How to make state of the art 3d game?

i am studying on computer science. i am interested in making games. i have the modeling and animation tools like 3dsmax, maya ,softiamge|xsi.

but what i need more to make a state of the art game for pc, xbox and ps3 ? i have my few friends working with me . what should we do now?How to make state of the art 3d game?
You have many cheap options to start Game Dev with some great tools available.

For free you can get Xbox XNA programming tools for xbox 360 (well almost free, its free, but you have to sign up to be a gold member to get all the best stuff) its about $100 a year. Still super cheap. Thats all C# based, and you can publish your game to xbol and sell it !!! pretty darn good.



PS3 has something similar, for home-dev, but not as open or complete as the 360 system, and you cant yest sell your games on the online shop.



Next up, if you buy a game from Valve that uses the source engine... you also get all of the tools for free, its powerful, and used in many hit games. The down side is if you want to publish your game then you have to pay for licensing the engine when you are ready to publish.



The Unreal engine works in a similar way to Source. You get it free, but have to pay to license it.... very expensive.



If your game is good enough, you could find a publisher to pay the license fee and publish your game.



You can also buy some real engines for cheap such as the Torque engine... I think its only $100 to $300... a bargain. But dont expect full support.



Another new option is the Unity engine... its newly released on PC and runs your program in a web browser (similar to flash, but in full glorious 3D). indie license is about $400 and pro, about $1500 This is very reasonably priced for the features, and allows you to self publish your game on your own hosted website/server without a publisher.



Or you can go hardcore, just use DirectX-SDK whihc is free , and build your own engine from the ground-up.



So there you have it, many options.



in summary.... if you dont care about selling your game... you could go for any of the above.

I you are serious about selling on the cheap, then go for XNA, Torque, or Unity.



To go all out high end on everything... you'll need to make your own engine, or go Source or Unreal or other fully priced engine.



Good luck