I'm making a game and I may plan on hiring a animator/rigger.

>>575909
posing of the model so that the skinning process is faster and easier.

>>575909
>>575915
as for this though
the rigger is going to like poses that make it easier to rig. The animator is going to like poses that deform well. These are not the same pose. You're going to have to tell one of them to deal with it, and it should be the rigger.
Drawing joints for characters in an A-pose is not significantly harder to do than on a T-pose. And more extreme poses like halfway-to-fetal-position might be tedious for them to rig, but the rigger's job is to endure discomfort so the animator doesnt have to.

animators are after all highly emotionally fragile and lack the maturity to handle the slightest of inconveniences.

>>575909
You should probably watch a few tutorials on rigging/skinning just to know what they would expect from your meshes. It's one thing to think you know that placing some edge loops a certain way will rig or deform well and another to see it first hand. And in general, whatever aspect of 3D you're interested in, it always pays to "know your neighbors" so to speak. You can be certain that the person you will hire will know quite a bit of modeling themselves, but it'll be a waste of time and money to have them continually fix your mistakes or god forbid hold your hand.

>>576014
Starting out I had a ton of trouble rigging and deforming A-pose characters, T is just way easier. I think it's more of personal preference in the end, and your rigger can always just lock the character into any default pose he wants before sending it to an animator.

>>576014
God I had to deal with this fucking prick of an animator at one point that was this local subcelebrity in the CG market.

He'd force the model all the way back the pipeline for the slightest inconveniences and ended up delaying work for several days for stupid shit he could've fixed himself. Not only that instead of telling us what he needed fixed on an email or some shit he'd have us walk all the way over to his desk, leaving passive-aggressive post-its at our workstations. Fucking cunt.

>>576032
>he'd force the model all the way back the pipeline for the slightest inconveniences
that's when you give him models he didn't ask for and has nothing to do with the project.
tell him that's what you were told to make.
when he goes to complain to the supervisor you switch files.
he looks like a retard.
tell him afterwards not to pull his bullshit again or you'll infest his hard drive with cp.