thanks for the many links, I'll check them!

my purpose is to make a simple RTS game (or a turn based with real time battles, which is easier) after I finish my RTS AI system in 3DGS, but only as a hobby development, so I have no certain time frame. it's about creativity probably I will need to team up with some 3D artists...

in 3DGS Commercial I have performance problems, because GPU animation and terrain LOD are Pro only, and quality problems of pssm shadows (maybe I can solve it if its parameters tweaked together with the actual camera distance, which can be very different in a RTS game scene). sprite instancing of 3DGS Pro is not a big help in this genre, I would like to utilize the benefits of model instancing for making forests, what is unavailable in 3DGS and Esenthel, but UDK has this feature. some of performance and quality improvements require directX10, which will never be available in 3DGS in my opinion.

ny pathfinder is heavily dependent on my editor, but I have the concept to change its terrain analysis, and entity updates in another programming language like C++, where I can customize entity classes, or alternatively assign property structs to entities, and create entity group structs, like in lite-c.

I just found a RTS starter kit for UDK. as I see UDK also has a navmesh pathfinder and a crowd system that could be more effective than my own system, and maybe easier to use together with physX... but its learning time cannot be too short...