| SAMPLES |
| Two sample scenes are included that will help illustrate how to use TG Heathaze. These should be more helpful than an MLB, as they also show how to set up the Heathaze object. The scenes are fairly basic, but would give a starting point to producing a more interesting animation. The output from these scenes is also provided in the samples folder, in the form of MPG animations. Jet Sample This is a test of a jet engine flame. The flame object isn’t directly relevant to the workings of TG HeatHaze, but I’ll still explain it to help you create your own flame objects! It is textured using TLF Flame as the colour shader, TG Particles2 as the transparency shader (if you don’t have TLF Flame, you can download it free across the internet), and the Constant shader as the reflectance shader since the flame is generating its own glow. The flame object creates all the colour and transparency for the flame itself, as TG HeatHaze does not create any colour or transparency effects itself. Both Cast and Receive Shadows have been turned off, simply because the particle size from TG Particles2 is quite large (to allow them to show up in a 320x240 Raycast render), and the shadows would show quite obvious squares. You could also try TLF Flame in transparency too - I’ve only used TG Particles2 because I quite like the effect! Since TG Particles2 is set to use the UV space, the ends of the cylinder have been painted with Plain Transparency, to make them completely transparent, as otherwise the particle effect would be rendered across the UV space of the cylinder ends (try painting the entire object with the flame material to see what I mean). The HeatHaze object is a copy of the flame object, which has been scaled up and stretched. It is set to render as Single Sided, which is necessary for the shader to work, and both Cast and Receive Shadows have been switched off in the Render Options. The colour shader is irrelevant for TG HeatHaze, so it has been set to Plain Colour (the processing for the colour shader will still be done by trueSpace, so best to keep this to the simplest and fastest shader available!). The movement of the distortion effect is set by the Frame Offset parameter. In this instance, the effect travels along the z direction of the cylinder, but it also has some movement in the x and y directions too. Without this, the same distortion pattern would travel along the cylinder, and it would look pretty unconvincing - try rendering with a Frame Offset of (0,0,1.5) to see the difference. You can make the distortion travel faster by increase the last part of the Frame Offset parameter, or slower by lowering that value. The distortion fades along the z direction too, which is controlled by the Direction parameter. The Noise Frequency parameter has been kept at (1,1,1), although you could stretch the noise in the z direction (the direction of movement) by raising the last part of this parameter. The Fade With Angle Of View parameter is set to 0.3, so that the effect fades at the edges of the object. In fact, the effect fades with the angle between the surface and the camera, so the effect will change as the camera moves. The parameter has been used here so that a high Distortion Amount can be set, to make the effect visible in the centre of the cylinder, and to make sure the effect doesn’t get too powerful at the edges as a result. Note that the whole object uses TG HeatHaze - since it is set to use the Object Co-ords, the cylinder ends don’t need to be painted differently, although it is possible that there would be a slight speed increase from using Plain Transparency on the cylinder ends. Inside the flame object is a sphere painted with WFMM SphereGlo, which is also available for free download if you don’t already have it (alternatively, you could use TG Glow, but SphereGlo has been used here for speed of rendering and simplicity of use). This object is only to give a more solid glow in the centre of the flame. The final part of the scene is some simple lighting, to give the illusion that the flame object is emitting light. |
| Desert Sample This scene simulates the rippling distortions seen above a desert landscape. The landscape itself was produced using the demo of Primitives Plus, and smoothed using ThermoClay2. It is painted with TG Slope Bands, to provide some variation in colour, and uses layered displacements to give it a sandy look. The HeatHaze object in this case is a flat plane, positioned above the landscape. The distortion effect follows the UV space of the object, and fades in strength from one end of the plane to the other. The plane has been positioned so that the parts of the plane nearest the camera have less distortion, and the farthest parts of the plane have greater distortion. Note that one problem with this arrangement is that the camera couldn’t be panned around the scene, unless the flat plane was rotated along with it (it would be possible to glue the camera and the HeatHaze plane together, for example, and set the shader to use World Co-ordinates to generate the noise). However, there are likely many alternative set-ups that would achieve the same effect. A vertical plane could be used, for example, in place of the horizontal plane, with the distortion being less at the bottom and greater at the top. Also, the Fade With Angle Of View parameter could perhaps be used to control the strength of the distortion (since more distant parts of the plane would have a shallower angle between the surface and the camera). Experimentation is the order of the day! |
| TG HeatHaze Intro |
| TG HeatHaze Parameters |
| TG HeatHaze Tips |
| TG HeatHaze FAQ |
| TG HeatHaze Samples |
| TG Pack Index |