Patent Document ID: 8898574
Application ID: 12339412
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for degrading avatar appearances in a virtual universe, the method comprising: monitoring a set of teleportation invitations issued to avatars in the virtual universe, the teleportation invitations comprising invitations to teleport to a region within the virtual universe; identifying an object in the virtual universe as an object of interest based on a social tag; identifying a set of avatars that have each accepted at least one of the set of teleportation invitations; determining whether the set of avatars is likely to cause a visual obstruction of the object of interest to an avatar other than the set of avatars, the determining comprising calculating whether a number of avatars of the set of avatars that shall be rendered, as a result of having accepted at least one of the set of teleportation invitations, within a predetermined proximity to the object of interest exceeds a predefined threshold; rendering the set of avatars in the virtual universe per the accepted at least one of the set of teleportation invitations, at least one of the rendered set of avatars having a degraded appearance if the set of avatars within the virtual universe is likely to cause a visual obstruction of the object of interest to the avatar other than the set of avatars, enhancing an appearance of the object of interest to increase a visual contrast between the object of interest and the set of avatars in response to the degrading; and charging a rendering fee for facilitating the degradation of avatar appearances in the virtual universe; wherein the degrading comprises reducing at least one geometric dimension of the at least one of the set of avatars.