Quote: "It's no different from normal modelling, except that there really isn't a polygon limit; you can go absolutely nuts with your polys and make an ultra-high quality model and use it perfectly (good luck trying to animate it, though )."
Actually no that's not true, even slightly.
When your creating Cinematics, Effects or FMV there is huge amounts of work to be done.
Unlike a creating a game model, you have not set
a) Sketch
b) Model
c) Rig
d) Texture
e) Animate
In game modelling, there is a sequence. It's well, straight forward and simple. When your creating Cinematics, especially at home on a relatively pathic computer; you have to do so much work in preparation.
Modelling is done very differently because you need an Animation Level Mesh, an Effects Level Mesh, and a Render Level Mesh. Often these have to be several layer alterations of the same mesh.
It's not just a case of making a pretty picture and going 'SNAP', coordinating things inside of the 3D Program is a task in itself.
More often than not what happens in other industries is you'll have one guy directing, another guy acting, another to do the camera work, etc.. each one is a seasoned professional in thier field.
With CGI you have basically just volenteered to be everyone on set.
While you can often be working in groups that split up the work, your all working on the same scene to the same effect. So much relies on each part of the team working smoothly which is harder than it sounds.
To take something from a concept ->to> story-board ->to> mesh ->to> animated. Getting the camera work right, the materials, lighting, making sure that each part of the scene blends rather than standing out as if they were seperate work. Your doing everything on such a grander scale and you'll never see the finished product from your screen render out 'as-is'.. Even companies like Pixar have to render out thier animations in layer so that they can composite the frame later, key-frame sound.
It is work, and very hard work at that.
This is why in-game cut-scene are prefered. Less work, less man-power, less resources, less trouble, less money.
