Optimal resilience to errors in packetized streaming 3-D wireframe animation is achieved by partitioning the stream into layers and applying unequal error correction coding to each layer independently to maintain the same overall bitrate. The unequal error protection scheme for each of the layers combined with error concealment at the receiver achieves graceful degradation of streamed animation at higher packet loss rates than approaches that do not account for subjective parameters such as visual smoothness.