Media recording within a virtual world

A computer system adapted for providing a virtual world to a user, comprising:

• a monitor;
• a processor;
• a virtual world generator run by the processor to generate a virtual world and display the virtual world in a window on the monitor;
• a movie recorder module operable by the processor to respond to input received from the user by inserting a movie recorder, with a camera defining a viewable scene within the virtual world, at a position and with an orientation of the camera both set by the user input;
• memory including a texture render buffer associated with the movie recorder, the texture render buffer storing frames of images of the viewable scene of the virtual world;
• and
• data storage storing at least one of the frames of the images in a file associated with the movie recorder in response to an instruction to record being received from the user.

A media recording method for a virtual world, comprising:

• with a processor, running a movie recorder module to insert a first movie recorder and a second movie recorder in the virtual world, wherein the first and second movie recorders are located at first and second positions within the virtual world that are independently selectable by a participant of the virtual world;
• associating a texture render buffer with each of the first and second movie recorders;
• with the processor, running a render manager to render frames of the virtual world;
• and
• storing a first set of rendered frames associated with a scene of the virtual world viewable by the first movie recorder in the texture render buffer associated with the first movie recorder and storing a second set of rendered frames associated with a scene of the virtual world viewable by the second movie recorder in the texture render buffer associated with the second movie recorder.