How to Animate Snow With Adobe After Effects
Reading Time: 4 minutesCapturing real snowfall comes with a few challenges, so why not create animated snowfall instead? Here’s how with After Effects.
Nothing is more joyful than watching the fresh snow twirling in winter. But capturing the mesmerizing snowfall perfectly with your camera can be tricky—you have to be at the right place at the right time. You’re mainly at Mother Nature’s mercy.
That’s why we have an easy solution to add animated snow to your projects. Adding snow to your photographs, videos, or vectors is easy with Adobe After Effects.
Don’t have After Effects? No worries, download a free trial for seven days. Then, you can buy it if you like it. Let’s see how to do it step by step.
How to Get Animated Snowfall With After Effects
After Effects can be heavy-duty software, but don’t let that scare you. It only takes a couple of steps to animate snow. If you’ve worked with other Adobe software, you’ll catch up with it soon. You can also use it in conjunction with other Adobe software, such as making an animation using Illustrator and After Effects.
Step 1
Open Adobe After Effects on your computer and click New Project. Go to Composition > New Composition.
Give a name for your composition. Leave all the other fields as their default.
Step 2
Go to File > Import > File.
Import the photo you want to animate into After Effects. You can technically choose any image, but photos taken in the winter with snowy details can be perfect candidates for animating.
We have downloaded a gorgeous bird photo from Pixabay for our tutorial.
You can see the photo on the left side panel. Drag the image into the project panel in the bottom left corner.
Step 3
Add a new solid layer. Go to Layer > New > Solid.
Change the Background Color to white. This step is essential. If you choose any other color, your snow will not be white, it will be in the color of the layer.
Step 4
Go to Effect > Simulation > CC Snowfall.
You will see the snowfall in your image. Press the play button on the right side to preview the animation.
You can adjust the size of your snowflakes or the speed of the snowfall by tweaking the settings under Effect Controls on the left side.
This is the fastest way to animate snow in After Effects. We like the beautifully falling snow, but there is no way to adjust the look of the snowflakes.
How to Get Perfectly Round Snowfall With After Effects
You have a few alternatives if you want a different look other than the default snowfall option. First, let’s try a perfectly round snowfall.
Repeat all the previous steps until Step 3.
Step 1
Go to Effect > Simulation > CC Particle World.
You will see sparkles flying all over the frame, which may not look like snowfall. But don’t worry—we will fix it by tweaking the settings.
Step 2
You can see a red circle on the top of the sparkles, which is their starting point. You can drag it to the top of the frame and extend it from corner to corner so that the sparkles fall evenly from top to bottom.
You can also adjust this in Effect Controls on the left side. You can change the positions and radius manually under the Producer tab.
Step 3
Under Effect Controls, go to the Particle tab, and select Shaded Sphere for Particle Type.
You can change the falling style by adjusting the Animation style under the Physics tab. You can also change the Birth Rate and Longevity to adjust your snowfall speed.
The resulting snowfall from this option is like a pleasing bokeh. But if you want to take it to the next level, adding a custom snow shape is the answer.
How to Make a Custom Snow Shape With After Effects
You can either draw a snowflake and scan it or download a free snowflake image online. Remember, your image should be in PNG format with a transparent background. Here’s how to make the background of a PNG transparent.
Just like before, repeat the steps in the first section until Step 3.
Step 1
Import the PNG file into your project. Go to File > Import > File. Drag it into your project panel on the lower left side.
Step 2
Go to Effect > Simulation > CC Particle World.
You will see sparkles flying all over the frame like before. However, you can achieve a snowy look by tweaking the settings.
Step 3
Adjust the red circle on the top of the sparkles, which is their starting point. Drag it to the top of the frame and extend it from corner to corner, so the sparkles fall evenly from top to bottom.
You can change the positions and radius manually under the Producer tab in the Effect Control panel.
Step 4
Under Effect Control, go to the Particle tab and change the Particle Type to Textured Disc.
Select your PNG file for Texture Layer under the Texture tab.
Step 5
You will see your custom snowflakes falling in the frame. Again, you can play around with different settings to make your snowflakes fall at your desired speed. You can also tweak the size of your snowfall.
The resulting effect will be one-of-a-kind with your own custom snowflake.
No matter the type of snowfall you go for, take some time to check out the many settings. Fine-tuning different effects under Effect Control will give you various looks.
We have only given you a couple of ideas, and you can explore a number of different effects with different simulation effects. You can use the Help button to explore more. In addition, feel free to browse tutorials and YouTube videos and learn from there too.
Elevate Your Winter Projects With Animated Snow Effects
Learning something new can be challenging, but don’t let that stop you from trying. The effort you put into learning new software like Adobe After Effects can be handy for many future projects.
If you follow our instructions and understand how to animate snow, you will see that you can animate much more than just snow. You can try a lot of different effects in a similar way.
You don’t have to commit to the software immediately. Instead, use the trial version and polish your skills before buying.
Reference: https://www.makeuseof.com/adobe-after-effects-how-to-animate-snow/
Ref: makeuseof
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