I've been a little disillusioned with the conversion process lately.  I don't think the displacement map tool in the Adobe products is the best that it could be.  I often get artifacts that are not straight forward paint out jobs and actually seem to require inserting geometry that has either been "intentionally" messed up by the displacement map effect or something and it has to be done perfectly between the two images.  I can't just create half of someone's face out of thin air in 3D.  I'm talented, but not quite that talented.  Or I get outlines that are messed up and require a perfect alignment job that seems equally impossible to fix.  

I really like creating depth maps, and I love seeing the end result, but the fudge job at the end can really throw a wrench in things sometimes.  I can't predict what will screw it up especially or how to avoid it, if that's even possible.  I wish I had some of the better tools out there that I'll probably never get my hands on.  Assuming that better displacement mapping tools would even solve the problem.  

I suppose I could go back to 3D Studio Max, but that is a tedious process between two of my computers and doesn't serve well for that instant updating set up that I currently have in Adobe After Effects.  I suppose I could do the instant update setup in After FX and just leave all the conversion artifacting.  Then when I have what I want, I could transfer it to the other computer and render it in "actual" 3D space.  At least in Studio Max there's just straight forward stretching around the edges of what has been displaced and not the bizarre crap that After Effects generates.  I just really hate unnecessarily steps in the pipeline.  Because then, after I'm done with it in Studio Max, I have to bring it back into Photoshop and touch it up.  In other words, don't make any mistakes 3 steps back.  *sigh*

And virtually no one else on the internet really seems to know how to do this stuff or be into it enough to give advice.