Snow Effect

**Shinryu**

Void just did an image with a very nice looking snow effect, and I know there were several posted last year as well (as well as tutorials, IIRC). Would someone mind posting a tutorial or re-posting one of the old ones? SMILEY

**EndlessVoid**

... I pretty much just spat a bunch of white dots randomly around the page, then copied and transformed the layer a bunch of times to build up some density. Varying your opacity helps, too.

Oh, and you can always do the dots in a smaller area and then run the "pattern maker" filter (if you're using photoshop). Just make sure that you end up with a pattern that looks random enough. Sometimes pattern maker has a habit of arranging things in neat lines, and that's no good for snow.

- Void

Pyraci

This'll be quick because I'm still at work, but here's a simple way to get the effect and make it look fairly convincing.

Of course, open your screenshot or stock image:

Make a new layer(background or small snow layer), then go to Edit/Fill and fill the layer with black.

Next, go to Filter/Noise/Add Noise and use it at 20% with gaussian and monochromatic selected.

After the noise is added, go to Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur and use a little over one to 1.5 pixel blur:

Then use Brightness/Contrast to bring it out:

Once that's done, set the layer to screen. For distant snow, it should keep the effect from sticking out too much. Next is the foreground or large snow layer. This will give the effect depth of field.

Duplicate the layer.

Go to Edit/Transform and Rotate 90 degrees CW
Then to Edit/Transform/Scale, making this layer about 3 to 4 times the size of the background layer. Reposition it however you want to make the snow look like it's falling at random.

Set large snow layer to screen(If you want to make the foreground snow thicker, set it to linear dodge and lower the opacity as you see fit.)

Now that the layers are set, motion blur small snow layer. The angle shouldn't be too harsh vertically or it'll look more like rain. Try to keep the pixel blur distance fairly low as well. I set it to 4 pixels in this case:

Now blur your large snow layer, but to randomize it, you'll want to use slightly different settings:

This is my end result. It may take some adjustment to your taste depending on the scene.

**Rarebit**

Pyraci

...or you could go that route. SMILEY

Thanks, Rare. I might get some use out of this myself.

**ArchDuke**

Ooooh... *right-click, Save As* SMILEY

CrimsonKiller01

To be honest I never really had much use for the large snowflake patterns that sometimes show up in some screen shots, mainly because if you were going for realism you shouldn't be able to see a snowflake pattern as they are microscopic in nature.

I guess if you were going for something holiday like then I would put them up, but otherwise i would just use the technique Pyraci used just because it looks more realistic.

**Shinryu**

Thanks much, everyone... even you, Rare hehe

Yeah, I was thinking it was along the lines of what Pyraci did.. basically the common method for rain but with less motion.

**MatrixRefugee**

CrimsonKiller01 wrote:

To be honest I never really had much use for the large snowflake patterns that sometimes show up in some screen shots, mainly because if you were going for realism you shouldn't be able to see a snowflake pattern as they are microscopic in nature.

Depends on the snowflake: I've had some pretty big ones -- an inch or two across -- land on the lenses of my eyeglasses, which gave me a good look at the structure of those pretty things. Maybe the program in charge of designing snowflakes has bad eyesight and made the pattern too visible?

**SolidRevolver**

MatrixRefugee wrote:

CrimsonKiller01 wrote:
To be honest I never really had much use for the large snowflake patterns that sometimes show up in some screen shots, mainly because if you were going for realism you shouldn't be able to see a snowflake pattern as they are microscopic in nature.
Depends on the snowflake: I've had some pretty big ones -- an inch or two across -- land on the lenses of my eyeglasses, which gave me a good look at the structure of those pretty things. Maybe the program in charge of designing snowflakes has bad eyesight and made the pattern too visible?

I think the snowfalkes we have now are perfect screenshot flakes, they could be just small white marks that brush around the screen but it wont look as good. Apart from the sudden attack of giant flakes that come down the screen at certain parts of the map, they look perfect really, another thing MxO has over all other games SMILEY

**GoDGiVeR**

SolidRevolver wrote:

MatrixRefugee wrote:
CrimsonKiller01 wrote:
To be honest I never really had much use for the large snowflake patterns that sometimes show up in some screen shots, mainly because if you were going for realism you shouldn't be able to see a snowflake pattern as they are microscopic in nature.
Depends on the snowflake: I've had some pretty big ones -- an inch or two across -- land on the lenses of my eyeglasses, which gave me a good look at the structure of those pretty things. Maybe the program in charge of designing snowflakes has bad eyesight and made the pattern too visible?

I think the snowfalkes we have now are perfect screenshot flakes, they could be just small white marks that brush around the screen but it wont look as good. Apart from the sudden attack of giant flakes that come down the screen at certain parts of the map, they look perfect really, another thing MxO has over all other games " />

But if you rotate to the correct position you see that it's just some layers, you can see through them perfectly. Weather effects especially go wrong when you articifically pull up the weather effects in the options.cfg

**Rarebit**

Photoshop's "Wind" filter can kinda led a frosty look, in a way: