It's fast and the results are realistic. Realistic is actually the complaint here though, because they look too much like the people who were scanned. So it takes more work to make them look convincingly like fantasy races.
Originally Posted by DumbleDorf
In what other cases has it worked well?
See above, unless you don't think the human models look good. It's common to use parts of specially photographed people to create textures. The scan just creates the models and the textures perfectly mapped all at once.
The Human models are the worst looking ones in the game.
We shouldn't be expecting 'fast' as a defensible reason from a AAA game.
