What are the best tools and techniques for creating realistic characters in virtual reality?

ZBrush: A powerful digital sculpting tool that allows artists to create highly detailed and intricate 3D models. Blender: An open-source 3D modeling and animation software that includes powerful sculpting tools.

There are couple of software that made the creating 3d character so efficient and easy to customize: 1. Character Creator 4 from Reallusion 2. Meta Human from Epic Games 3. Daz 3D These 3 have a very user friendly procedure and easy to setup, meanwhile except the Meta Human the other two software made it so easy to transfer your created character to different platforms for animation and VR. Give them a try and you will be amazed.

Conceptualization is easily looked over, but start defining their personality, role, and maybe backstory. Collect references and make a moodboard. This foundational step helps shape all subsequent design choices, and without it you may be at a loss. (and it will help any collaborators) Create 2D sketches or concept art (on paper or in photoshop) to explore visual ideas, focusing on form, silhouette, and key features. Try many different things, explore and have fun with it. Then, start modeling your character in 3D software. Block out basic shapes, refine to add details such as facial features and clothing. Apply colors, textures, and materials that match the character’s traits and environment. This step brings visual depth and realism.

Adobe Photoshop: Essential for concept artists and character designers, Photoshop helps in creating detailed character concepts.

As the process of finding or managing references, can be sometimes difficult or exhausting you can give a try to Ai platforms like MidJourney, Ideogram, Bing Image creator and DallE 3 to make couple of references based on what you describe about your character and the environment you want to put them at the end

There are best practices right now that made the rigging to an easy and fun process. Using the Online platform like Mixamo is one of them but have its own limitations. The best practices based on my experiences and experts' advice are Reallusion AccuRig and Cascadeur software that are really optimized, customizable and fun to use with lots of options and tools.

Autodesk Maya: Widely used in the film and gaming industry, Maya is known for its robust animation and rigging capabilities. Unity Animation System: If you are developing in Unity, its built-in animation system is essential for character animation.

Two software that I found so helpful are Cascadeur software that you can animate your rigged character and it even apply the real physics based on what you have posed for your character between the keyframes and the other great option is AccuRig from Reallusion. Both are so optimized and really really cheaper than purchasing and setting up a Motion Capture Suite.

Maya is the industry standard, but of course tools like Blender, Houdini, 3DS Max and others are very useful tools as well. Even animating inside of Unreal Engine is becoming increasingly available. As for more recent tools there's the online library assets and now a new wave of generative motion, lead by companies such as Motorica, which allows users to generate motion that they can either use straight of or rework using animation layers, significantly speeding up the process.

As my experiences, creating the character by Reallusion Character Creator are the best way because you can consider character optimization by using the LODs after finishing your character and use the best optimized one in your desired platform for VR without going through the painful process of optimizing mesh simplification and texture optimization.