Animating Kids #5: Poof

What You Will Learn

You will sequence cloud shapes to create the illusion of smoke appearing and disappearing in a "poof", to make a character look like it vanishes. 

Making something disappear in a cloud of smoke or vapor is a handy animation skill.

In this lesson, you will discover that there is much more to creating a cloud effect than meets the eye.

We go from small to large clouds, taking 1 picture for each increase in size. When the largest cloud is present, spin it for 3 separate pictures, and then go from large to small cloud shapes, and then take pictures of nothing. 

Remember to take 15 pictures before and after the Poof. Taking pictures of nothing happening is one of the hardest, yet most important part of any animation. (more on that in our Animation Starter Kit)

Why This Is Important

This is a great recipe for making unicorns, witches, wizards, and many other magical beings come and go in a flash. 

Making a character appear or disappear behind a cloud of smoke requires sequential, and size order thinking.

It is also a great example of one of the most difficult things in animation to learn; sometimes the quickest effects take the most time and patience. 

In this secret recipe organization is also required. Keep track of all those cut-out clouds!

Give it a go!  

Thank you for watching our Animating Kids animation lessons. To watch other lessons, scrub through the blog or follow us on Youtube or Facebook. 

Stay tuned on Friday, we have another Shark Vs Rabbit coming! 

Until then, 

Bon Animate! 

Animation Chefs


P.S. To learn the basics of stop motion animation, go to our Animation Starter Kit for our most important secret recipes.