run php composer.phar require skillfish/zf3-smarty-module
add Smarty to your ZF3 modules Configuration e.g /config/modules.config.php
change the View Manager Strategy to Smarty in your module or apllication config like:

<?php
return [
  'view_manager' => [
    'strategies' => [
      'Smarty\View\Strategy'
    ],
  ],
];

you might also want to change your View Manager's Template Map to actually use .tpl files instead of the default .phtml

<?php
return [
  'view_manager' => [
    'template_map' => [
      'layout/layout' => '/module/Application/view/layout/layout.tpl',
      'application/index/index' => '/module/Application/view/application/index/index.tpl',
      'error/404' => '/module/Application/view/error/404.tpl',
      'error/index' => '/module/Applicationview/error/index.tpl',
    ],
  ],
];

Template Inheritance

In order for template inheritance to work, you must terminate your ViewModel inside your Controller with $viewModel->setTerminal(true); and make use of the smarty {extends} tag. Otherwise the ViewModel will render the default layout template and inheritance won't work.

Example

layout.tpl

<html>
<head>
  <title>{block 'title'}Page name{/block}</title>
</head>
<body>
  {block 'content'}{/block}
</body>
</html>

index.tpl

{extends 'layout.tpl'}
{block 'title' append} - Index{/block}
{block 'content'}This is the index template{/block}

Controller

public function indexAction()
{
    $viewModel = new ViewModel();
    $viewModel->setTerminal(true);
    return $viewModel;
}

will result in

<html>
<head>
  <title>Page name - Index</title>
</head>
<body>
  This is the index template
</body>
</html>

Requirements

The composer module currently requires:

"require": {
  "php":                                ">5.4",
  "smarty/smarty":                      "~3.1.29",
  "zendframework/zend-stdlib":          "~3.0.1",
  "zendframework/zend-mvc":             "~3.0.1",
  "zendframework/zend-servicemanager":  "~3.1",
  "zendframework/zend-modulemanager":   "~2.7.1"
},