heat wave / heat haze / shimmer effect

[deadakos]

Hi all,
I'm creating a semi-desert scene where I would like to create that heat wave/haze effect which you can see above hot surfaces during the summer.
Do you have any idea how to create it? Is there a "native" way with octane render, or I should make it whit a photo editing software?
Every idea is welcome!

I was trying to simulate it with PS, but ripping and shearing and distrotion doesn't seem realistic at all.

[FrankPooleFloating]

Yo. I know the Wave filter (inside Distort) in PS can be a little awkward, but it will do the trick, if you keep playing with number of generators, wavelength, amplitude and scale. If it were me, and I was trying to make this effect above the roof of a car for instance, I would grab the pen tool, make a path around the top of the car (coming in a pixel or two) and then around the area above where heat would be - and give a generous amount beyond... then make selection from path, copy/paste (bg- whatever was beyond the car) to a new layer, hit it with the wave filter until I was happy, then add a layer mask to this heatwave layer, get a fat/soft brush and start fading the top of heatwave layer in a non-uniform way using multiple brush strokes. Then I would probably make a new overlay layer and paint in some subtle caustic effects - following the curves of waves...

[Refracty]

a 2d displacement layer effect in After Effects can do the trick

[FrankPooleFloating]

Yeah, displacement would certainly be better. The last time I had to do this effect was probably well over 5 years ago... the above method is pretty old-school.