How to simulate heat for animation with VRay?

[Morne]

Hi all

How would I go about simulating heat or heat waves using VRay?

I have 2 different scenarios:
1. Heat waves like the ones on a hot summer day looking over the road and the heat waves goes up from the road.
and
2. Heat coming of a jet turbine

I'm not sure how to approach this. My 1st thought would be to use max's atmosphere gizmo's somehow and apply an VRay opacity map to it, However in the past I got problems with any geometry intersecting or going through the gizmo and it renders as a square.

Any help will be appreciated.

Kind Regards,
Morne

[re:FORM]

I think this effect is commonly achieved by rendering a particle system... white particles on black bg... and then use that as a distortion layer in after effects.

[Morne]

hmmm I'm buggered then. I dont have After Effects. I don't have a compositor at the moment only a NLE. However I was thinking of getting Combustion 2008.
How can I achieve what I need with just VRay and MAX?

[re:FORM]

You can render your base pass and particle pass seperately. Then use the base pass as a background in max, then make a thin box (ie a plane extruded slightly) the same size as your render-viewport and apply the particle pass as a displacement map.... ofcourse making the plane fully transparent but with a decent IOR.

It MIGHT work

There's probably a neater method of comping the scene in max.... but it doesnt come to mind at the moment.

[Kr0no]

Or you can go oldschool and just put a plane in front of your camera or object that you want the refraction effect, with a refraction material, e.g. smoke, noise, mix, in refraction slot of your material.

[Morne]

thanks Kr0no! I think I'll try that as it sounds quickest and simplest way. I will also try re:FORM way just to see how it works

[thablanch]

If you do not do that much compositing, you could go for freeware, don't have to be AE or combustion..

quick google search:

http://www.videoguys.com/free.shtml

[Morne]

I had a look at Jashaka, but its a bit over my head

[glyph]

why not use the built in max compositor 'video post'?

I mean it is still there isnt it ?
havent used it for a while and it has its own way of working but it will get the job done - either during render or as a post process