As you can see, the snow now falls gracefully with a slight side-to-side motion. Move the playhead to the four second marker (4:00f) and use the Move Tool (V) to drag the Snowflakes layer to the bottom of the canvas.
Move the playhead to the first frame and click the stopwatch icon to Enable Keyframe Animation and to place a keyframe at the first frame. Slide the End of Work Area marker to the four second marker (4:00f). Note that the Position property has been replaced by the Transform property since this is now a smart object. In the Timeline Panel, click the arrow on the Snowflakes layer to reveal the animation properties. Position the Snowflakes layer towards the top of the canvas. Holding Alt will extend the canvas equally in both directions.Ĭreate a new layer below the Snowflakes layer and Fill with white. Using the Crop Tool (C), grab the bottom edge and pull downward to extend the canvas. The next step is to expand our canvas to make room to animate the falling snow. It is important that both layers are selected.
Select both layers in the Layers Panel and right click. This will hide the white layer so our snowflakes appear on a transparent background. Check the edges of the animation for disappearing snowflakes and use the Eraser Tool (E) to remove them.Ĭlick the eye icon on the Background layer in our Layers Panel. Now that the snowflakes have a side-to-side animation, we need to make sure that none of them are being animated off the canvas. By nudging the snowflakes closer to the guide, we’ve made it ease in and out of the direction change (thus, giving it a more natural movement). Preview the animation by pressing Spacebar. Repeat this for the other side of the one minute marker (1:00f)ĭo the same thing at the three second marker (3:00f). Using the Arrow keys, nudge the snowflake closer to the guide. Drag the playhead just before the one second marker (1:00). This can be softened by adding some additional keyframes. Also, click on the flyout menu in the top-right of the Timeline Panel and choose Loop Playback.Īfter looking at the animation, the snowflake’s movement is too harsh. Drag the End of Work Area marker to the four second marker (4:00f). Since our animation is going to play over four seconds, we need to set the end of the work area to the four second marker. Next, advance the playhead to the three second marker (3:00f) on the timeline and move the snowflake to the right guide.įinally, advance the playhead to the four second marker (4:00f) and move the snowflake back to the center guide. Tip: Holding shift will constrain the movement horizontally. This will represent the distance we will move the snowflake side-to-side. Place two more guides on either side of the snowflake. Zoom in to one of the snowflakes and place a vertical guide over it. This will automatically place a keyframe on the first frame.īefore we add motion, it helps to set up some guides. Make sure the playhead is position at the first frame and click on the stopwatch icon to Enable Keyframe Animation. In the Timeline Panel, click on the arrow next to the Snowflake layer in order to reveal the animation properties. Now that a video timeline has been created, two layers should be visible in the timeline-these correspond to the two layers in the Layers Panel. Make sure to select Create Video Timeline. Instead, a single button appears asking which timeline you want to use. The Timeline Panel appears, but it will not display a timeline at first. Open the Timeline Panel (Window > Timeline). To animate falling snow, we will start with the slight side-to-side motion. Following this interpretation of falling snow, we can identify two motions falling (downward) and floating (side-to-side). As snowflakes fall from the sky, I envision that they float back and forth in their descent, giving them a graceful appearance.
It’s important to avoid grouping too many snowflakes in one area.īefore we start animating the snowflakes, it’s important to consider how they fall. On a new layer, paint some black dots randomly over the canvas. Select the Brush Tool (B) and set the Size to a small number such as 4. Create Animated Falling Snow in Photoshop (No Audio)