I’d like to be able to make like regular, raised (or indented) dots on a surface/solid. Like for example touching points where someone would grip onto something. Or even one-dimensional grooves. Even better would be a hexagonal grid but I suspect that’s much more difficult.
Does Rhino have some basic commands for this? Or do I need to learn panelling tools? Or do I need to make up a grasshopper definition?
What’s the best way to go about this / where can I watch some video tutorials to learn how to do it?
ArraySrf will do that its a standard command in rhino and works along the UV coordinates of any surface. for a hexagonal grid you could apply this either twice once regular and once shifted. or you create any kind of pattern and use this as the object to array. for basic indentations or sublime objects this would suffice i believe.
for polysurfaces you might want to check applydisplacement. it takes an image and creates an offset.