Experimenting with XNormal and ZBrush

After making some refinements to my model i thought it was best to make a start with the Z-Brush work. So with my High and Low poly meshes ready i decided to put the torso into ZBrush for 3 reasons really.

1. To familiarise myself with Z-Brush once more as it has been a while since i had used it.
2. To bake out a normal and Ambient Occlusion map.
3. Experiment with XNormal.

So i began to do this and after having alittle play about with ZBrush i decided to take my High and Low Poly Mesh's into XNormal.

Following some tutorials on the site i found XNormal really easy to use and i thought everything was going great. I baked out the Normal map really easily no problem and i also baked out the Ambient Occlusion. (I have to say that the Ambient Occlusion that it produced was way better than the previous Ambient Occlusion i produced in 3DS MAx itself.)

However things did not run smoothly, when i applied the Normal map to my lower poly model the Normal map did not seem to work properly and i wasn't happy with the way things had turned out. (I'm sorry i haven't got any images to show the result as i accidentally deleted the Normal map that i produced by accident).

After thinking things over i believe that the error was occurring because when i produced the lower and high poly meshes i deleted all the straps and fine detail on the lower mesh and this is something i shouldn't of done. I could be wrong on this maybe i was doing something in 3DS Max I'm not entirely sure. So this got me thinking??