Paul Ambrosiussen and SideFX have recently shared a new tutorial to the Detail Mesh HDA which allows users to project a detail mesh onto template geometry.
The tool is said to function by “projecting the detail mesh onto the template geometry by looking at it’s UVs. The larger your template geometry UVs are, the more tiling you will see.” Users can customize the orientation of the projected geometry at any location on the surface by rotating UV shells.
It is also worth noting that the tool will automatically try and patch any holes it finds in the output mesh. “The more seams you have in your template mesh, the more seams you will have. So for better results, try and keep your UV seams to a minimum.” You can learn more about the tool here.