How do I stretch and distort a sprite? [SOLVED]

hi,

I'm making a "tractor beam" for a space game. As the beam grows (I increase the width) I want it to flare out.

My tractor beam is a long wide rectangle: 100x10

I want one end to become taller i.e. one side to be 100x10 while the other end is say 100x50..

and this whole thing needs to stretched to variable length.. I was looking into a WebGL effect but I couldn't find any I could control like that..

any suggestions?

An effect could be made to do it, but I haven't seen any yet. One way to do it is using the Paster Plugin which allows you to specify the corners of a quad to draw on.

I think I would draw the beam as you want In one sprite. Then when deployed you increase size from 0,0 at width+10 hight+2 until it hits the object in question. Or what ever growth fits right.

thanks R0J0hound ... wow, this is great. I will try this out!

TonyW that's not a bad idea, so just stretch and maybe add some scale as well..

thanks guys! I will post when I figure out what I'll do...

TonyW yup that was the easiest way to do it.. thanks..

just like you said I made the full beam like a slight trapezoid and adjusted the height and width without preserving aspect ratio in code as the beam was 'growing' or 'shrinking'.

thanks!

cool! i would love to see the finished project!