custom shadow for watch face

Hi, I've seen that on other devices (Samsung or Google watches, and many others), there are some cool watch faces with analog hands and outer shadows on the hands (for example, this watch face).

I've been wondering if a similar effect can be created in Monkey C as well (maybe using createColor with an alpha channel, BlendMode, or AlphaBlending options). I’ve tried many things, but the only "shadow" I managed to get was a copy of the hand with a constant color and full opacity.

Is it even possible? I am using the Venu 2 for my simulator.

Thank you in advance!

Top Replies

Kfir Eliyahu 2 months ago in reply to Kfir Eliyahu +1

Hi, apparently to use those opacity changes with drawBitmap2, there must be API of at least 5.0 and that's the reason I couldn't do it with Venu 2.

I did find that it is possible with

this met…

All Replies

0 flocsy🤠 2 months ago

Isn't that shadow part of a semi opaque image (together with the hand)?

0 FlowState 2 months ago in reply to flocsy🤠

There's a CIQ watchface which claims:

> 3D lighting effects, hands casting mutual shadows lead to a stunning, almost natural appearance.

https://apps.garmin.com/apps/260f1553-eee1-4a29-80b8-94962110c8db

Haven't tried it or seen it action.

0 flocsy🤠 2 months ago in reply to flocsy🤠

Actually I looked now for 1 minute at the animation, and I expected the "shadow" of the second hand to be always parallel to the hand and in the same distance (that would prove my theory that it's part of the hand's picture) but to my surprise it behaves like a real shadow: the shadow disappears at some point (and also 30 seconds later) so it's a really nice effect!

But I doubt more than a handful of users would notice if it was part of the hand's image...

0 Kfir Eliyahu 2 months ago in reply to FlowState

hi, thank you for your answer.

I haven't tried it as well since it looks like it's only for the newest devices and not for Venu 2 as well.

I thought it was a constant color but it does seem to be acting like a shadow with opacity.

0 Kfir Eliyahu 2 months ago in reply to flocsy🤠

hi, thank you for your answer.

I came to the same conclusion as well on this watch face. I think with other watch face APIs it is possible to do real opacity. I tried to play with png opacity in photoshop and afterwards use the png as watch face drawable but it acts differently than expected and just creating vertical stripes of the png, one with opacity 0 and the other with opacity of 100.

0 Kfir Eliyahu 2 months ago in reply to Kfir Eliyahu

Hi, apparently to use those opacity changes with drawBitmap2, there must be API of at least 5.0 and that's the reason I couldn't do it with Venu 2.

I did find that it is possible with

this method suggested by Shent-Aurkhan (SHN) in another post

Thanks for everyone trying to help