Today, creating realistic rain droplets in the Toy Story universe is much easier. Dust can also be added for atmosphere on floors, cabinets and rafters, not to mention the cobwebs that provide an ominous touch to darkened nooks and crannies.

Probably the biggest advance since the first Toy Story is how images involving light are rendered. For comparison, in the first film, creating a simple reflection of a mirror took about half a day to set up, global technology supervisor Bill Reeves said. Today, it’s virtually automated. A mirror simply can be modeled with a reflective surface and tagged in the right way. That’s it.