fix(stars): balance AA so it only softens edges, not size or count

After the round-star fix, toggling "Anti-aliased stars" made stars look
bigger and more numerous instead of just smoother. The AA path differed
from the hard-edge path in three ways that each inflated the footprint:

  - radius: AA used 0.25 + b*0.4 (up to 0.65); hard path used fixed 0.5
  - gain:   AA used 4.0; hard path used 3.0  (+33% peak brightness)
  - falloff: AA Gaussian decayed slowly (36.8% at one radius, never 0);
             hard path smoothstep hit 0 at the radius

The slow Gaussian tail was the main offender: it kept dim stars lit far
past the hard path's cutoff, lifting many sub-threshold stars above the
visibility floor — the apparent "more stars".

Balance the two paths so the toggle is purely an edge-softness control:
  - both use radius = 0.25 + b*0.4  (same size, brightness-driven)
  - both use gain 3.0               (same peak brightness)
  - AA steepens the Gaussian to exp(-4.6*d²/r²) so it converges to ~1%
    near the same radius where smoothstep cuts to 0 — matched footprint,
    soft vs hard edge.

Peak brightness is now identical across the toggle; effective lit area
differs by <30% (the Gaussian is a cone, smoothstep a flatter dome) and
the visibility radius matches, so dim stars no longer pop in and out as
AA is toggled.

Validated: naga type-checks; app runs 20s on Metal (M4) with no shader
errors; cargo test (14 physics tests) passes.
This commit is contained in:
xfy 2026-07-15 10:23:29 +08:00
parent f4e937f35b
commit 52cf4e4a29

View File

@ -108,20 +108,18 @@ fn star_color(dir: vec3<f32>, intensity: f32) -> vec3<f32> {
let center = cell + vec3<f32>(0.5); let center = cell + vec3<f32>(0.5);
let dist = length(p - center); // Euclidean round, never square let dist = length(p - center); // Euclidean round, never square
let col = mix(vec3<f32>(0.6, 0.7, 1.0), vec3<f32>(1.0, 0.9, 0.7), b); let col = mix(vec3<f32>(0.6, 0.7, 1.0), vec3<f32>(1.0, 0.9, 0.7), b);
if (uniforms.star_aa != 0u) { // Both paths share the same brightness-driven radius and the
// Soft Gaussian glow. The neighborhood scan lets the falloff // same gain, so toggling AA only softens the edge it does not
// decay smoothly to ~0 at the cell boundary instead of being // change peak brightness or visible count. Before, the AA path
// hard-clipped, so the star is a round anti-aliased disk. // used a larger radius (up to 0.65 vs 0.5), a heavier gain
// (4.0 vs 3.0), and a slow-decaying Gaussian whose long tail
// lifted many dim stars above the visibility floor that's
// what made AA look like "bigger and more" stars.
let radius = 0.25 + b * 0.4; let radius = 0.25 + b * 0.4;
let falloff = exp(-dist * dist / (radius * radius)); let falloff = select(
let bright = b * falloff; smoothstep(radius, 0.0, dist), // hard edge
if (bright > best.x) { exp(-4.6 * dist * dist / (radius * radius)), // soft edge
best = vec4<f32>(bright, col.r, col.g, col.b); uniforms.star_aa != 0u);
}
} else {
// Tight round disk: smoothstep on Euclidean distance.
let radius = 0.5;
let falloff = smoothstep(radius, 0.0, dist);
let bright = b * falloff; let bright = b * falloff;
if (bright > best.x) { if (bright > best.x) {
best = vec4<f32>(bright, col.r, col.g, col.b); best = vec4<f32>(bright, col.r, col.g, col.b);
@ -129,9 +127,7 @@ fn star_color(dir: vec3<f32>, intensity: f32) -> vec3<f32> {
} }
} }
} }
} return best.yzw * best.x * 3.0 * intensity;
let gain = select(3.0, 4.0, uniforms.star_aa != 0u);
return best.yzw * best.x * gain * intensity;
} }
// --- skybox --- // --- skybox ---