Character Process

I am sure this question has been asked multiple times throughout unity's forums but what I could find online was very muddeld and not always specific with many different programs being used at times. I'm relatively new to the 3D game creation process keep that in mind.
Currently the steps to creating a working realistic 3D character in unity is

Modeling Anatomy > Modelijg Touchups (muscels and more detail etc.) > UV Mapping > Texturing > Rigging > Animating

What programs are the best for each part of character development and if I'm missing steps in the process what programs are best for that. Something that is high level that can create extremely realistic high poly texture models.

Also programs that are free or have a free student edition (I have Maya 3dsMax Mudbox etc through student edition) are preferred.

I already have a lot of experience in Auto inventors design software.

Thanks

 

Each answer will be different since it all comes down to personal preference.

My current workflow is Sculpting (ZBrush) > Retopology (ZBrush) > UV Mapping (ZBrush) > Texturing (Substance Painter) > Rigging (Blender) > Animating (Blender).

My focus is on sculpting and modelling but in my own experience and what I mostly hear from others, Maya is great for rigging and animation so you may want to stick to that if animation is where you spend most of your time.
Unity and Maya also work great together when importing models and animations. When it comes to modelling in Maya I could never get to a point where it was as fast as what I get from Blender. I have never fully understood it's "history" management which just seems messy to me and often led to strange behaviour if it was not deleted regularly. The "procedural" modifier stack of both 3dsMax and Blender is easier for me to manage.
3dsMax is good for modelling and realistic light rendering but it is just too expensive and bloated compared to Blender in my opinion.
My main advice is don't get caught in the "Autodesk web" thinking they are the best at everything. Blender is a very capable program even with its quirks and the end result is more about the artist using it than the actual program. Also Modo should be a very good modelling program although I have not yet tried it.

There is also a ton of very specific tools out there to automate some of the tedious tasks like rigging a human character and UV mapping. Although knowing how to UV unwrap is good, it is not worth repeatedly spending the time when a tool can make it a one button click.

 

I'm a newbie myself but use a very similar workflow. I invested in a couple of pieces of software... ZBrush and Substance Painter, though I don't use the latter for character stuff. The one place I diverge is that I either rough out a base mesh or start with a pre-existing base mesh from Blender, then take that into ZBrush to sculpt on. I'm not doing anything highly detailed.

Also, after the above steps, I go back to blender with surface snapping on and re-topo by creating a new low-poly mesh over the top. Then take both into XNormal to bake the normals from my high poly model onto the low poly.

 

My current workflow is this:

Sculpting (ZBrush) -> Retopo (ZBrush) -> UV Mapping (ZBrush) -> Texturing (Substance Designer/Painter) -> Rigging (Maya) -> Animation (Maya).

I'd use Blender for rigging and animating but I cannot stand the way Blender works. So counter intuitive.