> Is there a way to create a procedural starfield which behaves correctly
> when animated?
>
> Why, in general, is no steady movement of the stars possible with
> pigment patterns on a sky_sphere?


In my opinion, stars with 1 pixel-size look ugly no matter what. And they
don't animate well because of their even smaller size internally in Pov. But
even if you make them move steadily, they will not be suited for an
animation because of the compression codecs. All lossy compression codecs,
such as mpeg, don't like small dots.

Your solution: The stars should be between 2 and 4 pixels each, plus have a
small "glow" around them. I think you can do all this with a procedural
texture: Use a lot of small, randomly placed spheres with a minimum size
(you will need to experiment with it) and of course a maximum size (almost
the same as the minimum). Put them all on the X Y plane (Z=0). Then use the
"object pattern" in Pov3.5 or MegaPov to grap all those spheres into a
pigment. The pigment will have no depth, but this should be perfect, as you
map it spherically on your sky sphere.

You can also achieve the glow effect, by averaging the pigment with up to
255 (20 might be just enough) other pigments that are translated a little
around origin.

Good luck! Let me know if you need more help.  :o)

Regards,
Hugo

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