Tutorial: Customising the HUD colour Last edited 1 year ago2022-09-01 11:19:34 UTC

For this tutorial you will need:

1. MSVC++ .net
2. Some C++ knowledge
3. The HL SDK 2.3
4. Time and patience! (important)

When you first open up the SDK folder, either go to Single-Player Source, or Multiplayer Source (depending on which your mod is). Then, open up cl_dll and open the cl_dll.dsp file up. In the solution explorer, goto the hud.cpp source file and browse down to line 306. There should be two CVARs that look like this:

CVAR_CREATE( "hud_classautokill", "1", FCVAR_ARCHIVE | FCVAR_USERINFO );
CVAR_CREATE( "hud_takesshots", "0", FCVAR_ARCHIVE );

Now add these 3 CVARs underneath them:

CVAR_CREATE( "hud_red","0", FCVAR_ARCHIVE );
CVAR_CREATE( "hud_green", "200", FCVAR_ARCHIVE );
CVAR_CREATE( "hud_blue", "0", FCVAR_ARCHIVE );

With hudcolor1 being red, 2 being green and 3 being blue (so 0, 200, 0 is a green color). Just make sure the number is between 0 and 255.

Now, open up the header file, cl_util.h. Goto line 153 and replace this:

inline void UnpackRGB(int &r, int &g, int &b, unsigned long ulRGB)
{
    r = (ulRGB & 0xFF0000) >>16;
    g = (ulRGB & 0xFF00) >> 8;
    b = ulRGB & 0xFF;
}

With this:

inline void UnpackRGB(int &r, int &g, int &b, unsigned long ulRGB)
{
    if ( ulRGB == RGB_YELLOWISH )
    {
        r = CVAR_GET_FLOAT( "hud_red" );
        g = CVAR_GET_FLOAT( "hud_green" );
        b = CVAR_GET_FLOAT( "hud_blue" );
    }
    else
    {
        r = (ulRGB & 0xFF0000) >>16;
        g = (ulRGB & 0xFF00) >> 8;
        b = ulRGB & 0xFF;
    }
}

This part tells the engine to take the default color, but have the rgb values as the CVARs which we set earlier. Now, if we delete the CVARs, it will goto the default orange. Build this project and replace the cl_dll in the valve folder (MAKE A BACKUP FIRST!) and play Half-Life. Looks good huh? Except from one problem, the lil bar between the health and the rest of the HUD. But, there is a fix! Open up health.cpp and goto line 233.

Replace:

FillRGBA(x, y, iWidth, iHeight, 255, 160, 0, a);

With this:

FillRGBA(x, y, iWidth, iHeight, r, g, b, a);

This will tell the engine to read the health color from our CVARs.

NOTE: There is always one problem with compiling cl_dll under VC++.net though. If you get a build error about hud_spectator.cpp, goto line 1079 of the that file and replace:

i = sqrt (i);

With this:

i = float sqrt (i);

Warning: I haven't tested this with multiplayer, but as most mods are SP, it shouldnt matter.

I hope this helps with your mods! Recommend it to anyone who needs help with this.