Best Way to do Realistic Snow in AE CS3

[Brendan Coots]

3D application rendered out and imported into AE, or use Trapcode Particular.

The qulity of your results will, of course, depend on your level of experience with either of these tools.

Good luck!

Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com

[Trevor Phillippi]

Thanks for your help, I have Cinema 4D and the thinking particles module. I am, in general an decently experienced C4D user. Would you suggest I use thinking particles or just an ordinary emitter?

I also own Trapcode Particular, but I am fairly inexperienced with it, but I figured it would be another good method to try out. Any tips for doing it with particular? Thanks so much again!

[William J. meyer]

Hi Trevor.

Here’s a suggestion outside of AE CS3, but I used AE CS3 to composite and augment the results. Letting nature’s own “organic simulation” handle the tough stuff saved a lot of time and the results are very naturalistic.

Fill a zip-lock bag with baking flour. Get a black drop cloth. Roughly open the bag below the camera’s field of view. The flour particles will shoot up. Blow on them if necessary/desired. Record the drifting flour using a long lens to create interesting depth of field on the “snow.”

In AE, apply Knoll’s Unmult to the layer to create transparency from the black cloth. You might have to play w/Curves (stacked before Unmult) for cleaner results. Apply a Lens Blur to the footage and increase the Specular Threshold. Adjusting the Specular Brightness will give the brighter bits of flour that neat nearly-but-not-quite glitter quality you see in drifting snow on a clear, sharp day (at least here in Wisconsin!).

But if you do go w/Particular, let us know your approach. 🙂

take care, wjm

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