Patent ID: 8823699

Claim:
A method of encoding a dynamic three-dimensional scene, comprising steps of: using an encoding module in a virtual world server, saving a snapshot of the three dimensional scene containing object space and status of all virtual objects and associated terrain by performing: receiving scene data comprising a first description of at least one virtual object and a second description of underlying terrain associated with the three dimensional scene; separating the first and second descriptions; organizing the first description into a first track segmented by virtual object time slots capturing an encoding and state of the at least one virtual object, said virtual object time slots comprising: a first key time tick comprising virtual object model data needed to rebuild the at least one virtual object in the three dimensional scene; and a first common time tick comprising a data link to the first key time tick, a status of the at least one virtual object at its associated virtual object time slot, and an action associated with said at least one virtual object at its associated virtual object time slot; organizing the second description into a second track segmented by terrain time slots capturing an encoding and state of the terrain, said terrain time slots comprising: a second key time tick comprising terrain model data needed to rebuild the terrain in the scene; and a second common time tick comprising a triple of a data link to the second key time tick, a status of the terrain at its associated terrain time slot, and an action associated with the terrain at its associated terrain time slot; and storing the first and second descriptions in persistent storage as separate files where users can retrieve only those virtual object and terrain descriptions that are required for scenes to be rendered.