hi, i was wondering is it completely possible to make games in your home with the same kind of professional look as a game such as gran turismo 4 or metal gear or splinter cell etc

Depends on how much free time you have, consider that these games are usually in development for at least 3 years, being worked on by teams of people that are highly skilled and know what they need to be doing, and each facet of the game (usually) being worked on concurrently by different teams. This means that you'd have to be doing the work of many full time professionals, learning whatever skills you require along the way and maintaining a commitment to see it all through to the end. So, it'd be better to get some like minded people together and have a crack at it, separate out the different aspects according to particular skills and the group mentality could help things going forward through the times where it seems like you're going nowhere and it'd be easy to give up if you were working on your own. Professional quality games aren't impossible but know your capabilities, always try to expand them but be realistic with your goals.

I myself have always wanted to create my own RPG, but since I don't really know anyone to help out with this it means I'll have to do all the work myself, which means learning programming more in-depth, learning 3d modelling, coming up with the gameplay etc etc on my own, and with the amount of spare time I have I know that right now this is a no go, so instead, when I get the chance I'll be using the editor in Neverwinter Nights to create one. While this might not be quite as satisfying as doing my own from scratch right now it's the most feasible option, and depending on the kind of game you want to make then you may be able to find already created editors/engines to get started with, though if you plan on being able to sell your games on then there would be issues with licensing to be looked into.

Think I may have gone off on one a bit, but anyway, don't want to discourage you, just give things a go and see how it turns out.

I agree with Madhatter's post above with useing game editors to start. The neverwinter nights editor or the warcraft3 editor are both powerful tools with scripting options to make a 3d game out of. Also on the plus side if you buy them and find you don't like game making you have a nice game to sit back and play.

As far as making your own games and not useing a editor out of another game you have two options. You can use a engine or you can start from scratch. The pros and cons of each option are as follows.

With engines you don't need to worry about the inner workings of graphics and can possibly pull off a very simple 3D game, often you import in the graphics file and they do most of the work. Flash would be a prime example of what working with a engine would be like. The downside is engines are very expensive so if you buy one you don't like or is beyond your skill level you just screwed yourself over big time. Also you are limited in what you can do by what the creator of the engine allows you to do.

Without engines you are dealing with DirectX something that is very hard to wrap a mind around. If you are doing game making on a hobby basis you will probably be forced to stick with 2D games and possibly make a 2.5d (isometric) one at your peak. 3D games nearly always require a team due to the fact that they requrie much more time to program and beyond that 3D models are not as easy to make as most people think if you take into account poly counts and importing textures and all that.