How do I creat a heat haze effect for video : Adobe After Effects

Trying to simulate the start of a Western Movie with character coming out of a desert with a heat haze distortion altering the video.

Any ideas how to create this in AE8?

Nearest I got was using the Simulation > CC Mr.Mercury effect but found it hard to control as it's a particle system the spurts out from nothing to slowly fill the screen where as I want it on the screen all the time.

Thx

Kevin

Give Turbulent Displace a try.

hi
<http://macvideopro.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=34773-0>

didgi, bookmarked that one. Thanks for the link! This is lucid explanation of a practical method to simulate this particular variety of the Schlieren effect.

The most common error made with heat haze effects is the application of blur. Heat haze is a refraction phenomenon, the hot air acts as a lens. It is not a loss of apparent clarity or resolution due to blurring.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlieren>

bogiesan

To make the heat haze effect was basically a 3 step process.

Check it out here - Heat Haze

Firstly I created a layer of fractal noise that evolved over time using an expression. I then used this layer as a displacement map for my main piece of footage. This essentially created the wavering, blurry look of a heat haze.

The second step was creating the watery reflections you often see in the forground. For this i used a range of masks, scaling and blend modes, along with a bezier warp.

The final step was colour correcting to make the warm reds and oranges associated with shooting in hot conditions.

Hope it helps

Animus