History Main / VisibleInvisibility

* The same is true of Princess Peach in ''PaperMario: The Thousand-Year Door'', after she drinks the invisibility potion and (presumably) gets naked.

* Comedian-magician Mac King's routine often includes the "Mac King Cloak of Invisibility," a device that supposedly renders him completely invisible to whoever's on stage with him at the time as well as the audience. Said device is a bright yellow rain slicker that can practically be seen from orbit. [[spoiler: It does seem to work with photos, however.]]

* The ''Film/HarryPotter'' films. The footprint method is used in the third movie when Harry wear the cloak outside while it's snowing.

* The ''HarryPotter'' films.
* ''TheLordOfTheRings'' live action trilogy, with Frodo. The only way we could tell where he was in the last part was by his footprints.

See also AstralProjection.

* "The Invisible Monster" in ''JonnyQuest'' leaves burn marks where it "steps" and blows up anything it touches, [[FridgeLogic except paintballs]].

[[AC:Video Games]]

[[AC:Western Animation]]

'''Fidgit''': Oh, so ''that's'' what an invisible barrier looks like.\\
-- ''TimeBandits''

->''Enter ARIEL, invisible''\\
-- Stage direction to WilliamShakespeare's ''TheTempest''

* Claude in ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' is visible to the audience most of the time during his episodes, but when he's introduced at the beginning of an episode, the audience hears his voice and sees him pick up an object, rendering it invisible. Also, the audience has seen him fade in and out of visibility. This causes his fans to believe that after he ran out on Peter, he's in every scene--''we just can't see him.''

* Used a lot in {{Shakespeare}}, especially when the invisible character (e.g. Banquo's ghost) is only visible to one character.
** Probably just a stage technique in general-- ''Blithe Spirit,'' for example.

** Averted in the movie, and occasionally in the series. In the movie you can only see the disturbances that a cloacked character causes, like footprints, falling objects, etc. In the series you can see distortion sometimes, but not always - usually when the audience shares the perspective with the invisible character. There's always distortions for a few seconds when a character turns invisible, though.

* Jungle in We♥Katamari.

** Unless he's using the Cloak And Dagger, which works differently from the normal cloaking device. The spy is shown as a distortion effect to both teams when moving and is only completely invisible while standing perfectly still.

* In Fallout 3, the stealth suit from operation Anchorage behaves this way.
* In Kingdom Hearts, one Heartless called Stealth Sneak can turn invisible, having this effect.

* BobAndGeorge [[http://www.bobandgeorge.com/archives/010112c Megaman's ghost]]

** In modern comics she's normally drawn this way as well. Back in the SilverAge, the colour seperation techniques used didn't exist, hence the outline method.

* The Illwrath ships in StarControl 2 have this as their special ability. However, since the "camera" is always aimed at the point directly between the two fighting ships, you can get a pretty good idea of where one is hiding.
* Some NPCs in ''WorldOfWarcraft'' have an ability that makes them invisible. The only way to see them is to wait until they attack (when the spell breaks) or use a detect invisibility spell. Mages also learn an invisibility spell, that causes them to turn progressively transparent untill they disappear completely (it last for a very limited time, tho).

* Hector the Reflector (''Yoshi's Island DS'' boss enemy) is invisible, but fights in an arena with a mirror in which you can see the boss reflected. He also smashes the mirror more and more as the battle goes on.

* ''GhostInTheShell's'' Thermoptic camouflage.

* The Specters of ''{{Doom}} II'' are just Demons with the transparency turned up. On lower-end systems (I'm looking at you, 32X), they were closer to fuzzy background distortions.

[[OrderOfTheStick http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/SeeInvisible_249.jpg]]
[[caption-width:165:Handy, ain't it?]]

'''Fidgit''': Oh, so ''that's'' what an invisible barrier looks like.
-->--''TimeBandits''

->''Enter ARIEL, invisible''
-->-- Stage direction to WilliamShakespeare's ''TheTempest''

{{Invisible}} characters present a tricky challenge in visual media: If the character is invisible, how can the audience follow what he's doing? To overcome this, creators have invented various methods of visualizing invisibility.

'''The invisible character is visible to the audience.'''
No special effect required, just have the other actors pretend they can't see the invisible ones. Used often in live action, especially when the invisible characters are [[IntangibleMan intangible]] as well (lots of ghosts are shown this way). Usually accompanied by some verbal cue ("They can't see us!"). It's common to cut to another character's POV to show he's seeing empty space.

'''The invisible character is rendered as a vague distortion of the background.'''
A.K.A. the ''{{Predator}}'' method. Whether or not the other characters can see the vague distortion varies from work to work. This is also used quite often as transitional state, as something visible is becoming invisible, or vice versa.

'''The invisible character is partly transparent.'''

'''The invisible character is shown as an outline.''' Especially common in comics and western animation.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* Parodied in an episode of ''{{Rugrats}}'' where the babies imagined they were superheroes and Angelica was the villain. She's able to thwart Dotted-Line Girl (Lil)'s invisibility because "Any idiot can see a dotted line!"

'''The invisible character is completely invisible, even to the audience.'''
Here, the only way to know what the character is doing is by indirect clues, such as the character leaving footprints.

'''Other'''

* The invisible car in ''[[JamesBond Die Another Day]]''. This is a surprisingly realistic example; there's a (rather overlong) explanation of the spec-tech involved, and the distortion is ''very'' visible.

-->-- Stage direction to WilliamShakespeare's ''The Tempest''