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Er, by -11C I mean, the temperatures are always atleast 11 degrees lower than they were before the homemade fan. The change was -11C (average), not the temperature now. I didn't make myself clear, sorry.

I haven't seen higher than 65C anymore, no-game/windows only temperature stays around 42-43C.
I don't really think that fan could melt even at 65, but resonating, vibrations... I didn't think about it.

Keeping case open didn't help video card a bit but due complex airflow system of Intel boards, CPU started to heat more, so it isn't good idea anyway.

Almost week now, and not a single stretched texture. Even S.T.A.L.K.E.R - Shadow of Chernobyl, the buggiest and demanding game engine in last years seemed to manage well with fairly high settings. Everything works so well that It's hard to believe, but maybe I'm just a paranoid.

A nice place for hi-res textures... start here.
http://mayang.com/textures/

For a desk, choose simple, plain wood, without visible planks or strong elements like stains, etc.
I used this for my example... look how well it turned out...?

http://mayang.com/textures/perl/preview.pl?image=lightly_cracked_wood_5132620.JPG

Well, to find the truth, I quickly whipped up something similar:
It took only 15 minutes... Pay attention to dark shadows. This is how I imagine candlelit scene...



Also, if you're going to make closeups, bump maps are your best friend! Look how real cracks look at this closeup...



It doesn't matter much on the faraway scene though (except on the floor), as you can see from first image.
Other two textures are from same site,although I picked them randomly.

Hope this helps somehow.

Much better now, though you should still hunt for perfect wood texture.
This one doesn't look like one used on furniture, but on crates or barrels.
Nobody builds a desk out of tiny boards! I like desk feet though, you should keep them like they are.

* Logical question: Who lights a candle in so bright room? It kind of kills atmosphere, having so well-lit room.
* If possible in your 3d software, use a bumpmap on the floor. It looks too artificial right now. Even using exact same texture as bumpmap could work wonders.
* Candle looks kind of too small compared to book and table.

And yes, you CAN insert multiple images into one post. Actually, it's often a need when c&c'ing 3d renders and it's preferred to double posting anyway.

* I suggest less repeat on textures, and if possible, map UVWs onto faces, not as box.
* Floot texture should have either more repeat, or higher resolution texture.
* Candle needs a glow or stronger flame. Simply photoshop one over the render.
* Overall, wood texture is too aggressive and grainy, you could try out some other ones aswell.
* I could give more specific points if you told what software you used.
It's all been said, but seconding proves the problem. These are only weak points on your bg!

I like the books, geometry and overall feeling, but get textures right first.

...Ever seen this?



If you have trouble with eyesight, well... let's zoom ten times!



This icon is for tutoring, not kissing. Users who have icon like this under their avatar, are offering their time to hold your hand through magnificent journey through game making. Just like you wanted.

Just find one and send him a polite personal message. And I'm sure you get help.
Don't start a fight with moderators, make stupid threads or be stubborn if you don't understand the rules.

I don't quite understand your guilt.
I don't.

So, yes, there's millions of people suffering from hunger, diseases, lack of even minimum quality of life, etc.
It's everywhere. People like this wander at your home city streets, not only in distant lands.
It's not your fault. You don't have to tear yourself apart just because they are unlucky... or stupid.

There are countries/areas in the world that will always have trouble. Like Middle East. Like Africa.
Especially Africa. Weird, it feels like there wasn't a single day of peace on this continent, never.

And yet, by popular theories, we all come from Africa. So, people there are oldest. Their fight and their culture is most ancient.
Don't they ever learn? There's mostly a prosperous nature, full with natural resources and enough room for everyone.

Yet we see skinny, hungry kids wielding AK-47's at TV news camera every day. 
Kind of symbolizing violent roots of human being...

Yeh, it's a shitty world. But on a individual level, I don't think we could do much.
So, you make a donation.
So, few hungry kids get few days of food.
So, they live another month.
What changes? They're still living in their nightmare. The fighting goes on. If one conflict ends, another starts.
You cannot donate brains. And it's not kids who need them, but warlords. Then again, some of the kids become new warlords one day...

It takes a superpower to restore order and peace, and it should be done with mutual effort by all countries in the world. A final, decisive war, with no commercial interests included.
Definetly not what's going on in Iraq right now.
Am I talking about World War III?

Maybe. After WWII, large portion of Europe was under Soviet rule. Even though for many countries, it was a national nightmare, including mine.
Truth is that next 50 years there was no war. Many cities got built up, and there was food for everyone.

Strange idea: if you want world to be a better place, don't pay taxes. How many weapons has government produced from all the tax money you have paid? How many killers were trained? You have already donated, but not into peace...

Feeding a long chain of fat charity workers with sad eyes doesn't sound like much of help to me.

I solved the problem!

I simply took chassis fan of my old machine and inserted it directly onto video heatsink. Result -11 C at all times and it never goes over 65C, even in Bioshock at full settings & resolution (93C before fan!).

I didn't fasten it anyhow and plastic fan is directly on a metal heatsink, is it safe?
2 days and no problems yet...?

Our universe is based on binary.

Something exists or not, moves or not, light is turned on or off, earth goes around or doesn't, etc.
If there would be third alternative, it would be REALLY revolutional.
Especially if it could be used in microprocessors... start inventing!

Eh, don't drink & post I'd say. Anyway, i'll try to install new fan now.

I don't think it was really meant to be liquid cooled... But who knows. There doesn't appear to be a place to install the fan.

I ripped some old power units apart and took the fans. I think I'll try to stick few fans here and there and see if it helps, because it's the cheapest way I can think of.

I'm so sad!

I bought my PC about a year ago, and it worked perfectly.
Then, this spring, video problems rised their ugly head, games started to look really terrible...

Like this, this and this

I didn't know what's the matter at first, tried reinstalling drivers, clocking over and under, playing with directX, etc.
But recent observations have proven that my video card simply heats to melting!

Without anything working, simply at XP desktop, its temperature is around constant 57°C. Whenever I start a game, it quickly rises to 93°C! Near 90, artifacts and texture stretching occurs, and every degree adds some more litter onto screen. In some newer games, game engine tries to cast shadow to the artifact too and it gets really weird.

Now, video comes from my Geforce 7900GT/GTO card. I opened case, cleaned everything, suspecting evil dust, though there wasn't much, and noticed that even though fairly modern,  my card doesn't have any fans attached to it. It simply has a heatsink (radiator thingy?) and two (aluminium?) tubes going from sink to other side of the card. It's placed (strategically?) under extra large CPU fan (Intel Core2 Duo E6400 CPU needs it, I guess), supported with downward power unit fan(I think) and one extra slow fan, which sometimes doesn't work and produces nervous crieking noise.

Anyway, even with this slow fan going around, heating doesn't get much lower.

Sorry for low quality, used cellphone for photos:


The whole cooling plan


Closeup on video card

Now, I'm not an expert, and don't know much about cooling, thermal pastes or even where GPU is, under heatsink or the other side (there's a little suspicious tin box connected by those two tubes), but I really don't understand why this stupid card got cooled well before (everything worked at high settings for about half a year) and overheats now.

I've been googling for various video card forums and threads, but nothing found nothing simple or cheap.
I'm also aware of the fact that many new cards come overclocked from store, but I've underclocked this card more than it's healthy and still heating was there. With constant crashing as a cool add-on. So...

Suggestions?

I'll see how it turns out. I had few doubts about eyes by myself.

But I don't think I'd want to change skin tone to anything lighter, simply because it wouldn't match anything else then, like the sprite. Low saturation is anything but my style! Also, it works quite nicely with hair color right now.

EDIT: The violet edit



4X:


* Changed eyes
* Skin tone as light as possible (+7%)

I think I'm near calling this image final.

Thanks, ProgZ... Holy, he looks SO much like my grandfather in his youth...  :o And myself a bit, too.

I totally love what you did with his eyes. And a bit simpler shading? Maybe that too. Sadly, I'm not really sure what color should his eyes actually be. And I will definetly use hints on hair, I wasn't really sure how to draw hair.

Since there's possible fangame in the way, I might redraw him several times until I get everything right. Though it started as fan experiment and all I have is primitive story idea and full sprite & closeup right now, I think that if there will be a game, it would be a dark and painful one - a horror title, and high contrasts and somewhat possessed/painful/dead-serious look is what fits the best this time. You know, the Gabriel Knight atmosphereâ,,¢. I even based my story so I couldn't mess up the characters in Grundislav's world nor make any changes to it, and it also excuses any mistakes I might make But there's alot of work ahead of me before any of this becomes downloadable.

Back to paint program!

EDIT: The Blue Edit



2X:


* Blue/gray eyes (dunno if it's correct, but might be explained with paranormal disease )
* New hair. Improved shading alot
* Some shading simplification and bugpixelfixes
* Happier look. He still looks kind of insulted, but he does also on original image, so...
* Ignored ProgZmax's eye shaping, though I liked it better. But they make Ben too old and lose innocent look.

Thanks, I tried to follow your suggestions, lime edit

* Gave Ben a nose job
* Widened eye to original size
* Fixed shading here and there
* +20% saturation, +10% red, -30% contrast
* correct haircutâ,,¢, but old hair color. Isn't he a readhead?


2X:


I didn't want to lose contrast too much, because shading face in SNK/neogeo style was a hell on earth and there's no point in this, if I'd blur everything. Selfish, eh  Also, if I draw some more, like backgrounds etc (not saying that I will... yet), my style is usually quite contrasty, so everything has to fit together well.

Anyway... Is it better now? He looks kinda sad now...

Well, I'm trying to find a nice-looking way for large portraits and older Neo-geo style seems to be most appealing.
Here's Ben... what do you think?


2x:


First one is original from Case 6, another one's mine. Did I overdo contrast? Does it feel totally wrong? If so, what should I change? The mouth took most time to draw, and I still kind of feel that I should change it somehow.
Personally, I find Grundislav's original cuter and younger...

EDIT: The green edit: Redrew mouth... better?


2X:

I'm having this weird urge to make a fangame...
would it be okay?

I like it! Functional, simple, nice.

What I'd change is colors of main menu: It's dark grey, very boring and tiresome color. Make it more reddish, so it would match logo part better or find another way to match logo and menu colors. I don't have much to say about design, it's good. But I'd make some rollover effect to main menu buttons, it's always nice to look at.

And prefer low-saturation colors. You started off with strong contrast, which is always something to handle with extreme care.

Are "news" and "home" different things? If not, combine them into one. The less options, the user-friendlier.

Usually, area above knees is lighter. It gives some sense of realism.

As always, I suggest to see how japanese artists do it




Second image shows very nicely how and when wrinkles occur.

I quite like the image, but skin tone could be less... gray. It looks almost like a zombie. Also, give him a bit of torso (side view). He looks extremely thin right now and militamen had usually good physical form. Also, with shirt so wrinkled, this militiaman would be fired in a minute.

Retro!

Arguably not as depressing as losing a tune contest, but ah well.

Well, yes... 


...
Rest in peace.

I wonder if this man made it into history books... And if kids 100 years from now will learn about such man lived.

I hope they will.