Frost trail

Frost trail leaves copies of a moving object behind it that freeze and melt. Ice crystals grow over each copy, cracks open along the borders between them, and the copy slumps and melts away from below. The object itself stays as it is. The trail appears wherever the object moves, from an effect such as Fly-by, an animation clip, an ongoing motion or a drag in the studio, and leaves nothing while the object stands still.

How it works

A copy is laid each time the object has travelled a set distance, and each one plays out its freeze and melt in place over a few seconds, so a fast pass leaves a line of icy silhouettes. Kept on an object, the trail switches on before the entrance and keeps going through the exit, and it combines with every other trail.

Settings

- Length: how long each frozen copy lasts. - Amount: how often a copy is left. - Size: how fine the ice crystals are. - Strength: how strong the ice looks. - Ice colour and Rim colour: the ice, and its rim and cracks. - Fade: how long the trail takes to switch on and off.

Use it for

Winter campaigns, cold drinks and cooling products, ice magic in games and fantasy scenes. To freeze the object itself, use Frost; the Ice Crystals effect fills the scene around it.