Scientists are to look at ways of improving computer modelling and animation used in films such as Dreamworks Shrek and Pixar's Finding Nemo.
Dr Hassan Ugail and Dr Ian Palmer from the Bradford University have been awarded a grant of around £300,000 by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to carry out research into developing new techniques.
Dr Hassan Ugail, senior lecturer in the University's Electronic Imaging and Media Communications department (EIMC), said: "The modelling and animation of characters, human or otherwise, is a huge and rapidly growing field. The global computer games market alone is currently worth some $28 billion.
"Therefore, the success of movies such as those made by Pixar and the massive computer games market has led to a need for more realistic character modelling and animation, and this realism is demanded in shorter timescales.
"This is apparent from the large number of computer animated films, such as Shrek 2, Finding Nemo, Jimmy Neutron and Excalibur, which have short production times to satisfy the consumer demand."
Head of the EIMC Dr Ian Palmer, added: "Today, the magic of real time characters we see in many movies and computer games comes at a considerable cost.
"Creating the complex geometry of such characters from scratch and bringing them to life by way of computer animation requires highly skilled designers and artists, who are often rare and expensive.
"Furthermore, the lack of particular modelling tools and the complexity of established tools for modelling and animation is a source of frustration to the designers.
"If successful, this research will produce several new algorithms, which will go into the next generation modelling and animation software tools."
The basis of the proposed research - which will start this month and run until the end of 2008 - is a novel method for geometric design known as the PDE method. It is associated with Dr Ugail and his colleagues, as well as Professors Bloor and Wilson at the University of Leeds.
