Nova Tools

Ship exit points

Hey guys,
Is there a windows version of Nova tools, or is there some other program for window users? I really dont want to do trial and error if i dont have to.

The only program available for Windows users is EVNEW, sadly enough.

Not sure if that's the most recent version, but it's what pops up first on Google.

This post has been edited by Crusader Alpha : 04 June 2006 - 04:22 PM

I guess you could e-mail the creator at Aprosenf@aol.com. I might do that because I would like to know if I am using the most recent version aswell. But if someone else would like to instead be my guest. Although I might e-mail anyway.

Since what you need is to adjust ship exit points, I say send the shan and rle resource to a mac user who can do it for you, or just to a mac computer that you could have access to for a little while, and do it from there. But know that in order for Novatools to work the computer has to have a pre-OSX operating system installed (classic). Novatools doesn't work on new intel based mac's though, from what I've heard. Hopefully something else will come out to edit the shans in the same way, but OSX native. I'm pretty sure MC doesn't do that, and I have no idea if EVONE does or not.

Aight, since I would rather keep the plugin to myself for now, ill just do trial and error... <_<
This is going to take so long....lol

(Ill publish my plugins later once i know that everyhting works nicely)

Is there a way to combine plugins, or do i have to have them all seperate. Becuase i combined one and they dint work right but i combined another and those worked perfect.

This post has been edited by chronodrago : 04 June 2006 - 05:58 PM

It all depends on the resource IDs used. If they are the same on a resource then it will cause errors as you have seen. Sence you are using EVNEW, you can drag and drop the desired resourses from plug window to plug window.

This post has been edited by WonderBoy : 04 June 2006 - 06:25 PM

@wonderboy, on Jun 4 2006, 04:23 PM, said in Nova Tools:

It all depends on the resource IDs used. If they are the same on a resource then it will cause errors as you have seen.

Define "same"
As in same number when u are looking in the sub menu?
Becuase i just had to like multiply all my rleDs by 100 so that they didn't collide with the original game ships.

@crusader-alpha, on Jun 4 2006, 03:02 PM, said in Nova Tools:

Hopefully something else will come out to edit the shans in the same way, but OSX native. I'm pretty sure MC doesn't do that, and I have no idea if EVONE does or not.

Only ResEdit with NovaTools is capable of displaying a ship's sprite with the weapon exit points layered on top. Everything other editor just has a set of number-entry fields, with no preview of the final product.

@chronodrago: If your ship is rendered top-down like in EV/O (not angled, like in Nova), it is fairly simple to get the correct positions for your weapon exit points. Simply paste the first frame of your sprite into any image editor, select which pixels you want as the exit points, and count how far from the center of the image they are both horizontally and vertically. If the image is an even number of pixels across, the zero-point is the line of the center two lines of pixels that is farthest from the upper-left-hand corner.
If your ship is rendered at an angle, things will get harder. I would recommend looking at the weapon exit point values for similarly-sized Nova ships, and using trial and error from there. (Unless someone else has worked out a simple technique for getting x/y/z values and x/y compress values correct without a preview.)

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Definition of "same":
The numbers listed in the "ID" column in EVNEW are identical.

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Finally, the current version of EVNEW is here.

Edwards

Yup. Thats what I ment by "same". And I already had the most up-to-date version of EVNEW. Sadly that means that some of the bugs aren't fixed yet.

lol i dont, so ill try the new version out. Luckily my ship is top-down veiw but what do u mean by this?

"count how far from the center of the image they are both horizontally and vertically. If the image is an even number of pixels across, the zero-point is the line of the center two lines of pixels that is farthest from the upper-left-hand corner."

Basically, you locate the pixel where you want your exit point. Mark it.
Count the number of pixels from this pixel to the column of pixels that is horizontally centered in the image. This is your xOffset. If the exit point is on the left side of the ship, the xOffset is negative, and if the exit point is on the right side of the ship, the xOffset is positive.
Then, count the number of pixels from the exit point to the row of pixels that is centered vertically in the image. This is the yOffset. The top half of the image is positive, the bottom half is negative.

In this demo, I have colored the center column of pixels yellow, and the center row green. There are two exit points marked in teal, although they are mostly obscured by purple lines.
As you can see, the exit points are three pixels from the center row (green line), and they are in the bottom half of the image, so the yOffset for both is -3.
The left-hand exit point is seven pixels from the center column (yellow line), and it is in the left half of the image, so its xOffset is -7.
The right-hand exit point is six pixels from the center column, and is in the right half of the image, so its xOffset is 6.

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Notice that the "center" lines are not exactly in the center of the image. Because the image is an even number of pixels wide and tall, these "center" lines cannot be precisely in the center, so Nova places them just off to one side of the center, alway to the side of center that is farthest from the upper-left-hand corner.
If an exit point is on one of these lines, its x or yOffset will be zero.

Edwards

awesome, what program should i use?

NovaTools' graphical feedback system for exit point selection seems remarkably unstable.

@chronodrago, on Jun 5 2006, 08:20 AM, said in Nova Tools:

awesome, what program should i use?

Just about anything that can edit images. Microsoft Paint should work. All you need to do is zoom in, count pixels, and enter those numbers in EVNEW.

@lindley, on Jun 5 2006, 08:48 AM, said in Nova Tools:

NovaTools' graphical feedback system for exit point selection seems remarkably unstable.

What system are you using, and did you accidentally clear the "FramesPerSet" field?
In general, NovaTools is fairly stable on my system (Classic running on MacOS 10.3), although it does crash more often than most other programs I use. There is a consistant bug in the shän editor, where if you clear the "FramesPerSet" field, ResEdit will instantly crash, but that's not too hard to avoid.
If you're referring to an instability other than ResEdit crashing, could you elaborate?

Edwards

@edwards, on Jun 5 2006, 10:19 AM, said in Nova Tools:

Just about anything that can edit images. Microsoft Paint should work. All you need to do is zoom in, count pixels, and enter those numbers in EVNEW.

Uh, kewl...but my shp graphic isnt just one graphic, its the whole spin, i got the graphic from polycon, and then i changed all the specs and added a weapon rleD. So what should i do to get just one picture of the ship? I thought about cutting out on of the pictures but i realized that i dont know where each graphic ends and another begins, so the coordinants would always be off.

Use math. If you think its really easy to find out. For example say your ship and all of its different angle facings picture is 396x396 pixels. the usuall number of angles for a ship is 36. Thats one picture every 10° of rotation. Assuming that it is a square picture(which most are) you just count up the number of ships on, say the top. There are 6. Now here is where we use the math. Divide 396(number of pixels on the top) by 6(number of ships on the top). You get 66. That is how many pixels there are in one frame of you ship. Its realy quite easy.

Awesome...thanks man
Thank god im good at math...though calculators work quite nicley too

Heh. I won't lie and say that I do that in my head. I just remember from when I made my own ship. The only problem with it is that it looks horrible 'cause its flat and looks like a peice of paper in space. I am remaking it using Wings3D though.

lol, hmm i just got a really awesome idea.
u know a wormhole? is there a way to make a weapon suck stuff in and not blow em away? like lets say i make the weapon a black hole... Would i make the impact negative? If so i only thought it was for beams...oh well this is going to be fun

I think you can make any weapon be a tractor (beam) type weapon. I haven't tested this though. Nor have I read anything about it.