Well recently my good friend Arron was singing the praises of starting the modelling process in z-brush as opposed to the long drawn out task of starting from complete scratch in max. Now naturally i was a bit dubious as this has been a tried and tested method and has worked well for me. However I thought id give it a go (not least because z brush was the only programme on my new laptop at the time), and he was right this was the recent flow i used:
1)use z spheres for basic shape
2) sculpt in all the details at high poly (this would include all the detail of normal map creation)
3)Decimate model
4)Export to 3d coat (excellent programme) and create a low poly mesh using the decimated mesh as reference then export the low poly model for unwrapping in max. you can also bake a diffuse map in 3d coat at this point if you've painted your decimated z brush model.
5)I at this point went back to z brush and exported the un-decimated model for normal map baking in max, and because it was just a head max took it well, but other wise id think again.
This is where i am now:
This is obviously unfinished but i am liking this process its faster and the benefits of taking the low poly from the high instead of the other way round has clear benefits. I've also found that instead of worrying about sculpting too heavily on a mesh in z brush that's taken from max, I am free to sculpt as heavily or lightly as is needed.
However I will say that for all people who want to create characters that starting from scratch with nothing in max is the best way to learn topology nd to understand how the face is shaped so that sculpting then becomes easier. In this instance im glad I started in max as sculpting in z brush and then retopologising in 3d coat came easilly to me.