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SilverbladeTE — Smalljammer Solar
Published: 2011-05-12 20:47:23 +0000 UTC; Views: 1165; Favourites: 13; Downloads: 21
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Description
A Smalljammer sales by a lonely Sun...Smalljammers are living ships, the young of the city-sized and legendary "Spelljammer" itself.
Ship modelled in Rhino3D basedon a vessel from "Spelljmmaer" a fantasy space setting for Dungeons & dragons
scene rendered in Vue 9.5 infinite, postwork in photoshop
nebula background by Pamela Case (commercial item from Cornucopia3D)
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Comments: 14
Another great ship. The approach to a sun is something I don't recall before. It looks pretty good.
I'm not sure about the trail behind the ship as people who are not familiar with the smalljammer may mistake it for part of the stern.
BTW: Where did you get the colour scheme? Is it the colours of the ship featured in the Spelljammer comics?
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oh the trial's supposed to show movement, and since Spelljammer ships dont' have rockets etc it's way to make things look like they are moving
IIRC, the colour scheme was based loosely on the original artwork for the true Spelljammer itself
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I figured you were trying to show movement, as you have that interesting way of trying to visualise spells. The concept of "whizz lines" representing the magic being converted into spelljamming energy fits in well with that.
The stern of a smalljammer looks a bit illogical (as ships don't normally bend over like the tail of a scorpion). What I was getting at was that you have a large bulk of whizz lines together at the point where the tail of the smalljammer bends up and over. To me, your whizz lines fit exactly what I would expect the smalljammer to do if it was drawn logically. Perhaps the whizz lines could be made slightly more transparent at the point where they touch the ship, so that people can not mistake them for part of the ship.
BTW: Do you have an idea for representing every spell in the SRD or do you share visual effects on a school by school basis?
The smalljammer is supposed to be able to disguise itself as another spelljamming ship (or an other similar sized object like an asteroid). Have you got an idea for doing that sort of thing yet? Or would that be something best represented by a transformation in video rather than a painting?
I think that the most awesome picture that could ever be done of the (true) Spelljammer, would be the "birth of the smalljammers", with ships like this hatching out of the sides of the gardens and launching into space (and maybe also a few comet-like streaks to represent new ultimate helms being thrown into space).
But I bet your computer would explode (like any computer that Captain Kirk tells to work out Pi in Star Trek) if you tried to create the (true) Spelljammer.
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Well I would have made the "whizz", hehe what a name 
what make smore sense doesn't always look as good, but I'll try that again though next I do such a render
Oh I jsu tmake up visuals as look "interesting" as it goe salong
way I figure it, magic is not science, it's not limited to alway sbeing the same: it's Art
so one Wizard's fireball may look different to another's. Still flame, but maybe it's...green, or shaped liek an angry demon face or such
Transformations are easier to get across with a video, but much MUCH more work to make
in a single static image it would take a lot of design work to come up with a suitablelook
I could render different bits, then use a "morph" program to make a morphing effect ebtween them
Actually the SPelljammer itself may take LESS polygons ot make then say the Hammership, becaus the Spelljammer is so vast, it's nto a ship you'd ever need close up high detialed work for
it's the fine detials that take so much polygons, the "chamfering" (filletting is correct term) of say, the wooden hand rails I do on the Hammerhsip,which is vital to give the illusion of reality when rendered (soft rounded edges)
For the SPelljammer I cna get away with much less polygons, and sap in say, a special signle high quality bit of rialing for peopel ON the SPelljammer looking out over space/wings of ship etc
and much of the parts are so far away, say towers, from a viewer on ship, you don't need extreme detial work.
Thwne when it comes ot lots of Smalljammers, that uses "instances"
I coudl do thousands of copies of the same Smallajmmer, and have very little impact on the use of the computer's RAM, but, having a dozen seperate hand buil models of Smalljammers woudl take a lot of RAM
it's how the Lord of the RIngs battles were done. Since the huge orcs armies etc were in the distance, it uses vaslty less resources than tryign same thing from 5' away!
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You might need to do the Spelljammer in more detail if you try to depict a ship landing on one of its wings...
...or perhaps a scene of the smalljammers being "born" from the gardens.
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oh I'd use "trickery"
high detialed buildings I've got already perhaps in right angles to look good
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Oh the "Smalljammer" *IS* an official Spelljammer ship, and was also used in the "Spelljammer" comic
It's how the Spelljammer survives, if it ever dies, one Smalljammer grows up to replace it
Ship as usual though was modelled by me in 3D, of course
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That's neat. I discovered Spelljammer pretty late (2009 or so) so I'm way behind the curve.
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here's a mini review of the Spelljammer comics, by the way
[link]
iirc, the Smalljammer was introduced in THE LEGEND OF SPELLJAMMER boxed set
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@ Tyneras, you can read more about The Legend of Spelljammer boxed set on Spelljammer Wiki , although I've only got an outline there at the moment.
Adam "Night Druid" Miller has had some fanon ideas for variant sizes of ships between smalljammer and Spelljammer. They were sort of like smalljammers that we just starting to get ready to grow to city size.
To go with the smalljammers are also the ultimate helms, which are magical items created by the Spelljammer at the same time it creates smalljammers. (I can't remember off of the top of my head if they start off as magic items or if they start off as seeds that attach themselves to mundane items and change them into artefacts.) But either way the ultimate helms are the opposite halves of the smalljammer story as each is a key that can be used to command the big ship.
I'm not sure what would happen if you took an ultimate helm onto a smalljammer.
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hm, be cool to make a "Large Jammer", eh?
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A Largejammer (and a Mediumjammer) would be very cool. But I bet they would be a lot of work
How could you sell the scale of different sized versions of similar ships? Would you keep the wings and tail the same, but make the buildings on the back look smaller?
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Rebuild it totally for each one, add turrets on larger versions etc
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