Studios creating a live-action blockbuster might cite more than 1,000 visual effects shots in the film, perhaps even 2,000, including some sequences in which everything – environments, effects, actors – is digital. These sequences are like animated films within the live-action film. But people rarely think in terms of the opposite – that is, they rarely think of animated features in terms of “visual effects.”

“When people who don’t know the animation industry hear I’m a visual effects supervisor, they just ask about effects,” says Dave Walvoord, Visual Effects Supervisor for DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, the third and final film in the popular and critically acclaimed franchise. “I have to explain that ‘visual effects’ is not just blowing things up – that in Planet of the Apes, Caesar is a visual effect – and it’s like that here, too.”

In fact, a visual effects supervisor on an animated feature typically oversees everything except editorial, layout, previs, story and the animated performances, as did Walvoord for The Hidden World. The first film of the franchise, How to Train Your Dragon, won an Annie in 2011 for Best Animated Feature, three VES Awards (for Animated Character, Animation and Effects Animation), and received an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature. How to Train Your Dragon 2 won an Annie for Best Animated Feature, received an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature, and four VES nominations.

Actor Jay Baruchel voices the main character, Hiccup, a young Viking who in the first film rescued and befriended an injured black dragon, a Night Fury he dubs Toothless. Hiccup bonds with Toothless, and ultimately the pair leads their communities – human and dragon – to live in harmony. In this third installment, Toothless meets a white dragon, the Light Fury.

“The challenge for Hiccup is that he wants Toothless to find a mate,” says Simon Otto, head of character animation for all three Dragon films. “But the only way Toothless can fly is with Hiccup on his back [because of an injury from the first film]. And the only way to be with the Light Fury is when Hiccup is not there.”