Patent ID: 7539606

Claim:
An interactive method of producing three-dimensional computer-generated liquid surface effects in a real time interactive graphics video game system, said method comprising: modeling a three-dimensional surface of a liquid using a collection of plural three-dimensional surface modeling layers, said plural three-dimensional surface modeling layers including at least a first three-dimensional layer that models the general appearance of the liquid's surface and at least a second three-dimensional layer that models at least some three-dimensional disturbance on the liquid's surface; receiving interactive user input from at least one game player; dynamically changing the three-dimensional shape of at least one of said plurality of three-dimensional surface modeling layers at least in part in real time interactive response to said received interactive user input by applying different algorithms to different ones of the plurality of layers; providing a virtual camera establishing a viewpoint into a three-dimensional virtual space, said virtual camera having a direction and location within said three-dimensional virtual space; dynamically generating a polygon mesh corresponding to said collection of plural three-dimensional surface modeling layers, said virtual camera direction and said virtual camera location, said generating providing a level of detail feature for said polygon mesh that is dynamically reduced as the virtual camera becomes more perpendicular to the liquid surface, to thereby generate an animated video game image showing the changing shape of said three-dimensional liquid surface based on said combined collection of said plurality of three-dimensional liquid surface modeling layers which dynamically changes shape in real time interactive response to said received interaction user input from said at least one game player; and generating and displaying at least one image from said virtual camera viewpoint.