This little guy started life as just a four sided plane, clipping is used to form the outline.
very clever 
Amazing! 
can you explain it in depth?
Thanks
Gonçalo
Here is the setup:
I painted the displacement map over the photo that I referenced (the background should be black).
3D displacement, amount 9.6, Use water level on, water level .2, face subs 128, Use object mtl on, Keep Continuity on.
Reference.
Still needs some work 
amazing, if you imagen how much work it would be without that tool.
but still think we need better UV-Mapping of displaced objects and DIRECTION to displacement like MR and PRman.
regards,
robert
Wow, very cool! I once did a face with the standard Max displacement, a few years ago, but that required too much detail. Things have changed now, as RErender proves. Very nice.
Cheers,
Metin
By the way, what do you exactly mean by “clipping is used to form the outline”?
Cheers,
Metin
What does “use water level” do? Is this how you achieve the clipping?
Yes, Using water level @ .2 tells the modifier not to create the part of the displacement that is below the threshold, So the parts of the map that are black have a displacement of 0 which is clipped because it is less than .2. This also works well on any opacity mapped object like a Tree card, leaves, or …
Aha, it all becomes less murky. Thanks for that, RErender.
Mark