Canadian animation got a boost Friday on news that Pixar will open a new studio in Vancouver this fall to handle spillover work from Los Angeles.

Attracted by the local talent and government subsidies, Pixar is to employ up to 100 animators at a 20,000-square-foot studio in a still-to-be-determined downtown location.

‘The operation will be small in size and dedicated to producing short-form quality computer animation for theme parks, DVDs, television and theatrical exhibition for several different divisions of the Walt Disney Co.,’ Disney/Pixar president Ed Catmull explained.

Pixar’s main feature and stereoscopic 3D animation will still be done at company headquarters in Emeryville, California, while Vancouver does non-feature short films and character animation for franchises like Toy Story and Cars.

Pixar’s Emeryville campus is also midway through an expansion scheduled to open in 2011, so the Hollywood studio opted for a satellite facility in Vancouver to fill the vacuum.

The move north by Pixar also follows overtures to the provincial government in Victoria, which promised lucrative tax credits for digital animation and R&D, also available in rival locales, including Ontario and Quebec.

In the end, Pixar chose B.C. because of its proximity to Los Angeles and access to talent from local Vancouver animation schools.

The Vancouver studio will be led by general manager Amir Nasrabadi, most recently VP of operations and finance at DisneyToon Studio, and Dylan Brown, whose supervising animation credits include Ratatouille and Finding Nemo.

Disney operated animation studios in Vancouver and Toronto during the late 1990s for direct-to-video product, but then retreated back to California in 2000.

Pixar’s arrival in Vancouver will also offset a recent similar retrenchment from the city by video game giant Electronic Arts.