need more tuts like this.

Zbrush is one of the greatest 3d tool on the market but the interface is so counter intuitive.
I tought learning photoshop was hard. I wish they would have done a make over for the interface in zbrush 3 but it is the same mess. You basically have to sit down and either figure it out which can take a while or get some tutorials like here.

There is another tool that is similar to zbrush that has a better interface but the program lacks a lot of what makes zbrush special. I just wish the pixologic guys would make it easier but i guess they do not so we have to live with it.

It would be nice of the author of this very good post to post more tuts like this. The only way to learn zbrush is visually it seems...

:)

Excellent Tutorial, my problem is I usually inflate/deflate and then smooth (during modeling), but when I’m finished modeling and I bring the Geometry back down to level 1(displacement palette) in the morph target palette the switch stays grayed out.  Any suggestions on this?

Thanks,
Philip

I figured it out, I needed to export the geometry out of poser like stated in the beginning of the tut.  Everything went OK, but I don’t see any displacement.  I did check the displacement box in the render settings menu, but all I get is slightly swelled geometry.

Thanks,
Philip

*Zbrush is one of the greatest 3d tool on the market but the interface is so counter intuitive.

*And Pixologic keeps changing it.   3.1 seems to change a lot of essentially cosmetic things, while leaving some of the bugs from 3 alive and kicking.   Trying to find the Tweak brush in 3.1 is fun...

Very good tutorial.

Here's the Apollo Robe by Connie with my first successful test!!  WOOT!!  So happy, so very happy!! 

Very nice tutorial but by some reasons Create DispMap was unactive when I came to that step. Everything else is working. Where can be a problem?

ZBrush 3.1

Did you make sure you have the Edit button selected?

You may want to go over the steps again and see if you overlooked one!

Yes, I'm sure that I select "Edit" and all steps are made one by one :)

But I'm exported from DS and not from Poser. Maybe this is a problem.

Select the head and neck and export that only using the dialog for the appropriate size.  Uncheck most of the options since you just need the base obj files exported (so things like mtl, maps are not needed). 

OK, I tried again and this time it worked. In DS the option "Write UV coordinates" should be selected.
But I'm now getting the weird results - and with Poser export and with DS one - the displ. map looks nothing like it should be... :(

Yes, I followed all steps

Since you brought this up I've been, between clients, trying to get body parts exported from Studio using the Export : Obj options and you know I'm not sure that can be done?  I did manage to get the Material list to export using the Silo export option.  I didn't turn off the MTL options but I did turn off export maps and that's been fine.  I find, for the best results, is to import in to UVMapper or UVMapper Pro your obj file and then go from there.  Yea, Studio needs more options I think.  Maybe with version 2 it will expand thing a bit more

What I mean that even with Poser export I'm getting weird results -_-

Weird results can mean quite a bit hon.  Can you post a screen shot or explain a bit more?? 

@pjz99: Thank you very much for this tutorial! That's really going to help! :D

@RAMWolff: There is a "Smooth UV" option in the displacement palette. But it is not active by default, you have to set that manually. It worked for me, only the grey base color was the problem. Not anymore, thanks to this tut. :)

I could not get it to work, I dont' think the map was made right by zbrush, it's all grey.

The zbrush maps always look grey. It exports light grey on a grey background. That's why pjz99 explained that workaround with the node settings.
However, I've just found out that zbrush itself offers the possibility of adjusting the contrast so that the map gets white on black.
I'll post a screenshot as soon as I can; at the moment my PC is blocked by a huge pic that is taking ages to render ;)

Thank you so much for this valuable tutorial. hoepfully you will do more for us.
cheerio  lululee

Quote - I'll post a screenshot as soon as I can; at the moment my PC is blocked by a huge pic that is taking ages to render ;)

Wow, esha, that render really is taking a long time! Almost 5 months now? Is that 24/7?

Anyhow, not quite sure how I came across this at this late date, but nice post, pjz99.

(And I just thought I'd chime in and say I like ZBrush's interface :thumbupboth:. Well, mostly . corleone1, Morgano, what's wrong with you guys? :blink:)

This worked amazingly well, Thanks so much for putting this together. I am working with thier Demo to see if this will be workable for what I want to do and I looks like it is!

Question, would Carrara 6 support Zbrush displacement maps?

Thanks again for the great tutorial!

Thank you! This is great thanks for the time you took to pull in all the pics so it's easy to follow. Looking forward to more.

has anyone noticed that the grey in zbrush displacement map is not the same grey in poser? 
the middle color should be the same right? well i made a displacement map in zbrush. and then i opened in photoshop. i also rendered a plane with middle grey in poser and then i also opened it in photoshop. it is not the same color. thats why it doesnt look good.

anyone have the same problems? 

The grey in your render is influenced by the lighting. In the renders you practically never get the color you assigned in the mat room ;)
You should use the RGB values of the color you assign to the plane (press ALT while you click on the color node) to compare with the displacement map.

But it's true, the subtract 0.5 trick doesn't work well with higher displacement values. Let's hope some future version of Poser will fix this...

I notice you set the Mid option to 0 in the displacement tab.
what does setting this to 0 do?

ok i found now the problem. the grey in zbrush is not the same. using the math function with subtract only works if you know exactly that the grey is the same in poser. if you dont know then use this :

use the color picker for the grey.