On Snow....

[Lin Evans]

Snow has varied importance to different cultural groups. In Europe, Asia, the Arctic, parts of North and South America and even Australia, people who live in areas where snow is prevalent have greater interest in this phenomena than in desert or equatorial areas where snow is occasional but soon forgotten. Perhaps the area where snow is most important is in the frozen north where Eskimo tribes (there are five language groups of them) deal with it on a regular basis. Anthropologist Franz Boas identified four distinct Eskimo words for snow, where in English, for example, we often tend to group different types and consistency into the single word, "snow".

Later studies by anthropologists have found that in the Central Alaskan Yupik, a major group consisting of over 13,000 people there are at least fifteen lexemes for snow (a lexeme can be thought of much like a "dictionary" entry). The Yupik, like other Eskimo dialects, is inflectionally complicated. So really there may be many additional "words" for snow. Suffice it to say that being able to convey rather precise information about the type and consistency of snow is quite important to a people who deal with it on a regular basis.

With this in mind, I tend to attempt to create a variety of snowfall animation types to use with PicturesToExe. A few days ago early in the morning I glanced at the thermometer on my front porch and found the temperature to be minus 24 degrees F. That's pretty cold for this time of year in our area of Colorado so it got me to thinking once again about - you guessed it - snow - LOL.

With Christmas coming, I decided to "borrow" some fair use web images (definitely not my own photos) of really nice snow scenes and make a little slideshow which attempts to demonstrate several different approaches to animated snowfall. Also it demonstrates a couple other techniques to enhance realism. Look for a slight snowflake build up over time on the green roof edge and green pine trees in one scene, on the backs of the horses and on the coats, noses and tongues of the Siberian Husky sled dogs. In the last scene, notice the animated windmill. Add to this a very nice "snow text" effect courtesy of Panos FX Photoshop action and a 1953 rendition of White Christmas by Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters (the same one used by the animation artist Joshua Held on the neat Christmas video linked by Ken) and an old chestnut, Let it Snow, by Dean Martin and we have "Let it Snow" - fun to make with PTE in the Christmas spirit....

http://www.learntomakeslideshows.net/sample/letitsnow.zip

Merry Christmas to all.....

Lin

[Ken Cox]

Lin,

Ken's comments here about 15 year old grandson and snow machine.....

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Hi Ken,

That's an interesting contraption. It appears to be a converted Volkswagen auto body (Beetle) unless they make a commercial snow machine I'm not familiar with. Anyway a VERY interesting "snowmobile" - LOL..

Lin

[deskjet1uk]

Hi Lin, I just love your sequences, I wish we had snow like that over here in England, having said that our country grinds to halt if we have more than a couple of inches LOL, as we are not used to it, the last bad winter was 1962, I was 8 years of age and loved every moment, snow was still on the ground through April, Halcyon days.

Back to your sequences Lin, just fantastic, the icing on the cake was the windmill sails.

Thanks so much for posting Lin

Wishing you and yours a very happy Christmas and new year.

ralph.

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Thanks Ralph,

This one was fun to work with. Interestingly, snow is "so much more fun" when it's close to Christmas and people have other things to think about other than "cold, wet, clear driveways, etc." LOL...

Best regards,

Lin

[Lin Evans]

Ken, Ralph,

I edited out your comments by mistake! Got to watch which buttons I push! If you put your comments back in I will be more careful!!

Lin

[deskjet1uk]

Ken, Ralph,

I edited out your comments by mistake! Got to watch which buttons I push! If you put your comments back in I will be more careful!!

Lin

Hi Lin, no worries, I have re written mine (see above)

regards

Ralph.