[sgentle]

I've updated the shader – I think the issue was just that I was initialising the states to random values instead of running a proper degree calculation. The behaviour looked pretty similar to me either way, but now it matches exactly and I added colours to make that clear: https://imgur.com/a/4gZKlSg

[airesearcher]

Looks closer. Can’t tell from your example if exact.. but seems better

[airesearcher]

share a link to the new version of your shader - would love to check it out

perhaps also make a version that starts from random initial condition as well?

looks promising

[sgentle]

Same link :)

[airesearcher]

Looks better... the one thing I am not seeing is the behavior where they expand in two directions at the same time - but it might be that it's too small. Also it would be better if you started from a much lower density initial condition like 15% density. Also note - while Amazing Dragons shows really interesting behavior microscopically it is not the most balanced rule - there are other variants that are sparser and have a more interesting balance (see gallery, see repo to try them out). I found density of initial conditions is very important and different rules need different densities.