In this 3ds Max tutorial we’re going to create a 3d snow scene.
The focus will be the snowy hills, snow on the branches of the
tree, and snow flakes flowing in the air. Additionally we’ll
learn about using fog, simple lens effects, and creating soft
shadows. I’m using 3ds Max 2010 but many older versions should
work just as well. This post is a collaboration with Nicholas
Mamo who had the idea for a 3d snow scene and who contributed
the Particle Flow / BlobMesh setup (Steps 9-14). We’re going to
render the scene with Mental Ray. By default 3ds Max uses the
Scanline renderer so we have to change that. Change the renderer
to the Mental Ray (). Create a Plane () in the top viewport .
Modify the Plane ( ) according to the following parameters : Add
Noise modifier to the Plane () and apply the following
parameters: Let’s prepare our 3D snow scene for the first
rendering. Create a Target camera () in the top viewport. Right-
click on the Perspective view and press C in the keyboard to
change it to the Camera view. N