The morphologies of nanocrystalline nickel film coated on cenosphere particles using magnetron sputtering method were investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The AFM results show the grain sizes and root-mean-square (RMS) roughness values of nickel films increase with the increase of sputtering power or deposition time and the nickel films growth is a three-dimensional island growth mode. The unceasingly variational angular distribution can get rid of the physical shadowing effect of the sputtering and promote a rather smooth film growth. Due to the all-around effect, the final distribution of grains shows a rather smooth morphology with low roughness.