Heat Haze

[Jonathan Alexander]

Instead of having to deal with a precomp, you could just use an adjusment layer with the effects>distort>turbulent displacement applied to it. Fool around with the settings and animate the evolution and offset turbulence and it should do some pretty cool stuff. Hope that helps. When all you need is some basic noise like that, I feel it better to be able to have the control within that comp to easily change the distortion settings rather than having to go between that and a precomp displacement map.

–Jonathan

[Andrei Firtich]

Thanks for responding, it was a little late for this project, but I tried fractal noise with some turbulent displace and it looks really nice for some clouds textures. I just animated offset and evolution on fractal and evolution on turbulent displace and I love it. I have been looking for a way to animate a cloud texture for a while, this is definatly it. Thanks

[Chris Zwar]

There used to be a great tutorial on DVGarage on heathaze, but I had a quick look and can’t see it there anymore. Basically, to create a realisitic heathaze you use a particle generator to spit out red and green particles from your heat source. Then precompose and use as a displacement map. CC Particle Systems II is fine- you don’t need anything too complex, but the idea is that you use particles to represent the flow of heat in your composition- especially effective with directional sources like jet engines.

Alternatively, there’s a gorgeous heathaze filter that comes with Tinderbox 1.

-Chris Zwar

Motion Graphics Designer
Will animate for food