Just like in the process for making a traditional animation, a computer animation still needs a story and a script. Writers will come up with ideas for stories or flesh out old ideas that never made it into production. And just like in traditional animation, it usually happens that a storyboard is created with a pencil and paper, before it begins being transferred into a computer.

MODELS

Here is where the differences begin to occur. Many times in the traditional type of animation models of the character that are going to be used are made in different poses in order to help the animators draw the characters for production. In computer animation however a model of each character must be put into the computer at the beginning of the animation process in order to be able to move the character and manipulate them in the scene as desired.

WIRE FRAMES

From these models come the wire frames. Like the name sounds these wire frames are drawings made on the computer of the important points of the shape being drawn. These points are then connected with lines that make the model appear to be made out of wire. . These points can be inputted into the computer in any number of ways, one of the fastest though is to scan a previously made model of the character for important points that are then automatically entered into the computer. It is here that the settings are made as well. After the wire frame is made it can be manipulated in any way. Most of the time the first view the animators have of the animation is of the wire frame models moving through the animated actions.

TEXTURES

After the wire frame is created textures need to be added to every surface of the animation. These textures allow the animation to look realistic because each surface is reflecting light in a different way, the way they would in reality. Not only are textures dealt with in this stage but lighting and color as well. While creating the surface or "skin" of the wire frames it has to be decided whether or not the surface is going to be smooth or rough, shiny or dull, black or white.

ADDING MOTION

It is in this step that computers can save animators countless hours of work. In the traditional style of animation an animator has to find the key frames of the motion and then animate the pictures in between to get the object that is being animated to move. In computer animation the animator finds the key frames then goes through the process of "inbetweening" or "tweening". With tweening an animator gives the computer the key frames of the animation and then the computer computes the path that the object being animated must take, and it makes the in-between frames necessary to complete the action.

SHADING AND LIGHTING

Earlier the texture of the characters and sets were created, but a scene just won't look life like if the objects aren't shaded and a source of light is added. Using specialized software an animator can set up sources of light anywhere on screen. Using the data from the positions of those sources of light they can then add shadows to the objects being animated giving the animation a more three dimensional look.

RENDERING

Although texture, shading and lighting were added in earlier steps, while working on the actual movement of the animation the animator will usually work with the wire frames in order to save time. So after all the movement has been mapped out in the computer the entire animation must now be rendered. Using all the data that was previously inputted: texture, shading, lighting, and motion software like Pixar's Renderman will put together all the data to create on animation. This animation can then be transferred to film.