Abstract: This application is directed to system and methods that facilitate communications within virtual environments. Types of communications contemplated include non-verbal, pictographic communications. For example, the inventive subject matter can facilitate allowing users to use gesture-based inputs to apply writing to aspects of a virtual environment. When writing is applied to, e.g., a wall within a virtual environment, systems and methods of the inventive subject ensure that writing can be made visible to other users within that virtual environment, thereby facilitating a wide variety of new modes of in-game communications.