Cinema4d is very mighty and has a lot of intuitive features. It's not really made for games, but you can create everything you want, include rigging and animating. The animation timeline is great and with some tools, like particles, you can also create fog and smoke, or do some easy dynamics. The last versions has alos a tool similar to Z-Brush, that's amazing. I think, Cinema4d is an allround talent, which has good parts of Maya, 3DS Max and starts with a welldone standard renderer.
But I don't use the current version, and now I'm right on the point I wanted to describe.
I watch this Unreal Engine thing. Yes, it's fast. Thank you for the link.
But the artist use forms which are still there. That's what I wanted to explain creating the microscope. The movie starts with building a road, getting some rocks nearby. Well. But who did the rocks? They are still there, saved in a library. Who made the road texture?
Also Cinema4d has tons of textures and tons of models you can use. You need this tons of stuff to create a 3D quickly! If you want to have a car you can download all types, starting from model T to Lamborghini. Most are expensive (the artists want to live too), some are free.
First you need a good hardware (making this plant start picture of the movie with a Dualcore? Forget it...). I think an i7 with 16 GB RAM is good enough = >1000 Euro. Second you need a software you have to master. Blender is free, but C4d or similar programs cost 2500 Euro and more. You need a good renderer with this "milky" style and physical lights and cameras allmost all realistic games have today = 500-100 Euro. Then you must have a huge library. You want a telephone from 1970? This green Telekom one with dial? You have to look and often to pay for it - or model it. You want ten blue shark fishes? Look - or model them...
But now... you want a unique funny steampunk van (I wanted one). With wooden sides, balkony, an iron planetarium on his back, with brass tiny windows and steam engine. You don't find it. You have to make it yourself. And THAT'S take time, believe me.
A 2D painted game is easier than a 3D modeled game. Only the animations are tricky...
Look at my DeviantArt:
http://littlebluemonster.deviantart.com/I tried both ways. Every painting or pencil drawing takes one day, some of them two or three days. Only the monastery tooks two weeks, because it was a lot of line work.
All (!) 3D picture tooks more than a week.
Advantage: if you have the character you will pose him quick and make light and scene. But nevertheless you have to do a lot of fine tuning until the final version.
I think, a good artist with an expensive Wacom tablet and skills how to work with, will be the winner all the time...
Unfortunately I haven't one...
Yeah, spam or not. It's a discussion I like very much. But it takes too long writing on English. This text: more than two hours...