Patent ID: 7265758

Claim:
A system, comprising: a high-level animation subsystem to receive animation information from an application; a low-level animation subsystem to render one or more animations according to the animation information; a first timing engine to monitor one or more clocks in the low-level animation subsystem and to synchronize the clocks with one or more clocks in the high-level animation subsystem; a second timing engine to monitor the one or more clocks in the high-level animation subsystem according to one or more high-level animation objects and to transmit animation messages to the first timing engine, the animation messages conforming to a communication protocol and designating one or more animation objects and how the animation objects are to change over a specified period of time; wherein a high-level animation object communicates with a low-level animation object through the communication protocol messages to create and update the low-level animation object to reflect the high-level animation object; and wherein the clocks and the animation objects are created and updated though the messages received at a variable rate from the high-level animation subsystem in a manner that provides the low-level animation subsystem with several frames of animation data that can be displayed at a high, constant display frame refresh rate, including a synchronize message that identifies one of the clocks associated with an animation to synchronize with a clock of the high-level animation subsystem.