I have seen a few people ask about animating volumetric clouds in C5. I am not sure if it is common knowledge so I will go ahead and explain the method I use.

 

You can access the properties for the volumetric clouds in the sequencer. From there you can create keyframes for the master object. You have access to most everything from the cloud modeling interface. Size in miles in X, Y, & Z. Opacity, phase (which I discovered is the silver lining), brightness, etc.

 

You can create some amazingly interesting animations doing this. For instance I created one where a cloud was seemingly blowing towards the camera. As it approached it got bigger and thicker. As it was doing this all kinds of small details popped up and little tendrils formed and then turned into detailed sections of the cloud.

 

It is very interesting to just take a cloud and watch it grow in size (miles setting, not just scaling it. Or have its opacity increase. It just appears as a whispy cloud then suddenly gets more intense and detailed.

 

Again, not sure if everyone already knew this. But since I have seen it asked so many times I thought I would point it out.

 

Donnie