Movie Theater The Tech of Making Snow - Disney's "Frozen"

[Dogtown]

For any of you even remotely interested in how we make things look realistic with computer graphics, here's a video explaining how the FX department on "Frozen" developed a system for making dynamic snow. You may think it's pretty straightforward: add snow, move it around. But the process of creating the look of real snow, the way it sloshes or clumps, is incredibly difficult. We have a hard enough time doing liquids like water and other fluids like air, smoke and fire. Snow is extra-complicated because it has a fluid nature combined with a rigid dynamic nature. SIGGRAPH is like the SHOT Show for computer graphics, and every year difficult groups like to show off what new problems they've solved or advancements they've made, sharing it with everyone else at the conference.


The first minute is extremely math-techy, but the example videos that come afterward are beautiful!

 

[Sean the Nailer]

I know the animation and rendering that I was involved with, almost 20 years ago. Back then, using Autocad, 3D Studio, and 3DSmaX, that was cutting edge. To add "smoke" to a short scene was a somewhat gargantuan task.

Now, with what they are doing, how they are doing it, and the EQUIPMENT required to do so... it is just phenomenal in comparison. And yes, for all of the details of each face of each snowflake in that media, that really is something. Impressive.