Physically-Accurate Moon Lighting and Shading
No more stars in front of your moons!
Changes moon textures so that they no longer look like they’ve had a bite taken out of them while still retaining their vanilla look and 2x pixel-consistent flair!
Something that’s bothered me severely about this game since I first played it around 10 years ago is finally fixed!
(I was shocked nobody else made a mod fixing this before, not that I could find anyways.)
If I really wanted to be pedantic about the astronomical-accuracy of the moons in Terraria, I’d keep the "new" phases exactly as they are in-game: blank, because new moons aren’t out at night, but whatever.
If you have any problems with this mod or suggestions as to how to make it better, please leave a comment!
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Developer Notes:
Normal Moon
Vanilla sprite is missing a pixel on its upper-right side. This mod fixes this issue.
Yellow Moon
Slight pixel inconsistencies in the "Yellow" moon sprite appear to suggest it librates slightly between its phases. This has not been reflected in the shaded sections of the moon, as I do not have access to the uncut / full librated phase textures.
Ringed Moon
The shadows on the vanilla "Ringed" moon were all messed up:
+ The ring doesn’t cast a shadow on the moon’s surface (or cloud layer?)
+ The ring isn’t shaded as if it’s actually a separate object from the moon itself (the worst case being that it’s completely "in shadow" in the moon’s "new" phase, when the tips should still be visible as the ring is wider than the moon and, thusly, shouldn’t be in its shadow.)
+ The moon doesn’t accurately cast shadows onto the ring in cases where it would make sense to do so.
In response, I manually adjusted the shadows for this moon by using a self-made 3D reconstruction as a guide at intervals of 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 50%, 70%, 80%, and 90% along the light’s total rotation time around the moon.
Mythril Moon
Vanilla sprite is missing pixels on its left-most side between phases. This mod fixes this issue.
Bright Blue Moon
Vanilla sprite is missing pixels on its upper-right side between phases. This mod fixes this issue.
Green Moon
No issues.
Pink Moon
There was, what I’m assuming was a misplaced pixel on its upper-right side. This mod fixes this issue so the moon looks more consistent.
Orange Moon
No issues.
Purple Moons
Was a tedious b—- to edit, but no issues.
You could try to make the argument that the moon’s mini moons should also cast shadows on the main moon’s body, however, unlike a ring, it’s much harder to tell where either mini moon may be in relation to the main moon, and their shadows would be so small and insignificant anyways. At that point, why not go the extra mile and try to animate them orbiting the main moon as well? If I get enough requests to, I’ll add these in as features in a future update, but I really don’t care for these moons at all.
Pumpkin Moon
No issues.
Given this mod’s emphasis on the contrast between shadow and light, I wanted to make the interior appear to glow, however, this would require I deviate significantly from the original spritework, which I don’t feel comfortable doing in a mod this limited in scope. Perhaps in the future.
Frost Moon
A single pixel inconsistency between the full and waxing gibbous have been remedied. Unlike the Pink moon, this doesn’t appear to be a misplaced pixel.
You could make the argument that the carrot nose should be shaded as if it’s sticking out from the surface, however, again, the difference would be minimal, and it isn’t a priority of mine unless requested.
Smiley Moon
Untouched by this mod.
