Doodly Advanced Tutorial

Creating Storm Clouds

Advanced Tutorial #29

Create Storm Clouds

This article will teach you how to create a storm cloud effect in Doodly.

Note: To our non-English speaking members: This article refers you to two English only videos to create the effect using Photoshop to create the effects. We will provide a short step by step but this will require you to know how to create the effects or watch how they are created and follow along.

Requirements

Professional photo manipulation software like Photoshop.
Images:

Prerequisites

PhLearn Video: How to Create a Dramatic Sky in Photoshop

  1. Create or find an image that has a lot of clouds.
  2. Using a combination of "Masking" layers and the "Blend If" feature in Photoshop darken the clouds and blend the darkened area to allow the clouds to appear to become a stormy color.
    3. Save this image as a png.
  3. Using a masking effect create an amazing appearance with the clouds and lightning from two images.
    Save this image.
  4. Invert the lightning image and save that image.

We now have four images.

  1. Original
  2. Darkened Clouds
  3. Lightning Sky
  4. Inverted Lightning Sky

Import these into Doodly.

Settings for Doodly

Layers Section Settings and Order

  1. Original: 05s Delay 2s Duration
  2. Darkened Clouds: 1s Delay 4s Duration
  3. Lightning Sky: 2s Delay 2s Duration 60% Opacity
  4. Inverted Lightning Sky: 0.1s Delay 0s Duration
  5. Lightning Sky: 0.1s Delay 0s Duration
  6. Inverted Lightning Sky: 0.1s Delay 0s Duration
  7. Lightning Sky: 0.1s Delay 0s Duration
  8. Inverted Lightning Sky: 0.1s Delay 0s Duration
  9. Lightning Sky: 0.1s Delay 0s Duration
  10. Inverted Lightning Sky: 0.1s Delay 0s Duration
  11. Lightning Sky: 0.1s Delay 0s Duration
  12. Inverted Lightning Sky: 0.1s Delay 0s Duration
  13. Lightning Sky: 0.1s Delay 0s Duration
  14. Inverted Lightning Sky: 0.1s Delay 0s Duration
  15. Lightning Sky: 0.1s Delay 0s Duration
  16. White Mask: 4s Delay 2s Duration
  17. Desired Sound Effects and Music

Note: This same style can be used to create several different effects. This only shows you 1 possibility.

Frequently Asked Questions

Find answers to the most common questions regarding this topic.

To make a storm cloud scene, you will need professional photo manipulation software like Photoshop. This program helps you blend and mask the images before you bring them into your video project.

You need to prepare four distinct images for this project. These include the original picture, a version with darkened clouds, a sky with lightning, and an inverted version of the lightning image.

You can achieve a dark and stormy look by using a combination of masking layers and the blend if feature. These tools allow you to adjust the colors so the sky looks naturally stormy.

When you bring your pictures into the software, you must turn the erase mode off. All of your imported images should have their duration settings adjusted so they fade into one another.

The flashing effect is made by rapidly alternating between the regular lightning sky and the inverted lightning sky. By setting these specific layers to a very short duration of zero point one seconds, it creates a realistic lightning strike illusion.

About the author

Wayne Leiser
Wayne Leiser
Editor & Contributor
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