USER AVATAR AVAILABLE ACROSS COMPUTING APPLICATIONS AND DEVICES

• US 20090315893A1
• Filed: 06/18/2008
• Published: 12/24/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/18/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Smith, Derek H., Irving, Richard Henry, Lim, Tian Fung, Johnson, Jerry Alan, Reville, Brendan, Law, Stacey, Langan, Thomas, Madsen, Bjorn Toft, Boyd, Rodney Alan
• Application Number:
  US12/141,109
• Publication Number:
  US 20090315893A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/473
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/12 involving interaction between a plurality of game devices, e.g. transmisison or distribution systems protocols for networked virtual reality, networked games H04L29/06034
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/30 Interconnection arrangements between game servers and game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game servers
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/49 Saving the game status; Pausing or ending the game
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/63 by the player, e.g. authoring using a level editor
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/79 involving player-related data, e.g. identities, accounts, preferences or play histories
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/554 by saving game or status data
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/5553 user representation in the game field, e.g. avatar
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/575 for trading virtual items
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/8082 Virtual reality

Abstract

An avatar along with its accessories, emotes, and animations may be system provided and omnipresent. In this manner, the avatar and its accessories, emotes, and animations may be available across multiple environments provided or exposed by multiple avatar computing applications, such as computer games, chats, forums, communities, or instant messaging services. An avatar system may change the avatar and its accessories, emotes, and animations, e.g. pursuant to a request from the user, instructions from an avatar computing application, or updates provided by software associated with a computing device. The avatar and its accessories, emotes, and animations may be changed by a system or computing application associated with a computing device outside of a computer game or computing environment in which the avatar may be rendered or used by the user.

Claims

1. A method of providing an avatar across a plurality of computing environments, comprising:

rendering an avatar and a plurality of features in a first computing application;

storing data pertaining to the avatar and the features rendered in the first computing application;

rendering the avatar and the features in a second computing application based on the stored data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the features comprise at least one of a plurality of accessories, emotes, or animations.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first computing application comprises a first computer game, and the second computing application comprises one of a second computer game, a chat, a forum, a community, or an instant messaging service.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the first computing application and the second computing application run on a computing device.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the computing device comprises a multimedia console.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the first computing application runs on a first computing device and the second computing application runs on a second computing device separate from the first computing device.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the first computing device comprises a different platform than the second computing device.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein storing data pertaining to the avatar and the features comprises storing data pertaining to a current state of the avatar and data pertaining to a plurality of accessories available to the avatar.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein storing data comprises storing the data in storage that is accessible to a plurality of computing devices, each computing device maintaining an environment for the avatar.

10. A method of providing a feature to an avatar, comprising:

receiving a selection of a feature for an avatar; and

storing data pertaining to the avatar and the feature in a storage accessible to a plurality of avatar computing applications.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the feature comprises an accessory, an emote, or an animation.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the storage is accessible to a plurality of computing devices, each computing device providing a different platform for the avatar.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising providing a closet to a user, the closet comprising a plurality of accessories for the avatar, the accessories being selectable by the user.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising receiving a selection of one of the accessories from the user via the closet, providing the accessory to the avatar, and storing data pertaining to the accessory in the storage.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising storing data pertaining to the feature in the closet.

16. An avatar system, comprising:

an avatar that is available across a plurality of environments associated with a plurality of avatar computing applications; and

a storage device comprising data pertaining to the avatar and is accessible by the avatar computing applications.

17. The system of claim 16, further comprising at least one of a plurality of accessories, emotes, or animations that are available across the environments associated with the avatar computing applications, the storage device further comprising data pertaining to the accessories, emotes, or animations.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein each of the avatar computing applications is associated with a different one of a plurality of computing devices.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the plurality of computing devices comprises at least one multimedia console and at least one web-enabled computing device.

20. The system of claim 16, further comprising a skeletal structure for the avatar, the skeletal structure for animation of the avatar by each of the avatar computing applications.