Hi,
Basically, I’m trying to create a Heat Shimmer effect over hot surfaces. I’ve been searching online for a good way to do this, but I haven’t found anything that has worked yet.
Currently I’m using a panning texture with the refraction node, with the material on a plane but I’m getting a hard edge where the plane ends.
Is there a good way to mask out the area to get a smoother transition? Or should I try something completely different?
Thanks
Hmm, You could look at the cave example from marketplace and change the fog or godray blueprint to use heatrays instead of fog. that could get the result you want.
You probably want to combine a bit of both blueprints so the heatrays always face the player.
Not really an answer, I know… but at least some directions to where to look 
Hey Ben_M -
You can setup a Soft Spheremask which elimantes the edges of your mesh. I would also really recommend using a particle system here which will not only enhance the heatwaves movement but allow the distortion to always be camera facing.
Here is the Material setup I used in a Heatwave setup, feel free to ignore the Flowmap stuff plugged into the Panner Coordinates, you would not necessarily need that though:
Thank You
Eric Ketchum
Hi, thanks for the reply. It works great in the editor but when I assign it to a particle emitter, it doesn’t render at all, even though the particle itself is emitted. The material also doesn’t render in-game. Is there anything I’ve missed than could cause this?
Cheers
Hey -
In your Particle System’s Required Module change the Screen Alignment to PSA Facing Camera Position. This should make them appear correctly. This is important because of the camera calculations that Fresnel and Refraction use.
Let me know if that doesn’t fix it for you
Eric Ketchum
