Patent ID: 7952585

Claim:
A video game system for controlling an interactive animation environment including at least one user-controlled object, the system comprising: a video game device monitor for displaying animation corresponding to the interactive animation environment; data storage storing a set of pre-rendered animations of the user-controlled object; and a controller in communication with the data storage operating to: determine a position of the user-controlled object; define a plurality of regions about said position; detect a user input via a user input device to move the position of the user-controlled object; associate the detected user input to move the position of the user-controlled object with a region in the direction of movement that includes an active element with which the user-controlled object may interact; select a subset of the stored animations from the storage device for the user-controlled object; and provide an animation of the user-controlled object using the selected subset of the stored animations for display on the video game device monitor, wherein the providing the animation comprises providing an animation of the user-controlled object and the active element, wherein the selected subset of the stored animations are chosen by the controller based on a state of the user-controlled object and a state of the active element, and wherein the controller further operates to queue, for use in the providing of the animation additional subsets of the pre-rendered animations of the user-controlled object and a subset of the pre-rendered animations of the active element in the data storage associated with choreographed states of the user-controlled object and of the active element that sequentially follow the states used by the controller to choose the selected subset of the stored animations.