need tips

[pixartist]

i wanna make a wallpaper...look at a preview here: http://www.pixartist.de/pics/banavlo/hl2bump.jpg
so now my question is, in what way do you think should i change it? (i do this because the model is pretty detailed and a big render takes sooo long)

 

[The Dark Elf]

Since most people have the icons down the left hand side. I'd probably move the camera so the objects are going towards the right/bottom side. The rest then mostly white, and render it at the highest desktop res there is. Scale it down to fit different resolutions. Should be sorted then.

 

[pixartist]

well i now changed the bump mapping to a bigger size (the noise) looks better...now im experimenting with refraction
but due to the high detail of the model ( the 2!!!) it takes ages -.-