[dspillett]

For a friend's page a while ago we wanted one where the snow would accumulate on DOM elements (anything with a top border, or some such heuristic) but couldn't find one. A quick search finds none currently either (many where it accumulates at the bottom of the page/viewport or on/in a particular DOM element, but none that have it build up generically on DOM boxes.

One of the many items in my huge pile of Things To Bother Doing One Day!

[thombat]

Don't stop there! It will need tiny householders to shovel the snow off when the accumulation is too deep, and for a stretch goal the cascading snow can induce avalanches. With enough feature creep you'll be able to declare version 1.0 complete the same day you hear the first cuckoo of spring.

[dspillett]

I wasn't planning quite that much, though I did consider some rules to try make the stuff pile with a little more realism than simple pixel stacking. And if elements vanished, having the accumulation on them re-fall instead of just disappearing (including partially if things shrunk) though that would need a modified model as settled snow would compact and have a higher terminal velocity…

[thombat]

But for true feature creep you need to discard this "planning" (just tell yourself you're deftly avoiding a waterfall approach), and just focus on adding that "one last feature and then I'm done". And then iterate ad infinitum - for example what scale is the height, and for this are you considering just the viewport or the entire page? will you need an atmospheric model to account for lower density at altitude? if it is just the viewport then will scrolling have a consequence, like a sudden wind flurry? will marquee text induce laminar or turbulent flow?