Patent ID: 8294732

Claim:
A computer method of controlling virtual environment cameras comprising: in a processor, determining current context in a subject virtual environment, an acting character in the subject virtual environment representing a user, and point of view of a given screen view of the subject virtual environment being through the eyes of the acting character as captured through a hypothetical camera; as a function of determined context, providing to the user a set of certain predefined camera views for the hypothetical camera through which his character's point of view in the subject virtual environment is defined, each predefined camera view in the set being individually user selectable, wherein different respective sets of predefined camera views are provided for different determined contexts, and each set of predefined camera views is computed from a combination of: (i) a list of views defined by any of an author of current location of the user's character in the subject virtual environment, an author of an object of interest visible to the user's character in the subject virtual environment, and an author of the user's character, and (ii) interesting angles identified around the respective ones of the current location, object of interest and user's character; enabling user selection of a camera view from the provided set of certain predefined camera views, wherein the provided set of certain predefined camera views include camera views having angles based on avatars of interest that are visible to the user through his character in the subject virtual environment, and wherein user selection is through user selectable graphical representations of each camera view in the provided set of predefined camera views; and updating the hypothetical camera of the subject virtual environment according to user selected camera view; and outputting on a display member to the user a screen view of the subject virtual environment as defined by the updated hypothetical camera and user selected camera view.