Precipitation (rain; falling and settled snow)

Painting rain and snow so they feel like real, moving precipitation, and so settled forms sit believably in the scene.

What it is

Precipitation is two related jobs: the stuff falling through the air, and the stuff that has already landed and is changing the scene. For rain, that means streaks, drops and sheets of water between camera and subject. For snow, that means drifting flakes in space plus soft, piled masses on the ground and objects.

Painting rain is mostly about suggestion and direction. You place thin, slightly transparent streaks that follow the wind and camera motion, vary their length and thickness, and respect depth: sharper, stronger streaks in the foreground, softer and fewer in the distance. You support them with small details like beads on edges, rivulets on glass, wet hair and clothing, and bright catches on shiny surfaces like metal, stone and asphalt.

Falling snow reads as slower, lighter shapes with volume, not straight lines. You use clusters of soft dots and tiny, out‑of‑focus disks at different scales to show depth, motion and density. Settled snow is painted as a new, soft layer that rounds off forms, fills crevices, sags under gravity, and reacts to light as a mostly matte, high‑value surface with blue or colored shadows, brighter rims, and occasional sparkles in direct light.

Both rain and snow interact with perspective and camera effects. You think of them as a loose field of particles in 3D space: more overlap and larger shapes near the viewer, fewer and smaller further away, with motion implied by direction, blur and repetition. You also let precipitation partially veil distant objects, soften contrast, and catch strong light sources so they bloom or halo a bit along the falling paths.

Why it matters

Without a clear handle on precipitation, rain turns into random gray lines pasted on top, and snow into noisy white dots or flat white caps that ignore form. Scenes stop feeling wet or cold; characters look cut out and untouched by the weather, and depth collapses because near and far space share the same density and sharpness of marks. When you control how rain and snow fall, pile up, and catch light, they support the mood, help show scale and distance, and tie characters, ground, and atmosphere into one believable environment.

You can check it when

✓You can paint a rainy version of an existing scene where the lighting, materials, and depth still read, and the added rain feels like part of the space instead of a filter on top.
✓You can vary rain or snowfall intensity (drizzle, downpour, blizzard, light flurry) by changing density, scale, sharpness, and contrast, and each still looks like the right kind of weather.
✓Your settled snow wraps around and sits on forms believably (rooftops, branches, shoulders, steps) instead of hugging old contours or floating, and it consistently respects gravity and thickness.
✓In your wet scenes, nearby objects, clothes, and ground surfaces show clear signs of moisture (darkened values, reflections, rivulets, splashes) that line up with the direction and amount of precipitation.

Precipitation (rain; falling and settled snow)

What it is

Why it matters

You can check it when

Related skills