With just a few minor adjustments to your code, you can draw one or more snowflakes of different sizes in Scratch . Below is a guide on how to create falling snow using Scratch programming .
Creating snow effects in Scratch is a fun and magical way to learn animation and programming. Whether you're creating a winter scene, a Christmas card, or a snow-themed game, adding snow effects will instantly make your project look more beautiful and vibrant.
In this tutorial, you'll learn exactly how to make snowflakes fall smoothly—using loops, duplicates, and random placement. Even beginners can follow along!
⛄ What will you learn?
After completing this guide, you will understand how to:
- Create a snowflake sprite
- Make snowflakes fall from the top of the screen.
- Use random placement to create a natural snowfall effect.
- Copy the snowflake to create a continuous falling effect.
- Add effects such as resizing or speeding.
Step-by-step guide to creating a snow effect using Scratch
1. Create a new project and add a backdrop.
The first step is to create a new project. Open Scratch and click Create to create a new project. Delete the default cat image and then choose a suitable background by clicking the Choose a Backdrop button in the bottom right corner (shown in green in the image above).
2. Add snowflake sprites.
After selecting your backdrop, click "Choose a Sprite" in the bottom right corner, find "snowflake ," and then click on the corresponding result. Once the snowflake sprite is successfully downloaded, it will be very large, and you will need to adjust its size in step 4.
3. Create a copy of the snowflake.
Currently, there's only one snowflake in the project. However, to create falling snow, you need countless snowflakes! Instead of manually loading hundreds of snowflakes, there's a smarter method. Scratch has a function called 'cloning ' that creates copies of the snowflake image. Let's analyze the code above:
- When 'green flag' clicked : This code block will cause the code blocks below to run when the green flag is clicked.
- Hide : Without this hidden block, the original snowflake would remain stationary in the middle of the project. By hiding it, you can still duplicate it, even though it won't be visible.
- Forever : This creates a snowfall loop that will run forever.
- Wait 0.1 second: This block of code controls the frequency of a new snowflake appearing on the screen. The value 0.1 can be increased or decreased to control the snowfall speed; a value of 0 will create very heavy snowfall, while a value of 1 will create sparse snowfall.
- Create a clone of myself: This block of code instructs the program to create a copy of the original snowflake.
You are free to adjust the value in the 'wait' block to suit your personal needs.
4. Control the snowflake's activity.
Here, you've created code that can infinitely copy the original snowflake. Now, you need to control what happens to the new snowflake copies. Let's analyze the code above:
- When I start as a clone : This block of code ensures that subsequent blocks of code will be executed whenever a new clone is created.
- Set size to (pick random 5 to 20) %: This code block ensures that each time a snowflake copy is created, its size will be between 5% and 20% of the original snowflake's size. This code block also addresses the issue of snowflakes being too large. If you want a larger or smaller size difference between the snowflakes, you can change these values as you wish.
- Set x value to (pick random -240 to 240): The placement of sprites on the Scratch canvas is controlled by an invisible grid, and you can position them around the grid by assigning them x and y values. The x value controls the position from left to right, and the y value controls the position from top to bottom. The x value can range from -240 to 240; the closer to -240, the more skewed to the left, and the closer to 240, the more skewed to the right. The y value ranges from -180 to 180, with -180 at the bottom of the screen and 180 at the top. In short, this code will randomly select and store an x value somewhere between the left and right sides of the screen.
- Go to x: x value y: 180: This code moves the snowflake copy to the appropriate position. The x value was determined in the previous step, and the y value is set to 180 so that the snowflake appears at the top of the screen.
- Show: In the previous code snippet, the original snowflake was made invisible using the 'hide' block. If you want the new snowflake copies to be visible, you will have to make them visible using the 'show' block.
- Glide (pick random 3 to 7) secs to x: x value y: -265: The slide block will make our snowflakes slide across the screen to a specified position. To make the snowflakes look more realistic, the example has placed a random select block inside the slide block to ensure that not all snowflakes fall at the same speed. With some snowflakes, it will take 3 seconds to fall, while with others, it will take 4, 5, 6, or 7 seconds. Since the snowflakes will fall straight down, you can use the same x value as before. You can change the y value depending on the depth you want the snowflakes to fall to.
- Wait 15 seconds: To create the effect of snowflakes clinging to the ground, leave them there for 15 seconds before disappearing. You can skip this block of code if you don't want the snowflakes to cling to the ground, or you can increase the value to make the snowflakes stay longer. However, be careful not to set the value too high, otherwise too many snowflakes might appear on the screen at once and your program might crash!
- Delete this clone: As mentioned in the previous explanation, if too many snowflakes appear on the screen at the same time, the program may crash. This code will delete the snowflakes to make space for new ones to appear.
5. Hidden variable of value X
If you want to hide the x value variable in the top left corner, use the code block above.
If you complete all the steps above, you will have the entire code snippet in your program and will see snow falling when you click on the blue flag.