The traditional process is building a high-poly mesh and a low-poly mesh by hand, and using your 3DCG tool to bake from one onto the other. For instance, in Maya, this is done using the "Transfer Maps" tool [0]. The high-poly mesh can come from a tool like Z-Brush.
For various productions reasons, we want to build the low-poly mesh by hand. Managing topology is key to maintain a good deformation, and you as the artist probably know all the areas that will need more vertex density. As things make their way down the rigging/animation pipeline, automated tools really just don't cut it.
For various productions reasons, we want to build the low-poly mesh by hand. Managing topology is key to maintain a good deformation, and you as the artist probably know all the areas that will need more vertex density. As things make their way down the rigging/animation pipeline, automated tools really just don't cut it.
[0] https://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2022/ENU/?guid=GUID-B0...