Patent application number | Description | Published |
20090315893 | USER AVATAR AVAILABLE ACROSS COMPUTING APPLICATIONS AND DEVICES - An avatar along with its accessories, emotes, and animations may be system provided and omnipresent. In this manner, the avatar and its accessories, emotes, and animations may be available across multiple environments provided or exposed by multiple avatar computing applications, such as computer games, chats, forums, communities, or instant messaging services. An avatar system may change the avatar and its accessories, emotes, and animations, e.g. pursuant to a request from the user, instructions from an avatar computing application, or updates provided by software associated with a computing device. The avatar and its accessories, emotes, and animations may be changed by a system or computing application associated with a computing device outside of a computer game or computing environment in which the avatar may be rendered or used by the user. | 12-24-2009 |
20100009747 | Programming APIS for an Extensible Avatar System - Disclosed is an application programming interface (API) that provides for an extensible avatar system. In one embodiment an API may allow video game applications to retrieve structures of data which represent an avatar. The game can then take those structures and incorporate the data into its own rendering system. In another embodiment an API may allow a video game application to render an avatar to a render target or texture wherein the video game system performs rendering and animation functions. | 01-14-2010 |
20100045697 | Social Virtual Avatar Modification - The techniques disclosed herein integrate a social aspect into avatar modification. Multiple users may access a virtual environment that allows users to modify the user's avatar. The users in the application may be any combination of remote and local players. The users' avatars may be associated with the same application or different applications. The users may interact in the same virtual environment while modifying their respective avatars. Any user in the virtual environment may view modifications that are made to other users' avatars and interact with other users while modifications are made. Thus, the techniques disclosed allow avatar modification to be a multi-player experience. | 02-25-2010 |
20100056273 | EXTENSIBLE SYSTEM FOR CUSTOMIZED AVATARS AND ACCESSORIES - An item can be added to an avatar associated with a user of a video game console. The item is represented by a data entry that is written to a manifest, which contains data fields storing a type and a name of the item. Items can be applied to or “worn” by an avatar by setting a flag in the corresponding data entry in the manifest. Items can be obtained from a number of sources, including, for example, disc based games and a server connected to the video game console. Further, items can be obtained as a reward for attaining achievements in a game. | 03-04-2010 |
20100227682 | AWARDING OF AVATAR ITEMS IN VIDEO GAME ENVIRONMENT - Embodiments related to the introduction of new avatar items to a video game environment are disclosed. One embodiment provides a computer-readable medium comprising code executable by a computing device to perform a method of presenting a video game to a user. The code comprises code executable to display in the video game an avatar representing the user, code executable to receive input from a user of the video game during game play, code executable to detect an occurrence of a designated event in the video game during game play that results from input received from the user during game play, code executable to award the user access to an avatar item upon the occurrence of the designated event, and code executable to store code representing the appearance of the avatar item in a location external to the video game. | 09-09-2010 |
20110289455 | Gestures And Gesture Recognition For Manipulating A User-Interface - Symbolic gestures and associated recognition technology are provided for controlling a system user-interface, such as that provided by the operating system of a general computing system or multimedia console. The symbolic gesture movements in mid-air are performed by a user with or without the aid of an input device. A capture device is provided to generate depth images for three-dimensional representation of a capture area including a human target. The human target is tracked using skeletal mapping to capture the mid-air motion of the user. The skeletal mapping data is used to identify movements corresponding to pre-defined gestures using gesture filters that set forth parameters for determining when a target's movement indicates a viable gesture. When a gesture is detected, one or more pre-defined user-interface control actions are performed. | 11-24-2011 |
20110289456 | Gestures And Gesture Modifiers For Manipulating A User-Interface - Gesture modifiers are provided for modifying and enhancing the control of a user-interface such as that provided by an operating system or application of a general computing system or multimedia console. Symbolic gesture movements are performed by a user in mid-air. A capture device generates depth images and a three-dimensional representation of a capture area including a human target. The human target is tracked using skeletal mapping to capture the mid-air motion of the user. Skeletal mapping data is used to identify movements corresponding to pre-defined gestures using gesture filters. Detection of a viable gesture can trigger one or more user-interface actions or controls. Gesture modifiers are provided to modify the user-interface action triggered by detection of a gesture and/or to aid in the identification of gestures. | 11-24-2011 |
20120157208 | PERSISTENT HANDLES FOR INTERFACE GUIDES - A computing system translates a world space position of a hand of a human target to a screen space position of a user interface and locks the hand to a handle of the user interface if world space parameters of the hand overcome a grab threshold of the handle. When the hand is locked to the handle, the computing system translates a world space position of the hand to a screen space handle position that is constrained along one or more interface guides. The hand is unlocked from the handle at a release position of the handle if world space parameters of the hand overcome a release threshold of the handle. The handle is retained at the release position after the hand is unlocked from the handle. | 06-21-2012 |
Patent application number | Description | Published |
20090088254 | LOGGING OF RICH ENTERTAINMENT PLATFORM SERVICE HISTORY FOR USE AS A COMMUNITY BUILDING TOOL - Systems, methods, and computer readable media are disclosed for aggregating event records obtained from a plurality of videogame consoles, and generating event objects for each event record of the plurality. Additionally, the event objects can be stored in a database that is exposed to a third party via a connection to a network such as the Internet. In addition to the foregoing, other aspects are described in the claims, drawings, and text forming a part of the present disclosure. | 04-02-2009 |
20090210493 | Communicating and Displaying Hyperlinks in a Computing Community - Various aspects are disclosed herein for communicating and displaying of hyperlinks in a computing community. Hyperlinks can be communicated by being embedded in messages, such that users of a closed computing community can send and receive such hyperlinks. These hyperlinks can link to hyperlinked content that can be stored on a central computing device responsible for administering the community. Moreover, any content that is associated with hyperlinks, whether that content is in the form of blogs, RSS feeds, and so on, can be made publicly available while any associated hyperlinks will be visible only to a subset of computing devices, namely, the community computing devices (but not to any general computing devices accessing the content). This task may be accomplished by using predetermined and/or proprietary schema properly understood only by the community computing devices. | 08-20-2009 |
20100023885 | SYSTEM FOR EDITING AN AVATAR - Systems, methods and computer readable media are disclosed for updating the appearance of an avatar that exists across an online multi-player gaming system, including an executing video game. In addition to the general system, systems, methods and computer readable media for updating the avatar, techniques are disclosed for prompting networked video games to update an avatar that has been modified while the video game has been executing. | 01-28-2010 |
20100026698 | AVATAR ITEMS AND ANIMATIONS - Mechanisms for accessorizing avatars with animated items. Avatars may be accessorized by items that have animations that are item specific, or they may be accessorized by items that apply to the entire body of the avatars. In addition, such item accessories may apply to avatars across different game titles and they may be added during the execution of a game, whether using a user interface or the game itself (e.g. receiving accessories for achieving certain milestones in a game). Such accessories may also be obtained from remote sources as packages, and then applied locally to avatars. | 02-04-2010 |
20100035692 | AVATAR CLOSET/ GAME AWARDED AVATAR - Systems, methods and computer readable media are disclosed for updating the appearance of an avatar that exists across an online multi-player gaming system, including an executing video game. In addition to the general system, systems, methods and computer readable media for updating the avatar, techniques are disclosed for prompting networked video games to update an avatar that has been modified while the video game has been executing. | 02-11-2010 |
20120246585 | SYSTEM FOR EDITING AN AVATAR - Systems, methods and computer readable media are disclosed for updating the appearance of an avatar that exists across an online multi-player gaming system, including an executing video game. In addition to the general system, systems, methods and computer readable media for updating the avatar, techniques are disclosed for prompting networked video games to update an avatar that has been modified while the video game has been executing. | 09-27-2012 |