How did Disney make the snow in Frozen look real?
A material point method for snow simulation
Disney researchers invented new maths to make snow in Frozen clump, crumble and pack like the real thing.
Animated snow usually looks like either powder or plastic. Researchers from Disney and UCLA built a new way to simulate snow, treating it as millions of tiny particles that can stick, squash and break apart.
Their method could do snowballs smashing, snow packing and powder puffing, and it powered the snow in Disney’s Frozen. Somewhere, a snowman is delighted to be this mathematically accurate.
Do you want to build a snowman? First, solve these equations.