Could use some help establishing a workflow for Blender2.8/Designer/Painter/UE4

[Hard Rooster]

I'm still fairly new to the Substance Suite of products, and the more I learn, the more I realize just how complex the whole thing is, and I'm at the point where I feel more lost than when I started.

The first tutorial I did was a Knife tutorial that I found by Chris Plush.  I really like his teaching style, so I was able to follow that pretty easily.

The second tutorial I did was the Lantern tutorial provided by the Substance Academy.  I was able to complete that with relative ease, and I felt like I might have actually started to learn something.

The third thing I found was a rather old tutorial about a Painter to Designer to UE4 workflow, also provided by the Substance Academy.  It however is quite old, and is delisted on YouTube.  A lot of the interface has changed, but I was able to follow along and complete the SciFi Door asset, and import it into Unreal, change the colors using the substance plugin and all that.  I was rather happy.  Again, felt like I had learned something.

So, I finally moved on to trying to deal with my own game asset.  Now, I had textured this asset right after I did the Lantern Tutorial, but once I got all the textures into Designer, I realized I didn't know anything, and I'm more confused than ever.

The workflow established in the Lantern tutorial is vastly different from the workflow in the SciFi door tutorial, and as such, the textures I had created based on the Lantern tutorial were not compatible with the SciFi door.

So, I guess what I need is some guidance.  Perhaps pick out some tutorials from the Academy I should do, in order to best understand what I need to accomplish, which is getting a model from blender, normal maps baked in either designer or painter, a texture made, and ready to rock and roll in UE4 with all the variable goodness from that SciFi door tutorial, with or without the substance plugin.  I don't mind repeating things that I've already learned, I'm a bit old and I learn a bit slower these days than I used to.

[CAGameDEV]

I'm assuming you're just asking for a standard workflow???

There are different workflows depending on what you're doing, and some people do things differently.

This is what I normally do:

Hard-Surface

1. Create a rough concept of what I want
2. Retopologize and create a clean high poly version for detail (you can skip this step if you decide to go straight into modeling as if you're making your clean mesh)
3. After all the details are added I work on the low poly mesh for baking
4. UV unwrap
5. Baking and Texturing (Painter and/or Designer are used at this stage)
6. Animation
7. Load into UE4 or whatever engine

Organic

1. Concept
2. Clean high poly sculpt
3. Retopologize to create the low poly
4. UV unwrap
5. Baking and Texturing (Painter and/or Designer are used at this stage)
6. Animation
7. Load into UE4 or whatever engine

At the texture stage I will swap between Designer and Painter as I create materials and import them into Painter to apply them to the mesh.

I also do clothing and simulations but that has its own workflow.