This will show you how to disable the fade animation in osx lion

open terminal and type in the following commands

defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-show-duration -int 0
defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-hide-duration -int 0
killall Dock

the dock will restart and the launchpad animation will be gone!

to get the animation back, type the following

defaults delete com.apple.dock springboard-show-duration
defaults delete com.apple.dock springboard-hide-duration
killall Dock