Hi this is a general question and hopefully some more advanced users can provide some opinion/input.
I've spent a lot of time learning to use the Reallusion programs and Zbrush and Marvelous Designer. I actually have enough general knowledge at this point to get going on my small projects with purchased assets from Reallusion and make any small tweaks wanted with Zbrush. That said, I like to do things like make clothes and tweak characters myself because my projects are more personal that way. I've watched Chuck Chen on YouTube and also the series that comes with the Street Fashion Pack about making clothes in Marvelous Designer and then bringing them into CC3. In Chuck's series he uses Maya quite a bit for retopology and making some high poly mesh items that weren't provided on the clothes he's demonstrating with. Also, he uses Maya to match poses with the MD model and the CC3 avatar for skin weighting in Maya.
I've brought clothes from MD into CC3 and skin weighted them there and they seem to work fine. Is there reason to learn and use Maya when using CC3 and iClone. I kind of thought that CC3 and iClone easily do much of what used to be done in 3D programs like Maya or at least what is needed for small animation projects.
Am I missing something significant? Do I want to use Maya, Blender or 3dsmax in conjunction with CC3, iClone, Zbrush and MD? When might I be required to use a 3D program in addition to the programs just mentioned?
Any opinions are welcome. I spent some time with Blender previously but otherwise am just getting into this journey. I'm finding getting information about 3D processes more difficult than actually doing them once studied and figured out.
Again, thank you for any input.