Let's make our own models (and maybe even animations)

Again, I am now talking about modelers/animators/texture artists.
This does not apply to map makers or scripters.

Well, I don't know; on one hand, making something of your own is correct, but on the other, you are comparing games... (in my opinion, it's actually the opposite: Heroes 5 is a special game, and in a technical sense, a worse one)

If you want to grow, then at a certain stage, making something of your own isn't just "correct on one hand," but the only correct path overall.
Of course, you can start by editing other people's models, but sooner or later, it is necessary to move toward developing truly useful skills.
It might be easier to start with individual elements of a model—for example, making your own helmet or weapon. Separately, that will already be entirely your asset: a separate helmet or a separate weapon. Within the framework of a mod, this still isn't exactly what I'm talking about, but it is already a step in the right direction.

Regarding the "technical imperfection of Heroes" and the claim that I compared something incorrectly, I want to say two things.
First, stop whining. Just like that. Heroes is not some especially pathetic game in this sense. Normal maps aren't everything. You could make your own models even before the ability to import animations appeared. (In fact, the gargoyle face from my mod was made by me from scratch) and I made the nag creatures from pieces of models from 6 even before there was a possibility to import skeleton-bound models, and they still look decent. My point is: there have always been plenty of opportunities.
Regarding the comparison: specifically, Jedi Academy, which I compared Heroes to, is an older and "less technically" developed game than 5.
Is that not enough? People are still periodically making their own assets for Morrowind and Half-Life 1 today. And nobody whines about how pathetic their technical platform is. Do you still think Heroes 5 is some especially technically pathetic game?
I am not calling for a downgrade, nor am I suggesting giving up on everything to carve voxel graphics for Minecraft. I am urging people to stop saying that nothing can be done in Heroes 5 because the platform is technically underdeveloped. It's simply not true, and that's all. It can be done.

Second, please, I really ask you, stop pretending to be an expert. Not knowing something is normal; it can always be caught up on, but don't pretend to understand something for which you lack basic knowledge, or worse, present incorrect information with one hundred percent confidence. This is "armchair" criticism. I am not trying to attack or offend you. Just please, none of that. It's better to convert your desire for self-assertion into something more useful for yourself—for example (see the thread title).

The Heroes 5 community is basically very weak for such things, that's one thing.
....
My conclusion is as follows: hoping that someone will listen is very naive; there is simply no one here to do it.

Regarding the "weak" community, I understand what you mean and can agree on one hand. But on the other hand, don't forget that the Heroes modding community currently includes both you and me. Do you consider yourself "weak"? Because I don't consider you—and certainly not myself—to be so. One way or another, I will keep moving forward toward development. The only question is whether I will continue doing it with Heroes or not.
Regarding the lack of popularity: the game is more popular than you think; at least people write to me on VK about mods quite often. The player community is even larger—many watch streams, hang out in themed groups, etc. In short, there are people. Though they are often distanced from us.

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As I said before, I didn't go beyond creating weapons... I started heads + helmets (and various headgear—sphere, cylinder and then start cutting planes, merging vertices; perhaps not the most correct or efficient method), but creating from scratch is possible—there's nothing complicated about it... but it's incredibly time-consuming! And then there's the hassle of creating a UV map for further texturing... although there are plenty of plugins that can significantly speed up this process, however, almost all of them are paid and it's very hard to find a version with a "greed cure"!

And currently, thanks to you, Estonian, and footman, there is now reason to create creature bodies, because without animation—nobody gives a damn... but with animations, that's a different story!

Binding a model to one of the existing skeletons (after which it becomes "animated," as you love to incorrectly say) is not otherworldly sorcery. It is a skill that I possess and that you can add to your toolkit by spending a couple of evenings on YouTube tutorials.

As for making your own animation, that's "not my department," but basically, if you're desperate, there's an option to do mocap with Kinects; I have experience with it, the results were decent, but it required some cleaning.

No offense psatkha, but let's face facts: you aren't going to do anything serious regarding mods anymore. You couldn't add my completely finished Kea Beleh model with a walking animation into NHF over a year and a half. There was nothing to do at all. Just take the contents of the archive and drop them in. Was it fundamentally important to have the fire effect? Fine. But that's half an hour to an hour of work. In short, no offense, but I don't believe you will do anything serious in modding.

This in no way cancels or diminishes the fact that I think very highly of you as a person and am grateful for your contribution to the formation and development of the community. In this, it seems to me, you can still play a useful role.

But as a modeler... you understand everything yourself. Your knowledge is superficial and outdated. Are your models just like a round shield and a cone-shaped sword with blurry textures? Not bad for a start, of course. Everyone starts somewhere. But you need to move further if you're interested. And of course you could, if you wanted to.

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Main programs for a modeler.

3ds max (or Maya or Blender or something simpler if you're a deviant) - the main Swiss Army knife in your arsenal

A funny lesson by a clumsy modeler on modeling a chest.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=csbhGtSYcc4
On creating a UV map for a chest.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qgZHE6BLRnA

Substance painter - texture painting tool.
If you are completely unfamiliar with this program or something similar, I suggest quickly watching some tutorial on it to get a small shock from how easy it is to create textures now.

A clumsy modeler makes a texture for a chest.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=llZlQni46IA

Zbrush - did you mold with plasticine as a child? This is the same thing but in the form of 3D modeling.
This program is convenient for sculpting organics, fabric, and other non-"hard" surfaces. The program works with a giant number of polygons (several million, sometimes several tens of millions), so you can't just take the model and use it in-game. You need to do retopology, then bake high-poly to low-poly, and paint the texture. It's not as scary as it sounds.

Autodesk has an alternative to ZBrush called a box of mud, i.e., Mudbox. And basically, you can "sculpt" in Max if you're a deviant.
As for Blender, I don't know—I'm a total zero in it, opened it a couple of times, but it seems there is decent sculpting there. It has everything and it's quite decent.

3d coat - convenient for doing retopology here
Seriously. Sometimes you can do it automatically and then just tweak it slightly by hand.
Generally, 3D Coat is also a small Swiss Army knife; you can retopo, model, edit UV maps, and paint textures in it.
But preferring it for all of this instead of the big programs is not a very convenient choice.
Except for retopology—it's actually good here, imho definitely better than in Max.

Marvelous designer - simulates fabric
Works on the principle of drawing clothing patterns and dressing a 3D model.
Again, it creates high-poly with various folds, seams, etc. You can even slap on buttons. Then this thing needs to be retopoed and baked. Marvelous seems to have some built-in tricks for automatic retopology, but I don't know how poorly that works since I haven't tested that feature of Marvelous.

Again, all of this can be done in Max if you are a masochist and angry at yourself and the world.

Uv layout - UV unwrapper.
A program exclusively tailored for creating UV maps. I'm not an expert in it, but plenty of people love it.

Blender
A special program; it can do absolutely everything.
You can even draw cartoons in it (meaning literally drawing with a pencil).
There is an additional game engine that can be attached to it.
Its feature is absolute free cost and open source, plus a crazy fanatical and wildly friendly community in the style of My Little Pony. This is an officially free program that can do things at a competitive level that other big programs bought for hundreds of dead raccoons do.

I don't know how to do anything in it and constantly put it off until later. But I feel some mysterious respect for it due to their "party policy." Therefore, I cannot fail to mention it.

And there is also a feature called photogrammetry; you can use for it
Agisoft photoscan, which is actually now called Metashape

A story about photogrammetry by a clumsy modeler
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IHNBhxKGTtc

And of course, Photoshop won't hurt you to fix various errors on the source maps for Painter and so on.