How to Make Snow Fall in Flash CS3

If you want to create falling snow in Flash, you can use ActionScript to generate thousands of movie clips at random speeds and sizes. Or you can create a complex snowfall and never write a single line of code. In fact, you can do it with a single frame.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Set Up Your Timeline

1. Import a winter scene to your library. Any winter scene will do, but one with snow already on the ground will look best. You can add dimension by importing snow-covered trees into your library.

2. Drag the background scene to the timeline. Once it's positioned properly, lock the layer so you can't select it by accident. Add a layer above your background image layer and name it "Snow 1."

3. Add snow to your layer. The easiest way is to paint white dots on the layer with the paintbrush. Keep them the same size and don't space them too close. Once you've painted a dozen or more, you can option drag them to create copies until you fill the layer.

4. Convert the snow to a movie clip. Click on the layer in the timeline to select all of the snowflakes and choose "Convert to Symbol" from the Modify menu (make sure the "Movie Clip" option is selected).

Animate the Snow Movie Clips

5. Edit the movie clip. Double-click on the movie clip in the library to open the movie clip window over the stage window. Option drag a copy of your snow so that it the copied snow starts just above the original snow. Find the movie clip in the library and make at least two copies.

6. Extend the timeline by 24 frames. Add a keyframe to the last frame. Drag the snow in frame 24 so that the top of the snow is even with the top of the frame. The animated movie clips will play independently from the main movie timeline. Select the layer and choose "Create Motion Tween" from the Insert menu Timeline submenu.

7. Modify the copied movie clips to vary the snowfall effect. Scale the flakes down or up by 10 to 15 percent. Vary the number of frames to speed up or slow down the playback. Option + drag the flakes in one movie clip in one direction so they can drift in the other direction.

Finish the Main Animation

8. Click on the "Scene 1" icon to go back to the main stage. The editing window will close and you will see the main movie timeline with the background and snow layers again.

9. Create new layers for each of the additional snow movie clips. Name the layers if it helps to keep track of them. Drag the movie clips to their layers. The animated movie clips will play independently from the main movie timeline.

10. Change the transparency of the of the different snow layers. Choose "Alpha" from the Property palette Color pull-down menu. Vary the layer transparencies to to 60 to 80 percent.

11. Type "Command + Return" to play back the movie file. Even though the movie is only one frame, the snow will whirl around the background.

Tips & Warnings

• You can enhance the animation by adding trees between the individual snow layers. You could also add a movie clip of a horse-drawn sleigh.