I’ve seen several brilliant ways of doing moon phase and have been bewildered by many of the more accurate ones.
The main ones that caught my eye for a basic representation were:
28 stacked images with opacity expressions
Two moons rotating behind a mask
I didn’t like the idea of 28 separate elements in the first. The second was nice and simple but the moon moved and I wanted it to be static. Also, I thought it would be a challenge to make my own version.
I started with the 28 images from @russellcresser and cropped them for easy sizing.
I dropped them in one at a time and adjusted a masking arc to match the shadow as close as possible and recorded X Position, Radius, Inner Radius, Fill in an excel spreadsheet for each image. Opacity is only zero on full moon and rotation/fill only count at half moon.
I then made an expression generator for the big 3 so you can enter stating X and radius: Dropbox
The only other thing needed is a hole of the right size in a backing image or another giant arc of the relevant backing colour.
I’m bound to have made a mistake somewhere and not sure if it will be useful for others but it does the job for me.
That’s why I made the expression generator.
28 X Positions, 28 radii, 28 inner radii. I didn’t want to have to work this out for each position and size I used it with:
You have found the older Topic I posted . I gave used these images And tested against a couple of favourite Apps including Time and Date . I will chech through and see if they are in the correct order .
It’s an easy fix if so. I would just go through the sheet and change + to minus on the X and vice versa. I suppose I could even add it as an option or, if relevant set it by north/south hemisphere. Don’t think I could bend my head to do X and Y calculations for inclination though.
I had an idea to have one moon shadow image with 28 images as a ribbon and one image of the moon and then move the ribbon image across the moon imageusing moonagepercent and conditionals for x (or y). But I don’t have the graphic skill to make an acceptable ribbon of shadow images. So at the moment it is only an idea i was investigating as an educational exercise.
Yeah . I was making a Raster grid 4x7 but gave up with it . Still need a Mask hole in the Face . The strip is a nice Idea but be aware that a Wide strip will be Rendered by Facer . The Squarish resources are Best if they are big .
I dont think I am at liberty to share the resources but I saw this as a good example of the Grid Type Moon phase .
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Digital Dual Time JO3-3 by G7
I did make a 4x7 to practice . Not sure if I came up with any Formulas .
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Looks like a Challenge to me . Here is a Grid thing . I will make a grid with pictures on . Might be useful to have a 6x4 with Earth Pics For The Time Zones .
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4x7 is the squarest division of 28 . See I have added your strip to my grid test . Anyone interested in the Project keep an Eye on the TEST . I am going to see if i can make this work .
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Wasn’t sure if x7 might cause resolution issues if shrunk so 5x6 with 2 gaps may work better size wise of final issue. XY still easy I think would work on any grid if the images were in order of moon phase rather than phase 27=image0, phase0=image27
I have adjusted the expression generator so it flips the phase if north of the equator and leaves it as is if south: $(round(#MOONAGEPERCENT#*27))==26?160+1*#LAT#/abs(#LAT#):$
I used this in Rotation to flip the moon images for the Sothern Hemisphere . Of Course in reality it swings round looking more horizontal at the equator .
. $#LAT#>0?0:180$
In examle below are two ways I think better than built in complication.
First is using font with 8 shade images, that can have rotation applied.
The other, I have seen somewhere interesting method for continuous shade developement, but can not find the source, nor whether it was here or on GWD forum. So I had to recreate it from scratch
It uses 2 squares one circle and one half circle cutout mask.
The formula for shade progression is linear, but maybe could be improved with some sine implementation.
I like the inginuity there on both.
If I were to choose it would be the 2nd as it does not require the creation of a custom font.
The squishy half circle image mask is probably a more accurate shape representation than the arc method too as the curve flattens towards centre more truly representing the moon curvature.
