I’ve recently created a high poly model and a low poly model of a fire hydrant, baked the normal and ambient occlusion maps and set up a layered material. I’m now trying to paint texture masks for grunge, dirt and scratches similar to the characters used in the infiltrator demo and shown here in the character aesthetics video. That’s the quality of assets I’m aiming for. So my question is, what’s the current state of the art for texture painting? Do you paint the textures in your 3D application directly onto the model or do you paint on the uv layout in photoshop? Do you use a tablet also in 3D space or only when painting in 2D? Are there any other tips or techniques to texture painting you could share or is a lot of patience all that is needed when painting scratches and grime?
Sounds like you know more than I do but I would guess that 3d and projection painting is best for when texturing complex geometry like character models and you want to make sure you’re placing stuff right. Maybe rough it in 3d and finish it up 2d. I can’t speak as to what’s state of the art. I’ve used BP3D before for simple stuff, a few versions back. Had its quirks but it performed well IMO, but it was no Photoshop. IIRC I used my Wacom in 3d painting, too.
Only advice I can give you about dirt and stuff is from my non-digital education, so it’s not much: keep a big toolbox. Instead of throwing a way old brushes and such, keep them around. Damaged and messed up brushes make good effects, particularly splatter effects. Not much use but maybe food for thought?
I’m using Substance Painter it’s a good 3d painting app built with next gen physically base asset in mind and in the next build will have 2D painting.
Check out NDO and DDO at http://dev.quixel.se/ it does all you want via a photoshop plugin and is very cheap. This YouTube vid will give you an idea of workflow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyJJAp17K-Y
Oh wow, my head just exploded. DDO looks totally amazing. Why would anyone spend hours trying to paint scratches, chipped paint, dirt, etc. by hand if there’s a tool that does this in a few seconds? Thank you very much for that link. 
You’re welcome, check out the other tutorials in their quixel channel, particularly their “nDo2 Breakdown” and dDo Breakdown’ vids… The Normal map editing is amazing!
Edit* I have just found out there are free versions of dDo and nDO available (64 & 32bit). Here is the download link:
dDo 5.3 Quixel | 3D world-building made easy
nDo2 http://quixel.se/nDo2/nDo2_release.exe
DDO looks amazing. And checking out their website I just read this:
“DDO fuses with tools such as UE4, 3ds Max, Unity, Modo, CryEngine and Toolbag 2. Streamline turnaround by texturing directly inside the engine of your project, with DDO staying right inside the app. And as long as your own engine has hot-reloading enabled, DDO will snap right into your tool.”
Having DDO integrated right into the UE4 enginge and viewing the results inside of it sounds like a way great to dial in very accurate materials
As for painting textures, a lot of texture artists use Mari, or Mudbox. There’s a big advantage to painting directly to the model rather than painting on the texture map in Photoshop.