• Adobe After Effects

  heat trails

  Posted by John Swanson on October 4, 2008 at 11:10 pm

  I’m working on creating heat trails behind jets. What might be a good way to simulate the wavy type of refraction generated by the heat of a jet engine?

  Scott Novasic replied 17 years, 7 months ago 4 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Randy Mcwilson

  October 5, 2008 at 9:45 pm

  I am sure you must use displacement maps. I would do a search for a tutorial.

  try:
  https://library.creativecow.net/articles/chao_joe/fire.php

  https://library.creativecow.net/articles/hodgetts_philip/displacement.php

  Eternity…don’t miss it for the world.
• 

  Mark

  October 6, 2008 at 5:28 pm

  I would use a combination of FRactal noise and displacement maps. The fractals will be used to create the distortion map, and the displacement map will physically shift the pixels. I would then try and use a transfer mode to put the fractal noise back over the distorted pixels. I have used this technique in the past to create a heat haze….if memory serves me, I also used a gaussian blur with a wiggle expression.

  Hope this helps,

  Mark

  Mark Harvey
  Senior Editor
  Le Réseau des sports
• 

  Scott Novasic

  October 6, 2008 at 7:23 pm

  Mark is on the right path in my opinion. If your looking for a plug in.
  Tinderbox Volume 1 has a very nice ‘heat haze’ plug in that looks great.

  Things to keep in mind is fading your mattes out over distance. The distortion is more extreme, obviously, the closer to the engine and fades out in intensity the farther away from the engine. Using a mix of
  adjustment layers and mattes with distortion filters will get you where you want to be.

  SuperNova
  Animation & Visual Effects
  Scott Novasic
  Los Angeles Ca
  web:https://web.mac.com/finaleffects

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