How Did Disney Animate Such Beautiful Snow For 'Frozen'?

Some people who just wants to enjoy the beauty of falling snow, without knowing much about it; they might not be interested in knowing about the ways that temperature, humidity, and other factors conspire to create specific types of snow. But that information is so cool, I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to know more.

Likewise, the animation in Frozen, complete with some lovely and detailed depiction of snow, might be all some people want to see. But if you want to know more, a video has hit YouTube that explains a bit about how the film's animated snow was achieved.

The embed below is at first a super-technical explanation of the process for modeling snow, and the info in the video isn't made easier to digest thanks to a spoken explanation that has the energy of a hungover lecture from a calculus TA.

In short, the first minute of the video needs about five more minutes of explanation, and is probably meant for those who know a lot more about digital animation than the average layman does.

But once the visual demos kick in you'll get a lot out of seeing the variety of effects this model is able to achieve.

Frozen opens on November 27. [via Smithsonian]