I never find the manual helpful. I upgraded from Poser 4 to Poser 6, and have no idea how to use bump maps anymore. It's either not enough, or too much. Maybe a bump map percentage setting example would be helpful. Also, I get strange black spots. Should the displacement box even be checked if you are only using bump maps? I understand they are 2 different concepts, but don't know if a displacement map is a rare thing that can only be created with ZBrush. (While having to laboriously convert the bump maps for the Millenium Dragon and DAZ Troll in Poser 4, I thought it would be nice to have a version of Poser that did this automatically) It's like going from Pro (well, highly competent) to Newbie overnight. (Also I've printed out many forum tips to study on my favorite thing-doing moist sparkly eyes, but it's going to take me quite awhile to learn something that was ridiculously easy to fake in Poser 4) Thank you for your indulgence. -Feeling Retarded in California

The strange black spots show up when the bump setting is
too high. They are actually tiny shadows. As far as how
much to apply, it just depends on the effect you are
trying to achieve.
I think displacement only needs to be checked when you are
using displacement maps. I think any paint program that is
capable of creating a jpeg in black and white and
shades of grey can be used to create both bump maps
and displacement maps. I use Paint Shop Pro because it
can do layers so I can use a template and paint over it
on another layer.

You can use an image as bump map as well as displacement map. It depends on what you want to do. Displacements change the geometry whereas bump maps don't.
Let's say you have a black image with some white spots. This will create some elevated regions on the figure. If you connect this image to the bump channel then it only looks elevated whereas the outline (and the shadow) doesn't change.
If you connet it into the displacement channel, then the outline is being canged.
Note, that the displacement is quite a strong parameter. If you want to use a displacement map on realistic human figures then you should adjust the strength to 0.001 or so.
If you turn the value too high then the geometry (or at least the rendered image) tears and you see those artefacts.

Within Poser 4, there was a special file format *.bum. I don't know wether this can still be used with P6 but is was nothing other than an ordinary image, *.bmp as far as I remember. There was no big secret behind this.

Hope this helps a little bit.

Hmmm. I'll try that. I was wondering if the bump map would serve as a displacement map. That would be neat. It seems like Poser 6 does not use the *.bum format, and you have to use the bitmap image of the bump map itself. In Poser 4 it was usually a gray scale of the original texture in negative form.

Poser 6 also has two bump channels. If you are using a bump map that is a .jpg, plug it into the bump channel. If you are using a Poser 4 .bum file, or a normal map (something made in 3DMAX, similar to a bump map), then use the gradient bump channel. To make a bump map you can just use the original texture (plug the texture into the bump channel as well), but the results are vastly improved if you make a proper bump map in greyscale (50% grey is neutral, 100% white is raised, and 100% black is a dent/depression).