AE help - Distort air

[matteusclement]

It might be AE or not...

I need to be able to create ripples, distortions and explosions that are transparent and simply affect the air around my combatants. (that make sense?)

how do I do that?

 

[mBox]

As in heat distortion?
Or are you thinking particles?
You can either apply any distort mesh type on the layer (video, photo, whatever) or apply it on an Adjustment Layer and use Masking to only affect the masked area.

 

[paolo-]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean...

Schlieren photography?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlieren_photography

 

[mBox]

that can be done with same steps as I stated earlier.
just needs some frame by frame work.

 

[paolo-]

that can be done with same steps as I stated earlier.
just needs some frame by frame work.

Yes, I was just posting this to see if this is the look OP was referring to. While epic, it would be a death wish to try to do schlieren or shadowgraphic video in camera for a video or movie on location. It's quite the pain to calibrate even in a controlled environment...

 

[mBox]

Yes, I was just posting this to see if this is the look OP was referring to. While epic, it would be a death wish to try to do schlieren or shadowgraphic video in camera for a video or movie on location. It's quite the pain to calibrate even in a controlled environment...

Thus why you always do in post

 

[matteusclement]

As in heat distortion?
Or are you thinking particles?
You can either apply any distort mesh type on the layer (video, photo, whatever) or apply it on an Adjustment Layer and use Masking to only affect the masked area.

more like heat.
distort mesh type? is that in AE?

 

[mBox]

more like heat.
distort mesh type? is that in AE?

No where near AE at the moment. Try any of the distort options but you have to massage it in such a way that it looks like heat distortion. Use a reference of course. You can also use a greyscale image as a displace distort type. Might have to animate it to get that look.