Before people used computers to make animation they were all done by hand. Every single frame was drawn by hand. On average there is 24 frames (film) a second making a whole lot of work to be done creating animated films. Computer animation is the use of computers to create animation. In the field of computer animation there are a few different ways to create them. One is 3D animation. This kind of method can produce perfect three-dimensional animation's. Another way of creating 3D animation from computers is to use a computers painting tool and to paint single frames and composite them. These frames later can be saved as a movie file or you can output it to a video. Then a final method of making computer animation's is by using transitions. Transitions are ways of moving from one picture to another.
The first full movie created by computer animation was "Toy Story." This movie created a new world for movies. This improved way cut time down tremendously adding to its popularity. Today there are many movies created by computer animation. Then in a lot of Hollywood productions they use computers to enhance their movies with special effects, which will be talked about in more detail on another page.