The industry standard is becoming applications such as this mostly due to the adoption of physically based rendering which requires consistency throughout the project for specular, gloss, and albedo values. Beyond the much needed consistency in a project using PBR, the process of painting materials in an application (defining metals, cloths, wood, etc.) versus manually creating these materials in individual textures is a huge time saver.

My process basically involves creating a material ID map on my high resolution model through polypaint in ZBrush (for example: red equals skin, yellow equals gold, green equals leather, etc.) and bake that information out as a color map to be used in Substance. Taking this ID map, I assign the basic materials which I had defined earlier and begin working in layers of detail. Considering the story this character has to tell can determine which type of information gets added. What environment the character belongs in, the character’s age, if they have seen battle, etc. Based on this information, extra detail can be as simple as a bunch of scratches, or a very involved layer of damage and rust.

Clothes

I’ve always had an interest in costume design, and the type of clothing a character wears can greatly change how appealing they are to the viewer. Dressing your character in a certain way is very important as the choice you make for the garment reflects the type of choice your fictional character would make. They exist in a world and, although completely made up, wake up every morning and make a choice about what to throw on their bodies, and the range of possibilities are endless. A more shady character can conceal their identity, a proud noble has clothing made of expensive materials, a brute has battle worn armor, and a post apocalyptic survivor wears whatever they can find – even items that aren’t normally clothing. This enhances the appeal of the character as it tells a story within itself, it ties the character into the world, and generally shows that the character itself has a thought process – it gives more purpose to the character when their clothing is rationally thought out and plays into their function within the game.