Film animation has come a long way

The lights are dimmed, the shades are drawn, the computer screen is on and Dave Walvoord, Xiao Zhang and Han Lei are staring at a porcupine butt.

Specifically, this porcupine butt belongs to an animated character in DreamWorks Animation’s upcoming movie “Over the Hedge.”

And Walvoord, a computer graphics supervisor, is in his office working with two of DreamWorks’ newest employees – recruited straight out of college as part of a new DreamWorks educational initiative.

Their job: to light the scene so the motion of the quills looks just right.

Animation is not what it used to be.

Where cartoons of yesteryear, like “Bugs Bunny” and “Mickey Mouse,” were once hand-drawn in two dimensions, movie hits such as “The Incredibles” (Pixar) and the “Shrek” series (DreamWorks) are painstakingly designed, modeled, rigged, surfaced and lighted by teams of animators who have to be as artistic and creative as they are technological.

New technology is constantly being developed to bring out details: Fur can rustle with the wind, skin can glisten almost like the real thing (even if it does happen to be green). And porcupine quills can now bristle.

Studios such as DreamWorks, Disney and Pixar look to the top colleges and universities for the next generation of animators.

Last year, in an effort to both recruit new animators and make sure colleges had the right kind of curriculum to turn out high-quality professionals, DreamWorks initiated a program in which employees go into classrooms to either teach or critique students’ work, depending on the needs of the school.

The result: This year the program yielded a crop of 18 students who are now full-time employees, including Zhang, 30, and Lei, 34, both natives of China and graduates of Texas A&M University in College Station.

“Our ambition is for that number to get bigger and bigger and to happen year in and year out,” DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg recently told a group of educators. “It’s working.”

Collaborations in which professionals go into universities to share their craft are not new. But in times of tight budgets, some schools rely on it.

“We need this kind of collaboration for our program to fly,” says Courtney Granner, a professor in the school of art and design at San Jose State University in California.

Classes also help students keep up; even at the best schools, professors can’t give the same up-to-the-minute information that working professionals can.

DreamWorks also benefits.

“You can find a lot of good people and a lot of OK people,” says John Tarnoff, head of outreach and artistic development. “But it’s always difficult to find, really, the best. I think this program helps widen the net and helps us find people earlier who are going to develop.”

Today’s computer animation is getting more competitive, according to a recent report by analyst Katherine Styponias at Prudential Equity Group. Along with DreamWorks, Pixar and Disney, competitors include LucasFilms, Twentieth Century Fox and Miramax.

And there have been signs of slowing DVD sales. DreamWorks – along with Pixar – recently lowered earnings estimates after failing to sell as many DVDs of “Shrek 2” and “The Incredibles” as projected.