Does anyone have a good way to test AI ideas without having to plug it into an existing game or engine? I'd like some sort of existing 3d sandbox that I can just plop in entities and then test out different behaviors. Something that is flexible enough that the behavior can take into account everything else in the sandbox, or even access a database (ideally), but that I don't have to worry about programming the graphics engine and such.

Alex Champandard has one that he is working up over at AIGameDev.com. Create a forum account (which, if you are an AI person, you just do regardless) and look at the info in there.

If you do find something like that, can you send me a pm.

I'll try to look for it on my side and send you a pm if I do.

cheers

I think there would be some value in something like this. There just isn't a good platform to get something up and running without witting tons of rendering code/plugin logic for existing engines.

This would make a great open source project.

-ddn