Games that feature/have snow?

cearp

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hi, i'm doing a project and i tried finding some games that you can see it snowing in, etc, but couldn't really find any using google.
so i thought that i could ask here, since i imagine some people have played a game in which it snows :)

(3d games only please, that you can 'see' the snow falling down)

i appreciate it!
 

Arras

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Minecraft? :P
Anyway, I know Skyrim has blizzards, but I'm not sure whether it has a snowing effect. I wouldn't be surprised though.
 
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Satangel

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SKYRIMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Furthermore, Lost Planet 3 has snow (maybe the other 2 too, don't know). And GTA IV/V have snow effects too.
Pokemon games have them often too, in some regions of the game.

Otherwise, Google.
 

FAST6191

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Heh, I seem to be suffering one of the "put me on the spot" type moments as far as being able to generate a massive list
The obvious would be something like Lost Planet

Skyrim also had a pretty good example



I can cover how it is usually done -- animating a cloud of a few million snow particles in real time is not likely to happen so you usually get a screen overlay, a 2d animated background texture or a version of fog/smoke (which would also take a lot of effort to animate but most 3d setups have a fog command). Combinations of the lot are possible and if I tell you to look for repeated animations, but randomly timed ones, you will come back and tell me I have given you one of those "can't unsee" moments, however it sounds like you are learning 3d animation so that has probably happened several times already.
 
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Arras

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This is more of a guess, but snowboarding games like SSX might have it as well.
Also, Metroid Prime. Phendrana Drifts anyone? Metroid Prime 3 as well (Bryyo Ice).
 

Taleweaver

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Borderlands 2 comes to mind.

Serious Sam 2 also has some snow levels (admitted: it were some cheap particle effects).

And about every skiing or snowboarding game.

(I'd also say "about every Mario game"...but it's not 3D. And I can't recall if the galaxy games had games where it was ACTUALLY snowing)
 

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Batman Arkham Origins? They use tessellation to achieve a realistic effect when you run in the snow. But I can't remember if you actually see it snowing in the game.
 

cearp

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thanks for the replies guys, i really appreciate it.
animal crossing came to mind as well :)

however it sounds like you are learning 3d animation so that has probably happened several times already.

i'm going to be working on my dissertation, about real time snow accumulation (programming it) :) so it was not so much the 'snowing', but, i still want to know what games feature snow.
and the types of games i play are do not have all these nice effects, haha!

any of these you can 'interact' with the snow? it would be cool if, the more it snows in game, then the deeper you can deep your fort, or whatever.

i'm pretty sure snow accumulation has not been done in games already...?

thanks again
 

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Oddly enough, Payback GBA. It has a full 3D engine, and it has falling snow, and the snow is done as a particle effect (and not just a 2D overlay) but the view is top-down so the snow is falling away from the camera. Still, it's interesting to see and simple enough to analyze.

Looks horribly ugly, though. Tiny resolution, no anti-aliasing.

EDIT: Just read your last post; Payback doesn't have accumulating snow.
 

FAST6191

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Anything resembling accumulation is more likely to be a time based texture swap out affair (if snow time = so many game hours then load small snow bank....) or a "burn the spiderweb" type thing but here you are using a wind/fire spell, dig command or something.

However snow accumulation is likely to be quite similar to dirt and sand accumulation and I would place a sizeable bet on that having happened already. If nothing else sand/dirt physics will have been modelled for a few things (sand and dirt traps having been featured in a few games, Spec Ops the line* probably being the more promising on the sand front) and you also have the likes of world of sand** and fireworlds***. On the spot though all I can really think of is terrain deformation and I highly doubt that is modelled how you would do snow in this case and is more likely to be an elastic mesh (though if I was conserving my cycles I probably would do it that way for snow as well).

Interact.... there are doubtless some 2d flash games and similar such things that probably have some reasonable 2d/1d fluid flow models, they certainly exist for water****. Anything I can think of in the 3d world returns me back to the texture thing and I can not recall ever being able to jump into a snow bank formed from random weather in a game saves perhaps the model load thing earlier which is more likely to be a clipping affair.

*


**
http://filetrip.net/nds-downloads/games/download-world-of-sand-01-f2491.html

***


****



However in game calculated particle effects and persistence are both dirty words in 3d graphics in real time world, combining the two and suggesting them for a real time game is likely to see you executed on the spot so I imagine you can find some original or otherwise good research in there somewhere. Looking at the spec ops video above I am guessing it is a slightly more bulky solid covered up by a nice smoke effect made to look like sand during the movement phase.
 

Paarish

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I immediately thought of the snow in Virtua Fighter 5

Not sure if it counts though since it's only settled snow

EDIT: I just read the first post properly but I'll leave this anyway here because I thought it was done really well.
 

Taleweaver

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any of these you can 'interact' with the snow? it would be cool if, the more it snows in game, then the deeper you can deep your fort, or whatever.

i'm pretty sure snow accumulation has not been done in games already...?
Tough...even in 3D games like rogue spear (rainbow six), where the focus is on stealth, there's hardly any element of making traces in the snow. Perhaps the newer games (thief and the like) are better on that front, but I don't know...

And perhaps I'm missing the correct name, but IIRC, 1080 snowboarding had some hidden paths that unlocked if you grinded over some parts, thus creating a collapse or avalanche.



On 2D, there's plenty. Commandos had you sneak around while the guards followed footsteps in the snow, but that doesn't apply here (it's not snowing in those games*, and it's not a 3D game). There are falling ice peaks in most Mario games and (older) games like ski or die or ice climber speak for themselves.





*at least not in the first two...haven't kept up with that series after that
 
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ShadowSoldier

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One of my favourite snow levels in gaming came from SOCOM 2 on the PS2. It was called Blizzard. SEALs vs Terrorists and the SEALs blended in with the environment more than the Terrorists. And snipers had a ball because you could use a heat scope, but it doesn't mean you could hit your target. But you could also hide in the trees. Perhaps my favourite snow level in a game.



Donkey Kong Country on the SNES also had some bitch snow levels.



Metroid Prime on the GC had Phendrana Drifts which was also accompanied by some of the best music I've heard in a game:



Last of Us on the PS3 also had a snow section. It's sort of spoilerific so only check the video if you want:
 

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Sounds like a go job for snow job!

People have already listed a bunch of good examples. I also remember Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Modern Warfare 2, Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando all having snow-based levels at some point or another.
 

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