Morphing

Morphing is a special effect used in motion pictures and animations. It involves creating a seamless transition from one still image to another, which is achieved by morphing programs which analyze the still images and create the appropriate new animation frames, thus creating the illusion of a transformation. The effect is not a dissolve (where one image fades out and a superimposed image fades in), but rather a flowing contortion of the original image that results in the new image.

The first mainstream use of morphing was in 1985, when former 10cc members Kevin Godley and Lol Creme (performing as Godley & Creme) used it as the theme for the video to their song Cry. Other artists began to use it widely in the early 1990s, notably in the Michael Jackson music video Black Or White and in the movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Software programs for personal computers to do morphing quickly became widely available, and for a time the effect became common to the point of cliché.