Case Study 03 — Frontier Craft
Microscopic Snowflakes
Snowflakes forming like you're watching them under a microscope, except every bit of it is art directed.
Snowflakes forming like you're watching them under a microscope, except every bit of it is art directed.
A keynote is hours of bright graphics and text animation. We wanted moments that felt real and analog to break that up, something that looked like actual microscope footage of snowflakes forming. Stock footage of that didn't exist, so I had to come up with a brand new workflow.
I began by generating snowflake textures in Midjourney, then used Rowbyte's AutoFill plugin to reveal them dynamically. That growing texture drove Trapcode Mir, which gave it real 3D depth so I could place a camera exactly where I wanted. Runway's style transfer applied an icy texture to the otherwise flat, unshaded geometry. And then the secret sauce: I upscaled the clips in Topaz, dropped them to 15fps, added out of focus 3D particles that shifted every frame, and wiggled the exposure to sell the illusion of timelapse photography. A final pass added glow, depth of field bokeh, analog film noise, and color correction. I studied what real microscope footage of ice forming I could find to get the look exactly right.
Because the style transfer was driven by real geometry instead of a raw generation, I had full control over what formed. I grew the ice into the Snowflake logo, right alongside the randomly forming crystals.
The effect carried three moments, the Day 2 opener built around a live orchestra, the screens behind the CEO, and the pre and post show graphics while the room was filling in.
I've reused the core idea well beyond that keynote, a simple animation or piece of 3D geometry driving a fancier 3D render, both on Snowflake Build and quietly inside the 2026 Summit keynote. It's a way of working I keep coming back to, to get the most out of a render.