Heat Distortion VFX for Fire in UE5 Niagara! (Photoshop & Normal Map Workflow) 🔥💨✨

Want to add that final touch of realism to your fire effects? In this Unreal Engine 5 Niagara tutorial, Ashif Ali, a RealtimeVFX artist from India, guides you through creating high‑quality heat distortion for fire. The tutorial covers creating a seamless noise texture in Photoshop, converting it to a normal map with a free online tool, building a refraction material in UE5 that warps background pixels, and integrating the material into a custom Niagara emitter that sits within your fire system to produce realistic shimmering heat haze. This workflow is a game‑changer for environmental storytelling and high‑fidelity magic. 0:00 Intro: Fire Distortion vs. Water Ripple 0:22 Part 1: Niagara Emitter Setup 0:26 Creating the Distortion Emitter (Fountain) 0:49 Adjusting Velocity & Size to match Fire 1:21 Part 2: Custom Normal Map Creation 1:30 Photoshop: Creating Cloud Noise 2:10 Generating Normal Map (3D Filter vs. Online Tools) 2:52 Smart Normal: Online Generator Tip 3:18 Part 3: Distortion Material (M_Distortion) 3:28 Material Setup: Translucent & Lighting Mode 3:58 Edge Masking: Radial Gradient vs. Sphere Mask 4:22 Key: The Blue Lerp Trick (Avoiding Hard Edges in Normals) 4:50 Refraction Logic: Dynamic Parameter Setup 5:43 Part 4: Implementing Heat Distortion 5:56 Using Dynamic Parameters in Niagara 6:11 Key: The Refraction Curve (Fading In/Out) 6:44 Parameter: Texture Tiling Control 7:11 Final Refinement: Adjusting Scale & Refraction Value 7:27 Result: High-Speed Heat Distortion Demo 8:05 Conclusion