Accurate Displacement Workflow

Intro

This tutorial attempts to cover and clarify the process of generating and applying accurate displacement maps from either ZBrush or Mudbox, to V-Ray for Maya, V-Ray for 3ds Max, V-Ray for Cinema 4D, or Arnold for Maya (MtoA).

There's often a lot of confusion and misinformation surrounding displacement maps and how they're supposed to work. You'll sometimes see artists load a displacement map onto their low resolution geometry and play with intensity and depth values until it looks somewhat similar to their high resolution geometry and assume that's it's as close as they can get. But with a correct workflow you don't have to fiddle with settings or settle for 'close enough' - it'll just work correctly from the start to match your high resolution geometry as accurately as possible.

We'll first cover some of the underlying concepts behind how a floating-point displacement map works and how to recognize if you're getting correct results. Then we'll cover some of the common pitfalls that artists frequently encounter and how to avoid them. And finally I'll provide the step-by-step procedures to make displacement mapping work accurately in your software of choice.

If you already know the underlying concepts and just want the technical step-by-step procedures, click here to skip right to it.

How Floating-Point Displacement Works

Displacement mapping is a method of taking high resolution geometry information and baking it to an image map that can be applied to low resolution geometry. This map then gets used by your renderer to replicate the high resolution geometry detail as accurately as possible. A properly generated floating-point displacement map will make your low res geometry match your high res geometry very accurately - right from the start.

This is because a correctly generated floating-point displacement map works in a very logical way: The displacement map's pixel values correspond directly to your 3D package's scene units. So a pixel value of 1.0 will displace your mesh by 1.0 scene units. A pixel value of 0.5 displaces your mesh by 0.5 scene units. And a pixel value of 0.0 doesn't displace your mesh at all. All very logical. And because the displacement map's pixel values are stored in floating-point format, they can contain pixel values far above 1.0, and negative pixel values far below 0.0. It's a great way to store precise displacement information.

We can illustrate this using a simple test scene:

3 planes on different locations along the up/down axis, each made of just one polygon, and each with a default planar UV map.
The top plane is at 35.0 units on the up/down axis.
The middle plane is at 0.0 units on the up/down axis.
The bottom plane is at -20.0 units on the up/down axis.

Figure 01

Three identical planes located at different spots on the up/down axis.
Download this test setup in multiple formats if you want to try it yourself.

We'll import the scene into a program like ZBrush or Mudbox, subdivide the middle plane a few times, and do some simple sculpting on it. First we'll pull a point in the center up just enough so it touches the plane above it, and then pull two points down on the sides until they just touch the plane on the bottom. We'll also write something across the surface for some additional detail.

Figure 02

The middle plane with sculpting applied to reach the top and bottom planes.

Once we're done, we can go ahead and generate the displacement map for the middle plane (using the procedure listed below). We can now open and inspect the map in a program like Nuke - which works natively with floating-point images.

In the Nuke viewer we can test our generated displacement map. When we hover our cursor over the center point of the image - which corresponds to where we pulled up the mesh to touch the top plane - Nuke shows us a pixel value of roughly 35.0, which if you'll recall is exactly where we placed the top plane along the up/down axis. Also when we hover over the general location corresponding to either of the two points we pulled down, we see pixel values of roughly -20.0, also exactly where we placed the bottom plane along the up/down axis.

Figure 03

Hovering over points of the displacement map in the Nuke viewer shows their pixel values. Here the image is red because displacement only needs one channel to store its info - so it's stored in the Red channel. Also the negative pixel values are not directly visible because they are below 0.0 - the black point of our monitors.

While we might not be able to directly SEE much in the displacement map from a raw visual standpoint, the data it contains is certainly there... and that's really all a displacement map is - an image being used to store displacement data.

So we can assume that this is a correctly generated displacement map since we know ahead of time how high and low we placed the upper and lower planes along the up/down axis. And sure enough when we apply the displacement map to the middle plane in our 3D software (using the procedure listed below) and hit render, we get the exact same result we had in our sculpting program - the center point just touches the top plane 35.0 units above it, the two points on the side just touch the bottom plane -20.0 units below it, and the rest of the details displace correctly. No 'displacement amount', 'shift', or 'middle point' settings had to be fiddled with - it correctly and accurately displaces the mesh right from the start.

Figure 04

The displacement map applied to the middle plane and rendered - exactly matching what we had in our sculpting program.

Even though this example uses fairly extreme values (35.0 units up and -20 units down) the results are still accurate. In another example we apply displacement to a more complex object with multiple UV seams and still get correct results - even across the seams. The boxes on the side of the sphere are 5 units wide on all sides, and serve as a visual indicator to confirm correct displacement amounts.

Figure 05

Displacement mapping applied to a more complex object, with displacement occurring over multiple UV seams with no issues.

And finally, below is a example of floating-point displacement mapping in a real world production setting. The detailing you see on the right comes purely from displacement mapping - there are no normal or bump maps involved - and it matches the high resolution geometry of the original sculpt precisely.

Figure 06

On the left: The basemesh without displacement mapping applied
On the right: The basemesh with displacement mapping applied.

Common Pitfalls & Avoiding Them

UVs Are Important

Displacement mapping generally requires a good UV layout of your object. There can be no overlapping UVs as it will cause errors in the generated maps. Also, ZBrush in particular does not like UVs to rest directly on the edges of the UV sheet (as some automatic UV generation methods will do) - so make sure your UVs are always placed slightly within the edges of the UV sheet.

Double Check Your Basemeshes

Remember that while sculpting at higher subdivision levels, the positions of lower subdivision vertices are often also being affected. So the low res mesh you imported into your sculpting program may no longer be exactly the same as the low res mesh you're using to generate your displacement map. Always double check to make sure the low res mesh you generated your displacement map from is the same as the mesh you're applying your displacement map to.

Floating-Point Displacement Maps Are Scale Dependent

Since the pixel values of a floating-point displacement map correspond directly to scene units, your object's scale becomes an important factor for guaranteeing accurate displacement amounts. If you scale your low-res mesh up or down after you've already generated your displacement map, your displacement map will no longer have accurate intensity values relative to the new scale of the basemesh. The map will either have to be regenerated with the new object scale, or compensated for by the 'Displacement Amount' setting in V-Ray, or displacement 'Height' setting in Arnold. For example: if you scaled your object up x2, then you'll have to increase the displacement amount setting x2 to compensate.

Floating-Point -vs- Integer

The procedures listed below cover generating 32bit floating-point displacement maps, but if you're in a production setting that's especially concerned about saving harddrive space, you can also use 16bit floating-point (half-float) and still get practically identical results. However it's important to be sure you use a 16bit floating-point format to store your image, and NOT a 16bit integer format. An integer format will not work correctly in this workflow, and you'll have to do the whole 'displacement amount' and 'shift' song and dance to make them work. This is because integer formats do not support negative pixel values, which are used by floating-point displacement maps to represent carved-in areas. If you're not sure how to get one or the other, stick to the procedures listed below to get 32bit floating-point displacement maps.

There's Only So Much Displacement Can Reliably Do

In an ideal world, floating-point displacement mapping always produces exact, accurate results with absolutely no differences from the original high resolution mesh. Unfortunately 3D software is hardly ideal - and each software package tends to have it's own methods to accomplish similar tasks. Where this can sometimes cause subtle shifts in precision for displacement is the topic of smoothing algorithms. Some software packages use an algorithm like Catmull-Clark to smooth their meshes, and other packages use their own entirely different method. Until the day comes that all software packages can agree to use the same algorithms (like Pixar's OpenSubdiv initiative - email your software companies encouraging them to implement it!) there can be slight changes between your high res mesh to your displaced low res mesh. The good news is these shifts are often subtle and become much less of an issue if your basemesh isn't VERY low polygon. Basically, don't expect displacement to be a magic bullet. If you're trying to turn a simple polygon cube into an apple through displacement mapping only, don't be surprised if you run into issues. Give your low polygon object proper form and polygon resolution, and let displacement carry the details.

Displacement Procedures

So now we know how floating-point displacement maps work and what to expect from them. It's just a matter of pushing the right buttons to correctly generate and apply them in our 3D packages. Below I've laid out step-by-step procedures of how to generate floating-point displacement maps from the major sculpting package of your choice - and apply them in the renderer of your choice.

Each of the settings in the following workflows are the result of careful testing. If you're curious about any of the settings, just click the "(?)" next to a step to view a popup explaining what the setting does and why it's set as it is.

Select Your Sculpting Package:

Open or Import your high-res mesh with multiple subdivision levels.
If you imported your high res mesh from another program - rebuild the lower subdivisions by going to the Tool palette, expanding the Geometry subpalette, and clicking the 'Reconstruct Subdiv' button until at the lowest desired level.
In the ZPlugin palette, expand the Multi Map Exporter subpalette, and make sure the Displacement button is highlighted.
Set the Map Size slider to the image resolution that best suits your needs. (Recommended 2048 or higher)
Set 'Flip V' to ON. (?)

Flip V Setting

Setting this to ON compensates for the way ZBrush handles UV maps internally - which is flipped along the vertical axis compared to programs like Maya and Max.
Click the 'Export Options' button to reveal additional map options.
Set the 'SubDiv Level' slider to the subdiv level you want your low resolution basemesh to be.
Set 'Adaptive' to OFF. (?)

Adaptive Setting

Setting this to ON is supposed to produce a higher-quality displacement map.
But through experimentation I have found it to be unreliable and generally unnecessary at larger resolutions.
At times it can even result in a displacement map that is completely useless - So I recommend leaving it OFF.
Set 'DPSubPix' to '4'. (?)

DPSubPix Setting

This setting determines the accuracy of the displacement map created for the object.
Higher values cause a higher-quality displacement map to be generated, but will take longer to generate.
If your high resolution mesh is very high poly (16mil or larger), or your displacement map size low (2048 or lower), then you can get away with setting this to a lower value like 2.
Set 'SmoothUV' to OFF. (?)

SmoothUV Setting

Setting this to OFF disables UV Smoothing on our low res mesh.
We'll match this setting in our renderer to ensure an accurate mapping of displacement details.
Set 'Mid' to '0'. (?)

Mid Setting

Setting this to 0 makes the displacement map pixel value of 0.0 act as the mid point where no displacement is being applied - which is what we want for an accurate floating-point displacement map.
Set '3 Channels' to OFF. (?)

3 Channels Setting

Setting this to OFF stores our displacement information using only the RED channel of our generated displacement map.
32bit Displacement only needs one channel to store its info, so this setting will slightly reduce file sizes without losing any info.
Set '32 Bit' and 'EXR' to ON. (?)

32Bit Setting

Setting this to ON enables the export of a 32bit floating-point displacement map.
Set 'Scale' to '1'. (?)

Scale Setting

This setting determines the scale of the generated displacement map's pixel values.
Since we want an exact 1:1 match, we'll leave this at a default value of 1.
Here is a screengrab of the above settings to verify.
Click the 'Create All Maps' button, choose a filename and directory to save your map to. (Don't worry if the filetype says TIF, since we enabled the EXR button it will in fact be saving in EXR format)
Click the 'Save' button to run the displacement map generation.
Your displacement map is now ready for use!

A note about ZBrush and the Multimap Exporter Plugin:
In versions prior to ZBrush 4R6, the Multimap Exporter Plugin only allowed for export in 32bit TIFF format - which Maya and 3ds Max can have issues with. So if you use the Multimap Exporter plugin in versions prior to 4R6, you'll probably have to convert your generated 32bit TIFF to EXR in Nuke or Photoshop before using them in Maya or 3ds Max. If converting to EXR in Photoshop, be sure the image mode (Image menu -> Mode) is set to RGB Color and NOT Grayscale, as this can also cause problems.

Open or Import your high-res mesh with multiple subdivision levels.
If you imported your high res mesh from another program - rebuild the lower subdivisions by selecting 'Mesh -> Rebuild Subdivision Levels'
Go to 'UVs & Maps -> Extract Texture Maps -> New Operation' from the menu bar.
Check 'Displacement Map' from the 'Maps To Generate' list.
In the Target Models box: select your mesh at the lowest desired subdivision level for your basemesh - usually level 0.
Set 'Smooth Target Models' to CHECKED. (?)

Smooth Target Models Setting

Setting this to CHECKED will generate the displacement map from the low res mesh after it has been turned into a subdivision surface.
This is also how we will setup our corresponding renderer to treat the low res mesh at render time.
Set 'Smooth Target UVs' to UNCHECKED. (?)

Smooth Target UVs Setting

Setting this to UNCHECKED disables UV Smoothing on our low res mesh.
We'll match this setting in our renderer to ensure an accurate mapping of displacement details.
Set 'Use Creases & Hard Edges' to CHECKED.
In the Source Models box: select your mesh at the highest subdivision level.
Set 'Smooth Source Models' to CHECKED. (?)

Smooth Source Models Setting

Setting this to CHECKED will apply a polygon face smoothing to the highest level mesh, which will smooth any polygon edges still visible in the high res mesh.
This value becomes less important the higher polycount your highest subdivision level is, and can optionally be left UNCHECKED at very high polygon levels.
Set Method to 'Ray Casting' (?)

Method Setting

Setting Method to Ray Casting will generally provide the highest quality displacement map.
But if you run into issues with intersecting or thin geometry, you can also try the 'Subdivision' method.
Set Choose Samples to 'Closest To LowRes Mesh'.
Set 'Test Both Sides' to CHECKED.
Click the 'Best Guess' button to estimate a Search Distance number. (?)

Search Distance Setting

The search distance specifies how far rays get casted from the low resolution mesh's surface to search for the high resolution mesh's surface.
The Best Guess button usually does a good enough job coming up with a value for this, but sometimes in cases of extreme displacement it can fall short.
If you know your object has extreme displacement amounts, it may be better to manually set this to a higher value to ensure no clipping occurs in your displacement map.
Select 'Generate one map for all targets' from the dropdown.
Image size: Choose the image resolution that best suits your needs (Recommended 2048 or higher).
Set 'Antialiasing' to 'Off'. (?)

Search Distance Setting

Setting this to UNCHECKED makes sure no pixels in your displacement map get affected by antialiasing - which would distort their height values.
Set 'Normalize To Search Distance' to UNCHECKED. (?)

Search Distance Setting

Setting this to UNCHECKED disables any premature clamping of your displacement map pixel values according to the Search Distance value.
Set 'Map Type' to 'Texture'.
Click the 'Base Filename' options box (...), choose a filename and directory to save your map to, and select 'OpenEXR 32bit Floating-Point' as the file type.
Set 'Preview As Bump Map' to UNCHECKED.
Here is a screengrab of the above settings to verify.
Click the 'Extract' button to run the displacement map generation.
Your displacement map is now ready for use!

Select Your Renderer:

Import your low-res mesh (Double check that your low-res mesh is the exact same mesh you generated your displacement map from).
Select your mesh, open the attribute editor, and have your object's Shape node tab selected. Then in the attribute editor's menu click 'Attributes -> V-Ray' and check 'Subdivision', 'Subdivision and Displacement Quality' and 'Displacement Control' to add those extra attributes to your mesh's Shape node.
Scroll to the bottom of the attribute editor and expand the 'Extra V-Ray Attributes' rollout.
Set 'Render As A Subdivision Surface' to CHECKED. (?)

Render As A Subdivision Setting

Setting this to CHECKED will turn our low res mesh into a smooth subdivision surface before applying the displacement map.
This matches the way ZBrush and Mudbox were setup to generate the displacement map.
Set 'Subdivide UVs' to UNCHECKED. (?)

Subdivide UVs Setting

Setting this to UNCHECKED disables UV Smoothing on our low res mesh.
This matches the way ZBrush and Mudbox were setup to generate the displacement map.
Set 'Edge Length' to a value of 4.0 to begin with, and lower as needed for better displacement quality (at the expense of higher render times).
Select 'Normal Displacement' from the Displacement Type dropdown. (?)

Normal Displacement Setting

While Normal Displacement is generally the best all-around setting for displacement mapping type, you may be able to get even higher quality results with 2D Mapping.
As long as your UVs are good, you can experiment with both displacement types to see which gives the best results.
Set 'Keep Continuity' to CHECKED. (?)

Keep Continuity Setting

Setting this to CHECKED will have V-Ray keep displaced face edges connected without splits.
Uncheck 'Filter Texture' to disable filtering of your displacement map and preserve the high frequency details of your sculpt.
Leave all other settings at their defaults. Here is a screengrab of the above settings to verify.
Open Hypershade, create a VRayMtl and assign it to your mesh.
In the Shading Groups tab in Hypershade, select your newly created VRayMtlSG and hold right click to select 'Graph Network' to see your object and VRayMtl nodes in the work area of the Hypergraph.
Add a 'Displacement' node to the work area from maya's list of hypershade nodes on the left, then middle-click-drag from the Displacement node to the VRayMtlSG node and then select 'Default'.
Add a 'File' node to the work area from maya's list of hypershade nodes on the left, the middle-click-drag from the File node to the Displacement node and then select 'Other...'
On the left side of the connection editor, click the plus next to 'OutColor' to expand it and select 'OutColorR', then select the 'Displacement' value on the right side to connect them. (?)

OutColorR to Displacement Setting

We have both ZBrush and Mudbox set to store the generated displacement map's information to the RED channel only.
So having OutColorR connected to the displacement amount is logicial and avoids Maya's tendency to average the RED, GREEN, and BLUE channels together -
Which would result in a displacement intensity 1/3 what it should be (since the other channels are just black).
Select the 'File' node in hypergraph, open the attribute editor, and load in your previously generated displacement map in the 'Image Name' box.
In the attribute editor's menu click 'Attributes -> V-Ray' and check 'Texture Input Gamma' and 'Allow Negative Colors' to add those extra attributes to your File node.
Scroll to the bottom of the attribute editor, open the 'V-Ray Extra Attributes' rollout, and change color space to 'Linear' and check 'Allow Negative Colors'.
Open the Maya Render Settings window, go to the 'V-Ray' tab, and open the 'Global Options' rollout. Make sure that the checkbox next to 'Displacement' is checked.
You're all setup! Render to verify.

Import your low-res mesh (Double check that your low-res mesh is the exact same mesh you generated your displacement map from).
Select your mesh, then in the Modify tab add a 'Unwrap UVW' modifer to your object.
Under the Edit UVs rollout click the 'Open UV Editor...' button.
In the Edit UVs window, activate vertex selection mode and select all of your UVs (Ctrl+A). Then go to 'Tools -> Break' to break apart all your UV edges. Close the Edit UVs window. (?)

Break UVs Setting

This is a hack to prevent 3ds Max from smoothing your UVs since it does not have this functionality built in.
Meshsmooth's 'Old Style Mapping' is similar but still distorts your UVs unpredictably.
Add a 'Turbosmooth' modifier to your object above the Unwrap UVW modifier.
Set Iterations to 0 (or whatever smoothness you'd like to see in the viewport).
Check 'Render Iters' and set it's value to 3. (?)

Render Iterations Setting

Setting this to a value of 3 ensures your mesh behaves as closely to a subdivision surface as possible, and thereby prevents edge artifacts.
If your low res mesh has a fairly high poly count then you may be able to get away with setting this to a value of 2.
Add a 'VRayDisplacementMod' modifier to your object.
Check '3D Mapping'. (?)

3D Mapping Setting

While 3D Mapping is generally the best all-around setting for displacement mapping type, you may be able to get even higher quality results with 2D Mapping.
As long as your UVs are good, you can experiment with both displacement types to see which gives the best results.
Click the 'None' button, and choose 'VRayHDRI' from the Material/Map Browser popup.
Open the material editor and drag the VRayHDRI button to an empty material editor slot or your graphite material node graph and choose 'Instance' as the method.
In the VRayHDRI's properties, select the '...' button next to the bitmap box to locate and load in your previously generated displacement map into the bitmap box.
In the Color Space group, make sure type is set to 'None' to tell V-Ray our generated displacement map is a linear image.
Leave all other settings to their defaults. You can close or minimize the material editor.
Back in the VRayDisplacementMod modifier, Uncheck 'Filter Texmap' to disable filtering of your displacement map and preserve the high frequency details of your sculpt.
Set 'Edge Length' to a value of 4.0 to begin with, and lower as needed for better displacement quality (at the expense of higher render times).
Check 'Keep Continuity'. (?)

Keep Continuity Setting

Setting this to CHECKED will have V-Ray keep displaced face edges connected without splits.
Set 'Texmap Min' and 'Texmap Max' to values that exceeds the largest positive or negative pixel value found in your generated displacement map. This value can automatically be found in Nuke using the 'CurvesTool' node's 'Max Luma Pixel' mode as seen here. If you dont have access to Nuke, then you can experiment with these values by starting at -1.0 min and 1.0 max. Then expand these values if you notice any clipping occuring in the extreme highs or lows of your displacement. (?)

Texmap Min & Max Settings

This value sets the boundary of displacement, so the idea is to set it large enough that it contains all your displaced detail without any clipping.
Setting these values unnecessarily high can slow down the renderer.
Leave all other settings at their defaults.
Here is a screengrab of the above settings to verify.
Open the 3ds Max Render Setup window, go to the 'V-Ray' tab, and open the 'Global Switches' rollout. Make sure that the checkbox next to 'Displacement' is checked.
You're all setup! Render to verify.

Import your low-res mesh (Double check that your low-res mesh is the exact same mesh you generated your displacement map from).
Create a 'vrayAdvancedMaterial' from the Create -> Shader -> VrayBridge menu in the material manager. Drag it onto the model in the object manager.
Next, create a 'vrayDisplaceMaterial' from that same menu. Drag this also onto the model in the object manager so you should now have two materials side by side with the displacement on the right of the advanced material.
Open the vrayDisplaceMaterial. In the texture slot, click the arrow and add a VrayBridge -> vrayShader.
Click on the shader and in the drop down set it to 'vrayBitmap'. Set the colorspace to linear and load in your generated displacement map. Finally check the box for 'Allow Negative Colors'.
Back in the main options for the vrayDisplaceMaterial, check the boxes for 'Tight Bounds' and 'Use As Subdivision Surface'.
Also make sure that Displacement type is set to '3D Mapping', and 'Keep Continuity' is checked.
At this point we also want to make sure that the 'Amount' value is set to '3.0' instead of '1.0'. This is a hack that's needed specifically for Cinema 4D since it expects displacement information in the GREEN and BLUE channels of our EXR. When it finds nothing in those channels (since we saved our displacement information in the RED channel only), it averages the information in the RED channel with the empty GREEN and BLUE channels - resulting in displacement 1/3 as strong as it should be. So setting the 'Amount' setting here to 3.0 instead of 1.0 compensates for this to give us the correct displacement amount to match our original high-res mesh.
In Render Settings -> VrayBridge -> Displacement, start with the default edge length set to '4.0' to begin with, and lower as needed for better displacement quality (at the expense of higher render times).
Make sure Displacement is checked on in the options tab of the vray render settings.
You're all setup! Render to verify.

C4D procedure generously provided by Rich Nosworthy.

He's also put together a Video Tutorial of the above procedure if anything is still unclear.

Import your low-res mesh (Double check that your low-res mesh is the exact same mesh you generated your displacement map from).
Select your mesh, open the attribute editor, and expand the 'Arnold' rollout and the contained 'Subdivision' and 'Displacement Attributes' rollouts.
Under the Subdivision rollout, set 'Type' to 'catclark'. (?)

Subdivision Settings

Setting this to CATCLARK will turn our low res mesh into a smooth subdivision surface before applying the displacement map.
This matches the way ZBrush and Mudbox were setup to generate the displacement map.
Under the Subdivision rollout, set 'Iterations' to a value like 5 to begin with, and raise as needed for better displacement quality (At the expense of higher render times).
Under the Subdivision rollout, set 'UV Smoothing' to 'Linear'. (?)

UV Smoothing Settings

Setting this to LINEAR disables UV Smoothing on our low res mesh.
This matches the way ZBrush and Mudbox were setup to generate the displacement map.
Under the Displacement Attributes rollout, set 'Bounds Padding' to a value that exceeds the largest positive or negative pixel value found in your generated displacement map. This value can be automatically found in Nuke using the 'CurvesTool' node's 'Max Luma Pixel' mode as seen here. If you dont have access to Nuke, then you can experiment with this value by starting at 1.0. Then raise the value if you notice any clipping occuring in the extreme highs or lows of your displacement. (?)

Bounds Padding Settings

This value sets the boundary of displacement, so the idea is to set it large enough that it contains all your displaced detail without any clipping.
Setting these values unnecessarily high can slow down the renderer.
Leave all other settings at their defaults.
Here is a screengrab of the above settings to verify.
Open Hypershade and assign a aiStandard material to your object.
Click the shading groups tab in Hypershade, then select your newly created aiStandardSG and hold right click to select 'Graph Network' so you see your object and aiStandard nodes in the work area of the Hypergraph.
Add a 'Displacement' node to the work area from maya's list of hypershade nodes on the left, then middle-click-drag from the Displacement node to the aiStandardSG node and then select 'Default'.
Add a 'File' node to the work area from maya's list of hypershade nodes on the left, then middle-click-drag from the File node to the Displacement node and then select 'Other...'
On the left side of the connection editor, click the plus next to 'OutColor' to expand it and select 'OutColorR', then select the 'Displacement' value on the right side to connect it. (?)

OutColorR to Displacement Setting

We have both ZBrush and Mudbox set to store the generated displacement map's information to the RED channel only.
So having OutColorR connected to the displacement amount is logicial and avoids Maya's tendency to average the RED, GREEN, and BLUE channels together -
Which would result in a displacement intensity 1/3 what it should be (since the other channels are just black).
Select the 'File' node in hypergraph, go to the attribute editor, and load in your previously generated displacement map in the 'Image Name' box.
Open the Maya Render Settings window, go to the 'Override' tab, and make sure that the checkbox next to 'Ignore Displacement' is unchecked.
You're all setup! Render to verify.

Conclusion

Hopefully that helps clear up the often confusing topic of Displacement Mapping for you. It's an incredibly important tool to help keep your high resolution assets lean and production friendly.

Special thanks to:

Rich Nosworth for generously providing the procedure for VRay for C4D.

Scott Denton for helping to test the above procedures.

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Accurate Displacement Workflow

from: ZBrush / Mudbox

to: V-Ray (Maya, 3ds Max, Cinema 4D) / Arnold (Maya)

v1.4

- April 2015

Changelog

Intro

How Floating-Point Displacement Works

Common Pitfalls & Avoiding Them

UVs Are Important

Double Check Your Basemeshes

Floating-Point Displacement Maps Are Scale Dependent

Floating-Point -vs- Integer

There's Only So Much Displacement Can Reliably Do

Displacement Procedures

Flip V Setting

Adaptive Setting

DPSubPix Setting

SmoothUV Setting

Mid Setting

3 Channels Setting

32Bit Setting

Scale Setting

Smooth Target Models Setting

Smooth Target UVs Setting

Smooth Source Models Setting

Method Setting

Search Distance Setting

Search Distance Setting

Search Distance Setting

Render As A Subdivision Setting

Subdivide UVs Setting

Normal Displacement Setting

Keep Continuity Setting

OutColorR to Displacement Setting

Break UVs Setting

Render Iterations Setting

3D Mapping Setting

Keep Continuity Setting

Texmap Min & Max Settings

Subdivision Settings

UV Smoothing Settings

Bounds Padding Settings

OutColorR to Displacement Setting

Conclusion

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