I don't think it's perfect. It's pretty obvious my constellation algorithm isn't the same ! The original also seem to have more noise and better star rendering.
Also this allowed me to test the new JavaScript node I teased earlier.
It allows you to write logic for custom node directly in JavaScript.
The constellation generation algorithm is not really possible in standard node logic.

It's something I've thought about for a while but I've always dismissed because I want everything in Node Painter to be possible on mobile and you know how much I hate writing code on mobile.

I could maybe have done it with the "imperative code block" node but it's also slow and painfull.
@grifdail i think the main difference is my one always joins each star to its closest neighbour. which usually looks pretty good, but it also limits the kind of constellations it makes - so yours can do stuff like enclosed shapes, which is cool. and so impressed with nodepainter, it looks amazing.
@memoryassociate I never managed to get good enough result when trying a "Closest neighbour" approach. But maybe my math were wrong ?

Also your can do loop. They're very rare though (I think because it required a very specific pattern of closest neightbour to do so.)

mastodon.social/@infinitezodiac/115672591946186518

@grifdail i forgot it can do loops! i don't remember the details well anymore, but i think it checks all the stars then connects the closest two, then the next closest, and continues until all stars are linked up, with a limit of 2 links to each star. this creates a few little subgroups so then it has to find the closest links between *those* groups, and then a few stars get 3 links. or something like that.

ps, i've posted a little shout out on my website: https://pbent.net/infinite-zodiac-in-node-painter/

infinite zodiac in Node Painter

Personal website of Peter Bentley.

@memoryassociate Oh wow ! Thank you so much !
@grifdail @memoryassociate not saying you should change it, but the star "spikes" artifacts are caused by the structure of the telescope and should have the same alignment for all the stars of an image. It can be more than 4 though, for example Hubble produces 4 spiked stars while James Webb, 6.
Camera lenses can produce stars with many many spikes too but always the same number for a given image, except if it's a composite.
@corpsmoderne @grifdail i wrote it before James Webb was launched, so only 4 spikes 🙂 and all the astrophotography i grew up with was the same, so it looks more "classic" to me that way.