Check out soulburn scripts it has a great object painter script that blows advanced painter out of the water. Or consider upgrading to max2011 they included a similar function
Looks like it's functioning correctly now. This is a common issue with faint brushes. It happens frequently in Photoshop as well. Sometimes you simply need to add more paint. :)
Added displacement map. How would you want to change the displacement map? For now I added a function to change contrast. Try it out! Greetz, Christian
Hayden ... yeah, isolate works at the mesh item level. If you select polygons you can then use the hide/hide unselected/unhide functionality to isolate them.