Rendering avatar details

• US 8,988,421 B2
• Filed: 12/02/2008
• Issued: 03/24/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/02/2008
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bhogal, Kulvir S., Hamilton, Rick A. II, O'Connell, Brian M., Pickover, Clifford A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Martello, Edward
• Application Number:
  US12/326,221
• Publication Number:
  US 20100134485A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,303 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 345/419
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/10 Control of the course of the game, e.g. start, progess, end
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/45 Controlling the progress of the video game
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/52 involving aspects of the displayed game scene
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/60 Generating or modifying game content before or while executing the game program, e.g. authoring tools specially adapted for game development or game-integrated level editor
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/798 for assessing skills or for ranking players, e.g. for generating a hall of fame computing the game score A63F13/46
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/558 by assessing the players' skills or ranking
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/66 for rendering three dimensional images
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/663 for simulating liquid objects, e.g. water, gas, fog, snow, clouds
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 13/40 of characters, e.g. humans, animals or virtual beings
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/00 3D [Three Dimensional] image rendering

Abstract

The rendering of avatars in a virtual universe is selectively controlled by the avatar owner. Avatar ranking by several criteria, operating either jointly or independently, is employed to control avatar rendering in ways intended to reduce computational loading while not significantly impacting the virtual universe experience.

Claims

1. A method for rendering avatars in a virtual universe environment, said method comprising:

capturing user ranking of at least one avatar, the user ranking indicating a level of importance in graphically rendering the at least one avatar for a user of the virtual universe environment, the level of importance being indicative of a rendering quality at which the at least one avatar is to be graphically rendered, and the user ranking being selected automatically based at least partially upon interaction between the at least one avatar and another avatar within the virtual universe environment, wherein the user ranking is specific to graphically rendering the at least one avatar for that user and is distinct from user ranking for graphically rendering the at least one avatar for another user of the virtual universe environment, wherein the user ranking incorporates a temporal consideration in which user ranking for the at least one avatar decreases over a duration of time based on time since last interaction with the another avatar, wherein the at least on avatar is graphically rendered over the duration of time and the user ranking of the at least on avatar decreases, and the at least one avatar is rendered in lower quality, over the duration of time; and

dynamically rendering, by a processor, said at least one avatar in accordance with said user ranking.

2. The method of claim 1 in which said ranking is selected automatically based further upon a hierarchical status of the user within a hierarchy of a company of employment of the user, wherein ranking of avatars of individuals within a same group of the company, department of the company, line of business of the company, or unit of the company as the user is higher than ranking of avatars of other individuals in the company.

3. The method of claim 1 in which said capturing is carried out both from ranking selection provided directly by an avatar owner and indirectly from ranking influencing data provided by said owner.

4. The method of claim 3 in which said ranking influencing data is selected from the group consisting of avatar interaction, business transaction and company hierarchy.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein computational load on the system is measured periodically and the dynamically rendering is invoked automatically based on the periodic measurement of the computational load.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the dynamically rendering is invoked automatically based on trend in usage of the virtual universe environment client on the system indicating that a speed of execution of the virtual universe environment client after a predetermined a mount of time is predicted to be undesirably slow.

7. The method of claim 1 in which said rendering in accordance with the user ranking comprises at least one of:

reducing a number of polygons used to render said at least one avatar, reducing frame rate for said at least one avatar, eliminating at least a portion of texture mapping applied to said at least one avatar, employing flat textures, displaying said at least one avatar in wireframe format, or displaying said at least one avatar without one or more light sources being present.

8. The method of claim 1 in which said rendering in accordance with the user ranking comprises eliding said at least one avatar which would otherwise be rendered within a scene, wherein the eliding entirely eliminates the at least one avatar from being rendered within the scene.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the dynamically rendering is activated in response to at least on of:

observation of system slowdown, preference for enhanced performance, a need to be undistracted by unimportant avatars, a desire to find important avatars, or desire to find avatars of interest.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the dynamically rendering is activated manually by a user via at least one of:

selection of an icon, or selection from a menu.

11. The method claim 1, wherein the dynamically rendering is activated manually by a user via at least one of:

activating keyboard hot key, or voice instructions from the user.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein based on the at least one avatar having a higher user ranking relative to user ranking of other avatars, the dynamically rendering the at least one avatar comprises providing advertising information as part of the dynamic rendering of the at least one avatar.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the interaction comprises one or more of:

the at least one avatar waving at the another avatar in the virtual universe environment, or the another avatar waving at the at least one avatar in the virtual universe environment.

14. The method of claim 1. wherein the interaction comprises involvement of the at least one avatar and the another avatar in a business transaction with each other, and wherein the method further comprises:

detecting the involvement of the at least one avatar and the another avatar in the business transaction, wherein the detecting is based on at least one of;

parsing chat text, presence of the at least one avatar or the another avatar within a region of the virtual universe environment zoned for business transactions, and engagement between the at least one avatar and the another avatar in an intra-virtual universe environment fund transaction.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one avatar comprises multiple avatars graphically rendered within a visible region of the virtual universe environment, wherein based on user input from a pointing device, the graphically rendered multiple avatars are selected within the visible region, and the user ranking is simultaneously applied to graphically rendered multiple avatars within the visible region.

16. A computer program product for rendering avatars in a virtual universe, the computer program product comprising:

a non-transitory storage medium readable by a processor and storing instructions for execution by the processor to perform;

capturing user ranking of at least one avatar, the user ranking indicating a level of importance in graphically rendering the at least one avatar for a user of the virtual universe environment, the lever of importance being indicative of a rendering quality at which the at least one avatar is to be graphically rendered, and the user ranking being selected automatically based at least partially upon interaction between the at least one avatar and another avatar within the virtual universe environment, wherein the user ranking is specific to graphically rendering the at least one avatar for that user and is distinct from user ranking for graphically rendering the at least one avatar for another user of the virtual universe environment, wherein the user ranking incorporates a temporal consideration in which user ranking for the at least one avatar decreases over a duration of time based on time since last interaction with another avatar, wherein the at least one avatar is graphically rendered over the duration of time and the user ranking of the at least one avatar decreases, and the at least one avatar is rendered in lower quality, over the duration of time; and

dynamically rendering said at least one avatar in accordance with said user ranking.

17. A data processing system comprising:

a memory; and

a processor in communications with the memory, wherein the data processing system is configured to perform a method that includes;

capturing user ranking of at least one avatar, the user ranking indicating a level of importance in graphically rendering the at least one avatar for a user of the virtual universe environment, the level of importance being indicative of a rendering quality at which the at least one avatar is to be graphically rendered, and the user ranking being selected automatically based at least partially upon interaction between the at least one avatar and another avatar within the virtual universe environment, wherein the user ranking is specific to graphically rendering the at least one avatar for that user and is distinct from user ranking for graphically rendering the at least one avatar for another user of the virtual universe environment, wherein the user ranking incorporates a temporal consideration in which user ranking for the at least one avatar decreases over a duration of time based on time since last interaction with the another avatar, wherein the at least one avatar is graphically rendered over the duration of time and the user ranking of the at least one avatar decreases, and the at least one avatar is rendered in lower quality, over the duration of time; and

dynamically rendering said at least one avatar in accordance with said user ranking.