A Websters dictionary definition of the word ‘animate’ strikes to the heart of what animation is about - the illusion of life Giving life to a sequence of pictures is the purpose of animation. This has been practised for over a century and nowadays computers are being used to create animations faster and more accurately than ever before Animations are no longer restricted to 'funnies', but can also be models of real-life situations. These are based on data not images, and the final images are generated after the data has been processed for unambiguous visualization. By representing the data in three dimensions it can be viewed in any number of ways according to the wishes of the 'end' user. RenderMan allows a scene to be viewed when defined m three dimensions. This can then be viewed as an animated sequence where special effects - such as the metamorphosis of objects (morphing) - may take place to provide a photorealistic animation. This thesis will examine how 3-D computer animation in general, and special effects such as morphing in particular, may be implemented using the RenderMan Interface specification and the RenderMan rendering program.