[lbebber]

(Author here) Thanks! I was making a version with a better "impact" effect and better "trails", which are the weakest parts currently in my opinion, as well as making the larger raindrops sharper—they get a bit blurry right now. I haven't had the time/will to finish it though!

[bscphil]

>which are the weakest parts currently in my opinion, as well as making the larger raindrops sharper

I actually came here to comment on the blur on the edges of the large drops. My guess was it was a fast way to give a passable result for the more complicated refractions occurring at the edge of the drop. Is there a link at which I can follow your work? Thanks!

[lbebber]

It actually did not have anything to do with being resource intensive or such, it had to do with looks—with the raindrops sharp I had to get the parameters of the refraction perfectly right, it seemed, for it to look convincing, otherwise it looked extremely artificial and kind of "flat".

By that point I had already spent more time on this than I'd have liked, and allowing for a little blur was an easier way for it to look good enough.

I haven't been doing any "public" work lately, but I'll post anything I make on my Twitter[1], especially if I ever get to finish this updated version.

https://twitter.com/lucasbebber

[crazygringo]

If you ever get a chance, I'd love to read a "making of" blog post -- how you started, what approaches worked/didn't, what you're measuring success against, and remaining challenges... Think it would be super-educational and fascinating!

[lbebber]

It's been a while since I made this, but it's a good suggestion! Rest assured that there was hardly any method to it though, mostly hair-pulling when things did not look quite good! (which is, for me at least, the biggest pain in working with this kind of thing)

But there are some neat tricks which, while not necessarily transferable themselves, might serve as inspiration for other problems.