Help with grip indent/texture

Boosted24v

Hey polycounters, i need your help again. I'm working on my last detail for my highpoly model but I'm kinda stuck on how to achieve it. As for the texture its self I could settle for trying to make something in substance painter, but ideally like to do it in zbrush. I'm not sure how I can achieve very precise and and accurate masks for the indents, as well as uniform depth along all four sides of the grip.

Tiggis

Have checked Arrimus 3d on Youtube? I think he got something close to what you are trying to do in Zbrush. I guess you can also create a custom alpha/outline of that grip in Photoshop and use that in Zbrush or Substance Painter. I would just do it in Substance Painter.

Kanni3d

You'd have to find/create that noise pattern, and apply it in zbrush as you would in substance painter. mask the area, generate noise with that pattern,or dragrect with that noise/alpha pattern.

Boosted24v

@Tiggis I agree, I think ill leave to texture to substance painter.

@Kanni3d I had grabbed a sample from the picture above and made an alpha but it looked like junk. I'm fine with trying to make something similar in substance painter. I guess my main concern is how to create the slight indents in the grip that contain the grip texture

EDIT: in my zbrush screen shot above I have a rough example of it, but the borders are quite bad from being drawn with the mask lasso. I'd want a way to make a perfect mask on all four sides and put at a uniform depth.

Kanni3d

Oh the slight indented grooves can be done in zbrush, just mask using symmetry, sharpen the mask so it isn't so wobbly, invert, and either negatively sculpt in with a low intensity, or use a deformation slider like inflate negatively

FrankPolygon

Another option would be to create custom brush alphas from the reference image using Photoshop or Illustrator and using those alphas to stamp out the shape details in ZBrush. Here's an example of this process (starts at 1:02) and an ArtStation link to the finished result:

https://youtu.be/4IM498Fx1pg?t=62

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/53mGE

Boosted24v

@FrankPolygon I guess Ill have to go get a sub to PS and learn how to use that now too, ugh never ends lol. I attempted it free hand with the masking pen. This is the best I could come up with. Its not terrible I suppose, but farrr from perfect. I don't think I want to keep it.

Kanni3d

Could try using lazymouse if you insist on drawing it with lasso, or even just default masking tool, which helps with shaky/wobbly lines. Also don't forget to smooth that indent out once extruded in to get a better bake (i'm sure you were intended to anyway). 

Boosted24v

@Kanni3d When trying to look up info on masking I saw a mention of lazymouse but not a whole lot of info unfortunately. The only thing I lasso'd was my hopes an dreams straight into a dumpster fire. However, I cleared my previous result (above) and gave the masking pen another go. I got the general shape I wanted then with like a 3-5 draw size brush went over all the edges best I could. Kinda silly how the cursor disappears when you start using it. I finally came up with a result that looks fairly decent, after some polish its even harder to see any imperfections  at an "arms length" and I think after textures it'll be even harder. I think I may have dodged the bullet...for now... I will definitely invest time into making the next time much easier.