How are the models animated? I'm just thinking that, if you want to send a 2D representation of their rendering to the other clients, would it not be more efficacious to simply pre-render all of the 3d models yourself and have them handled as bitmaps or movies within the application? If the animations it performs are predictable, you could pre-render the animations too.
However, I'm guessing that you have already thought of that. Have you already created a method by which the 3d models are turned into bitmaps?
