Easiest trick is to go into a training room, get hulldown, go in sniper mode and see how much hulldown it "feels", then you go third person again and see how much you're actually showing to get a feel of how much hulldown really is.
In something like the T32 people experience what you do all the time, but they think they get shot trapped when they're actually exposing their UFP. If terrain is within your crosshair when fully aimed on a target, I'd say that you're pretty much as hulldown as can be to that specific target. However if you're talking about angles and stuff and sidescraping that's more of a 3rd person perspective view where you just practice until you get the hang of it, can't really give any concrete advise there aside from getting the hang of the angles.
Grab a fella in a training room, make up the situations where you are clueless and then ask him for the replay so you can watch his PoV and what he sees in comparison to what you do.