I produced all the seasonal and weather particle effects for Tales of the Shire, such as falling leaves, pollen, rain and snow. I also collaborated with the Tech Art team to produce the seasonal tree shader seen throughout the world. My biggest impact here was adjusting the tree shader to accommodate blossoms in spring, and bare branches in winter. I worked with our existing setup to pattern flower silhouettes sampled from one of the RGBA channels in the tree textures to create a varying blend of blossoms and branches.
The subtle ambient particle effects really helped enforce the serene and picturesque environment of Bywater. One fun technical challenge was ensuring the leaves did not spawn from the middle of the sky - I created a system where the leaves would only spawn once checked through a black and white mask of all trees in the world.
I'll update with more imagery of rain and snow once those images become available!