1. A computerized server managing a Virtual Environment (VE), comprising: a network port for communicating with remote computerized appliances; a plurality of virtually-defined rigid objects in the VE, including one or more avatars representing persons in the VE; a physics simulation engine executing from a machine-readable medium, for calculating object states and properties, including motion of virtually-defined rigid objects; and a mechanism for assigning and tracking identification of remote computerized appliances connected via the network port, each remote appliance capable of physics simulation; wherein the server responds to signals from the remote computerized appliances to assign individual ones of the virtually-defined rigid objects to individual ones of the remote computerized appliances for physics simulation, and the server simulates all virtually-defined objects in the VE that are not assigned to at least one of the remote computerized appliances.