Create heat lightning effect in UDK?

Raptor-chan

Hello,

I would like to create a "heat lightning" effect in UDK (lightning that only goes from cloud to cloud with no sound). What is the easiest way to accomplish this? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Benjam

Heat lighting? Do you mean when heat blurs stuff around it like on the top of a hot road type thing? If so you could try using a transparent wavy type material and assign scrolling UV's to it so it generates the impression of heat shimmers

Eric Chadwick

I created a similar effect a couple years ago. It was done in a custom engine, but could easily be adapted to work in UDK. A description here, plus video.
http://ericchadwick.com/img/mmo_worldbuilding.html#volcanicbeach

Scrolling UVs for the alpha, with an alpha texture that looks like Morse code, and vertex color to give the flashes some green/purple/orange color.