Up/Down Compress X/Y

Looking for a visual simulator of some kind.

I'm looking for a tool of some kind that would effectively simulate the input of the UpCompressX, UpCompressY, DnCompressX, and DnCompressY fields in the shän editor, and output a visual image. I don't need something to actively portray it over the sprite itself, just a method to create a deformed circle based on inputs that I could manually lay over the ship sprite to test for weapon emplacements. I've been trying to do the numbers by guesswork sprite by sprite, but most of them still aren't looking quite right and fire from just slightly awkward positions.

I considered that maybe a graphing calculator of some kind could do this, but I don't know the first thing about the math required to create this simulation. If anybody knows a graphing formula that would work, I'd be very appreciative.

Alternatively, I'm also open to methods usable within the Nova engine itself. I thought of maybe making a weapon with zero speed and a super long decay/life that could be fired while spinning the ship to effectively map the weapon ports with the shot sprites, but this would still require a lot of editing/testing trial-and-error to arrive at final numbers.

Even if someone just has a good visual representation of what these numbers affect, I'd be all ears. I know how they're supposed to work, but when I try to enter them the way I'd expect, I get weird results instead. If no software is available, just a strong explanation of how they work and how to calculate them would be fantastic.

I would pm Qaanol. I just saw him post but I don't know if he checks this board in particular.

edit: I may be able to help code/test if you like. I can't make promises but I'll at least offer.

This post has been edited by Sklent : 01 January 2014 - 02:06 PM

Nova Tools as a ResEdit plug was lovely for such things, but probably unusable now without a PPC mac running >9.

Also, your 3D modeling software should be able to tell you based on what angle you render from. I can't say for sure how it might tell you, I only know it can since EVWeb got values from Bryce for models.

Edit: My mistake, EVWeb used NovaTools as rmx256 already suggested.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 01 January 2014 - 06:24 PM

@rmx256, on 01 January 2014 - 02:15 PM, said in Up/Down Compress X/Y:

Nova Tools as a ResEdit plug was lovely for such things, but probably unusable now without a PPC mac running >9.

Fortunately, I have SheepShaver with a perfectly working version of Mac OS 9. It's essential for me to create SND files.