This tutorial shows one way to create your own snow to use in animations.

How to make snow:
Open your animation program. Select canvas size. Larger is better, since it is easier to crop out the extra snow around the edges when adding it to your still pic than it is to add more. I chose width 300 and height 350 pixels.



If you are using a plain background, right click the canvas and select “New Blank Object”.



Use the fill tool to color your background.



Any color will do, but a darker color helps the white snow to show up better. Or you can add a picture to use as the background if you like, as I did. Go to file and add image. Find your image wherever you have it saved on your computer, and click open.



Add several more frames. My example has 5 total. Click each frame and highlight the background picture so it is in each frame.



Create a new blank object in frame 1 (your background will still be in the frame). Bring the new object to the front. Under order, click the third arrow, as shown.



Use the paint tool, settings: shape: O, size: 3, transparency: 0, soft edge: 0, line: squiggly, allow painting on transparent areas: checked.



Paint several white dots on your canvas, but don’t include the entire canvas. Just pick a rectangular area near the top of your picture.



Copy your snow (the dots). Paste into the same frame. Right click on your snow, select object properties, position and size. Check the number next to the H, which is the height of your object. Mine is 74.



Check how far from the top edge your object is. The numbers next to your object, at the right, in the parentheses, stand for how far the object is from the left and how far it is from the top. So if your object has (6, 12) after it, then it will be 6 from the left, and 20 from the top. Mine is 13 from the top. 13 + 74 = 87, so we will move the second snow object that we pasted down to 87. Copy this object and paste again. Add the height again, in this case it will be 74 + 87 = 161. So we move it down to 161.



Repeat this process until your snow covers your entire background. If it goes past the bottom of the picture a little bit, that is okay.

Highlight all of your snow objects at the right (but not your background), using ctrl + click.



Go to object, combine as single object.



Next we center it. Make sure your snow object is highlighted and then click the pick tool.



Under alignment, click center both, as shown.



Copy the snow again and paste into the same frame. Then move the snow you just pasted up until the bottom part of it touches the top part of the other one. Crtl+click these two snow objects and combine as single object. It should now be about twice as high as your background.

Copy your snow and paste into the next frame. Right click, choose object properties, position and size. Move it down by 30 and to the right by 10. For example, if left has a 1 next to it, you’d change it to 11, and if top has a 5 next to it, you’d change it to 35. Then copy this object, and paste into the next frame. Move the snow down by 30 and left by 10. Repeat for frame 4, moving the snow down by 30 again and right by 10. You can stop here or add another frame or two and repeat the process.

Adjust timing. Ctrl + click to highlight all frames at the bottom.



Right click and choose frame properties. Pick removal method smart. Change delay to 18. You can choose a different number depending on whether you want the snow to move faster or slower.



Preview. Make adjustments until it looks right. Save as GIF.

If you don’t want to make your own snow, you can use mine, as long as your background picture is not bigger than 300 x 350. If it is smaller than that, it will be fine. I realize that this picture looks blank, but trust me, there really is snow there! Highlight it and see for yourself if you don’t believe me. Then save the snow to your computer.



Find the picture that you want to use for your background. Right click and open with UGA5.

Click on File, Add Image.

Find your snow.

Make sure the following settings are checked:
Insert in the current frame
Distribute to individual frames if input consists of multiple frames

Click open.

Preview.
Adjust timing, as explained above.

Save as Gif.

I forgot to mention, if you want to save your snow without the background pic, as I did, you will need to right click on the background pic at the right and click delete object. Then save it.