Well, pretty much anything you find as far as tutorials or examples go which comes from epic is 100% wrong.
There are very few exceptions, and no one at epic ever gave a frak at all, so the bad examples persisted through time and made many indy projects sub-par, or even just unplayable.
You are just better off doing things manually. For one you can only blame yourself, so it keeps you honest.
For another, you can probably learn useful things that are pertinent across any other engine you will one day use.
Since decent character creators, animators, etc are essentially nowhere to be found - and the ones you find apparently tell gamers that they don’t know ■■■■ and should not have an opinion about their lgbtqwxyz character because their opinion is irrelevant, costing your company billions in the process…
Well then, you see that learning the art behind it all is probably way smarter than relying on anything (like hlmetahumans for instance).
Anyway, back to the animation bit.
Always use a DCC to animate. It saves you time, lets you do way more, and probably also prevents issues that you would get by using the engine instead.
Mesh creation wise, zbrush is pretty much out since it got bought out and put on a nasty subscription method while also loosing a ton of functionality.
Of you happen to have an old version of the fill software you can still use it since it used to be one of the best to create high detailed things.
Blender is pretty much where indy dev and professional dev is at now. And the new mesh making/sculpting options do get better over time (plus the ability to make your own plugins to do complex stuff is always great).
Houdini is good at some stuff, not other. But probably worth a try since it went free to use.
3dsmax hasn’t changed all that much - always hated it personally.
Maya gets fresh updates once in a while, if you can deal with the UI of it learning it is a good idea as most studios use that. Particularly for animations mostly thanks to plugins like for designing nvidia cloth for instance. Also the engine itself uses a bunch of custom maya scripts for some things, like try Pivot Painter for instance.
Motion capture wise:
Rokkoko is probably the worst user experience you’d ever get with incredibly bad results - but it costs you less.
Adding their cube thing changes next to nothing. Basically a wasted 1.5k on top of the rest of the gear.
Final result: fine until you try and put on a hat and realize that the hands are near your crotch instead.
Perception Neutron is about the same, slightly better but absolutely not worth the money.
I mean, just go get stuff done at a real mocap studio for that price tag.
Final result: same as rokkoko but near your chest area maybe.
Custom concoctions with 3 sony ps3 cameras or xbox thing work - and they are always more accurate - but they need a ton of work to create, setup etc. Generally speaking, not worth the effort since if you go to a mocap studio and pay for it you get way better final output.
Final result: you actually do put on a hat on your head.
With all solutions above a good amount of cleanup is always needed (going to a studio they usually give you cleaned up output you can just use).
Face Capture wise:
They all suck if you have a beard.
The best possible is to put markers on your face and use specific solutions (faceware?) That target markers.
Cheap n skate by wise, get a used iphone 11. Hook up to unreal, use unreal to record facial performance directly on your custom mesh.
Export and merge as needed.
Its not perfect. Really its only as good as your initial face morph rig and definitions. And a little less accurate than one would wish for when it comes to really expressive people.
But it is free (save for the iphone cost), and it does work.
What to absolutely always avoid:
Iclone and all that reallusiom scam stuff.
Daz3D - with a worth learning about exception on the Genesis8 system and their joint driven blend shape morphs.
They didn’t invent this, but it is one of the best implementations you can break down…
Other things.
Marvelous designer - I prefer my blender mod of the cloth simulation; by Colburn - but marvelous really makes some stuff easy of you are willing to pay.
Fusion360 - beats blender at anything where you need real measures and functionality.
Worth knowing and using for its simplicity alone.
Especially great to make stuff off a blueprint, like a house.
But to use in engine you always have to pass in blender and setup - add UVs, add lightmaps, triangulate properly, etc.
If you want to make Mekka characters, use fusion360. Then process their parts in blender. And use full weight paint on each part? Last I checked most shaped metal is not made to bend or deform 
Hope this laundry list helps, at least in you figuring out what to learn first.
