Patent ID: 8368686

Claim:
A method of generating terrain in a virtual world, the method comprising: receiving in a terrain generator a plurality of procedural rules that procedurally describe the terrain in a virtual world without storing terrain data, wherein each rule affects the generation of a portion of the terrain including terrain properties and each rule including at least boundaries, filters, and affectors; generating terrain in the virtual world in accordance with the plurality of procedural rules by writing data to a buffer for rendering terrain in real time on a visual display, wherein the plurality of procedural rules is organized into hierarchical layers such that a single location in the terrain can have multiple procedural rules that overlap, wherein when multiple procedural rules overlap the terrain generator specifies a blend region, wherein the plurality of procedural rules is textually represented so that the boundaries, filters, and affectors are assigned numeric values that represent desired attributes in a logical textual format, wherein the textual representation of the plurality of procedural rules describes the dynamic aspects of the terrain in the virtual world, wherein modification of the terrain in a virtual world is enabled by adding or deleting at least one procedural rule from the plurality of procedural rules; and providing a resource management policy for deallocating memory allocated to unused or unnecessary portions of the terrain.