For a personal project I was trying to figure out an approach to upres my blockout mesh to high-res rocks (while learning Houdini). This process was rather heavy and didn't give me the desired result and control I needed.
However the first iteration gave me inspiration and gave me this idea to paint a mask in Photoshop of the texture layout, convert the mask to geometry and use it as a base input for Zbrush and refine the detail. During the conversion process I'd still 'roughen' some edges and do local Transformations (rotational and depth offsetting) to get rid of the 2D converted feel.
This idea can be scaled up for larger productions where you can generate large amounts of variations, set parameters per rock or wall type, amount of wear, etc. I have worked on this over a month, did a few tweaks and finally decided to pick up my project again and show the progress.
