Snow - how to?

#1

I have to construct a scenario with a large machine shoveling the drive of a house on a street. It is wintertime with lots of snow. I will have to build the machine and the houses which I can do - but, how to add the snow?
Its a still, for a billboard.
Any ideas, suggestions?
Running 7 on a PC.
Thanks,
Mike.

#2

Mike
I, personally, would modell the snow too, set the light for blue shadows in the snow. And paint in photoshop the snowflakes.
My US$ 0,2 cents

FelixCat

#3

Option 1… model the snow

Option 2… RealFlow

Option 3… Particles

Option 4… since it is a still, do it in post (photoshop)

Cj

#4

Thanks guy’s. I was hoping not to have to model it since the machine is very complicated in itself and will take me at least a couple of weeks. That’s why I was hoping there was a plugin that might work.
I have done a snow illustration in the past, working in Painter and Photoshop and (surprisingly), it was one of the most difficult jobs I have done. Snow is very very difficult to get right and this is the latest in a series where the machines for this particular company have to be illustrated in a photoreal way - therefore the surroundings have to match.
RealFlow sounds as if it might do it, although it might be a complicated and expensive solution. I’ll have to do some more research.
Mike.

#5

Option 5… Rodeo, XP & Mr Blobby

http://homepage.mac.com/groothuis/eias/snow.mp4

Cheers

Hans

#6

Hi Hans, I was wondering about Rodeo, (after watching all those falling teapots), and wondering if there was a way to use the equvilent of snow flakes - only larger - to drop onto the scene.
I have zero experience with Rodeo and my thought was that it could get bogged down very quickly with the ammount of ‘particles’ needed to cover the geometry. Then again I really have no idea.
Mike.

#7

Rodeo can handle lots of objects up to about 1,000.
Then it begins to bog down (at least on a dual G5).
I have done tests with as many as 3,000 objects in rODEo, but it was painful to work with.

Rodeo is very robust in it’s calculations- it just becomes awkward to select that many objects and apply the attributes of mass, friction, etc.

Han’s test is a good proof of concept for making snow drifts, etc. from larger shapes.

#8

Isn’t there a free trial that actually works and exports the geometry? I too feel that RF is the answer to your problem. That or a particle system + mr. blobby, but I think RF would be better.

#9

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