If all this is not needed, there are enough alternatives like Ogre, Irrlicht, T3D, C4, Shiva or Gamestudio, though it depends on the platforms you are aiming for.

It depends, but some engines need you to program tools or additionnal plugins or things like Ogre3D ou Irrlicht even 3DGS.
C4 need strong C++ and lot of line of code (juste look at the character animation tutorial).
Unity is the ready to go 3D Engine with all standard tools , shaders ready to go.