Turn snow into blingy glitter. Fencepost's animated snow script is perfect for the job. Get it here. Unzip it and save it into your /.gimp-2.6/scripts folder.

Make semi-flattening your gif animation a breeze with saulgoode's Settings with Semi-Flattening script. The script is attached below. Right-click and save it into your /.gimp-2.6/scripts folder.

After downloading the scripts and putting them into the scripts folder, Filters > Script-Fu > Refresh Scripts.

1. Create a new image and fill it with white. I started with 500 x 300px.
   
2. Find a fairly bold font, I used black for the foreground color, and type your text. Center the text manually in the image.
   
3. Layer > Layer to Image Size.
   
4. Right-click the text layer and select Alpha to Selection.
   
5. Select > Shrink > 2.
   
6. Select > To Path.
   
7. Fill with a pattern, color, or gradient that you like.
   
   
   
   
8. Select > None
   
9. If you want a drop shadow now is the time to do it. Filters > Light & Shadow > Drop Shadow. Choose the settings you prefer.
   
   These are the settings I used:
   X = 3
   Y = 3
   Blur = 3
   Opacity = 40
   
   
10. Merge the text layer to the Drop Shadow layer.
    
11. Select > From Path, then Filters > Animation > Animated Snow.
    
    I used red arrows to indicate the settings I changed. You can experiment with the settings and change them to your preferences.
    
    
    
    
12. Select > None
    
13. Delete the white background layer.
    
14. Filters > Animation > Settings with Semi-Flatten. Click OK.
    
    
    
    
    Do not be alarmed when you see the whitish areas that appear around the text. They will not show against a white background. The beginning image at the top was semi-flattened in this manner.
    
    
    
    
15. You are finished. Save your image as <yourimage>.gif and check the Save as Animation box.

If you plan to save your image as an animated png image, skip the Semi-Flattening step (#14).

Download a PDF document of the tutorial.

Very nice tute "O" nice font too.....

Thanks Molly. The font is called, Planewalker

You can get it here: http://www.dafont.com/planewalker.font

thanks O. I have to redo cuz my flakes are too large

I know what happened. my flakes were 6 instead of 3 (typo)


thanx for the tute "O". I love it.

Nice tutorial! Simple, and effective.

I love animations

Thanks Mike!

Two typos have been fixed in the tutorial. Thank you molly for your input.

Typo: 6. Select > Selection To Path.
Correction: 6. Select > To Path.

Typo: 11. Select > To Path
Correction: 11. Select > From Path

When it's cold enough, I think snow looks like glitter - especially if there's a bit of sun.

O, thanks for bringing this script to my attention. It's very "cool". Something I did as well was this:
The font I used is called Altamonte Snow, also avaiable through dafonts.com. Since it already had snowcaps on the letters, when I added the drop-shadow it would show through, so I went back to each letter and painted white in the snowcaps to make them opaque again. Then using the path (on the paths tab) that was made earlier by the Select -> To path I was able to regain the selection area for the snowfall.

Excellent Bob!

very good Bob, your colors make it look sub-zero

I've had plenty of inspiration around here lately. The high temperature has only been in the low-mid 20s F; at night it's been in the teens or less, and wind chills zero or below.

This was fun ... my kids liked it. Might need to try it again with a better gradient.

that is so beautiful Mike. I love the gradient. looks nice and cold.

I like what you have done, Mike. It certainly looks like winter. I'm glad you had fun. at your kids

I tried to run the script but got that "integer must be 1 error"
Weird

Well Rod, here's the script I have for it. I haven't had any problems with it. I've attached it below.

O i deleted the other one and installed yours, hopefully that will work.

Nope , still get the same error.Well i'm off to do some last minute Christmas shopping!
I still need to get a tree...lol. Talk about lazy.

Gee, thats too bad Rod, it is a great script. Hope you get it working...

I seem to have an uncontrollable urge to play with tutorials and that includes playing with my own.

I found that making the snow separate from the text and changing the Mode to Indexed and then changing it back to RGB made the snow sharper and more glittery. The problem with that is that it also removes the antialiasing from the text and makes the edges of the text jagged. To fix it follow the numbered steps below.

This image demonstrates the difference.




You will need saulgoode's Combine Background script. Read the discussion about it and get the path to the download here.

After completing step #10 of the original tutorial follow the steps below.

1. Make sure the Background color is white (ffffff).
   
2. Layer > Transparency > Semi-Flatten
   
   • This will preserve the antialiasing around the text or text and drop shadow.
   
   
3. Make a new transparent layer and name it, glitter
   
4. Select > From Path
   
5. Filters > Animation > Animated Snow
   
   • Use the changed settings in the image below.
   
   
   
   
6. Image > Mode > Indexed
   
   • This fills or removes the semi-transparent pixels. All of the snow is now solid white particles.
   
   
7. Image > Mode > RGB
   
   • This allows you to continue to work with the image.
   
   
   • If you want to crop the image and put a background layer behind the text you will want to remove the semi-flattening around the text or text/drop shadow first. Do Steps 8 - 12 only if you are adding a new background layer. All others continue at Step 13.
   
   
8. Select > From Path
   
9. Select > Invert
   
10. Color > Color to Alpha > The color in the color box by default is white but if it has been changed to another color through usage, change the color back to white (ffffff) and click OK.
    
    • The white semi-flattening is gone.
11. Select > None
    
12. Make a new layer below the text layer and add the new background to the image.
    
13. Merge the text/dropshadow layer down to the background layer.
    
14. Filters > Animation > Combine Background
    
15. Delete the bottom layer.
    
16. Save your animation.

Example of one with an added background.

Very nice continuation tute, "O".... I will get at it sometime before bedtime...... thanx