The sleigh, igloo, snow saucer, sled and Nort Pole sign are all freebies from Sams 3d - thank you Sharen! The reindeer are by Lyne of Vistainternet.products.com - thanks Lyne.

I think I made the snow by modifying the rain that comes with Vue and saving it as a new object, but it could be the other way round. If you have snow in your miscellaneous objects that is the thing to use. If you have rain, change the pattern of grey lines to white dots.

Below is how I arranged the snow cylinders in the image. There are lots and lots of them. I kept grouping them and copy/pasting them and moving them around till it looked right. You need some at ground level and more higher up in the sky, and you vary the sizes and can slope them too if you want to rearrange the flakes. It is fun to do, but it takes patience. I don't have the patience for animations, but it would not be difficult, just pernickety.

This turned out great, I just printed this to keep in my files, thank you for the instructions...you did a great job. Sharen

Nice job, Carol. But I hope you don't mind me outlining an alternative method that I find more convenient - doing it in post using PSP. I use a free plugin that generates the snow randomly for you on a separate transparent layer. You can vary the size and number of flakes, and like your multiple cylinders, I use several layers at different sizes and densities to achieve the effect. I sometimes also use motion blur on just a couple of the layers at fractionally different angles to one another to simulate the effect of wind-blown snow. And because they are all on transparent layers, it is easy to delete any unwanted flakes from areas that should be in shelter from the weather or look unnatural too close to the ground.

Not at all, Flycatcher. In fact I almost always do snow in PhotoImpact using the particle effect- it is so easy to animate it because you just hit the random button between frames, and you can control the density of the snow, opacity of the flakes and the size variation. And if anyone prefers PSP, Ulead do the particle effects as a free standalone plugin which will work with PSP. But this method is handy for Vue images where you want to avoid postwork - contests, submissions to e-on software gallery and so on.

What is the plugin called and where can I download it? Sounds like an interesting one to have :o)

You get it here

http://www.ulead.com/download/freedownload.htm

It is Ulead Particle plugin. While you are there, Ulead Art Texture plugin and Ulead Fantasy Warp are well worth having too. They allow you to use some of the excellent features of PhotoImpact in programs like PSP and Photoshop that don't have anything like them built in. I spend hours just playing with the Art Texture one, just making patterns and so on for backgrounds, page borders etc. The particle one gives you rain, bubbles (raindrops if you make them small enough), snow, fireflies and a few other things of that sort that you might want to scatter around an image. Play with the various parameters to see what they do, because the effects can be very different when you change them. And every individual snowflake, bubble etc. can be moved around the image when you are making your snow or whatever, if too many are in one place. Just click on one in the preview in the plugin, and drag it to where you want it.

The fantasy warp is quite fun too. It is a bit like a kaleidoscope, but more variable, and you can pile the effects on top of one another to get different effects from using them singly.

Woo-Hoo! Thankie very mucie goes off to cripple his dial-up connection :oD

Looks great Carol! And thanks for the mini-tut, I too, printed it out for future reference.

I'm glad I added my alternative approach now. Thanks Carol - I wasn't aware that you could drag and drop individual particles in that way with the plugin.
And I agree - ULead's Art Texture plugin is very addictive and useful for borders, picture frames and the like. As usual, I think the best results are obtained when used in conjunction with other effects. Hayler's Heavenly Creations at http://www.haylerscreations.com/ has some nice examples with tutorials many of which make use of this plugin.

Flycatcher, I think I have misled you a little. I was just playing with the particle plugin, and although you can move bubbles and a couple of the others around to suit yourself, you can't move snowflakes. You have to change density etc., and hit the random button to rearrange snowflakes.

Thanks Carol.. I was a little surprised at that level of control. But no problem - the way you just described is the way I've been happily using it to date and gives me all the flexibility I need.