Author Topic: Hud modification (Read 4295 times)

Squiffy101 · « **on:** March 28, 2011, 05:28:38 AM »

Hello everyone.

New to the site and have a question. I have checked already on the site and found interesting discussions about HUD modification but no definitive answer.

I'm a network tech for a school in Devon. We're a church school which means that all the management are religious. I've been wanting to run a league/knockout fps for the students for years, but being a church school, blood and guts, mass killing and swearing are an absolute no!

I came across this game when another school tech told me about it and we love it. Simple design, runs smoothly (even on the naff junk some of our suites have). It has everything we wanted (plus it's free although we're the types of tech that will always try and donate when free software works :-))

My only dilemma is that the word "Kills" appears on the HUD. I can remove any sound files management might find a touch close to the mark but I just know that if I show them the game and it says kills, they'll put the brakes on the idea an that will be the end of it. They'll never consider letting us run anything like this again.

I know there were many comments along the lines of "don't get hung up on the word kills, it's not important" but I hope you can see why I'm stuck.

Most of the posts were quite old and a few mentioned the "wishlist" were customisable HUDs were a suggested option.

Is there anyone that could help me? I want to keep it on our private network, so we'd never go out on the net with it. I'm also a network tech with some graphic design experience but I have no knowledge of coding/vbs so if someone could spell out what to do in laymans terms, that would be great. (If it's at all possible).

Many thanks in advance for any replies

payl · « **Reply #1 on:** March 28, 2011, 07:59:11 AM »

You can't modify HUD much (only some bitmaps), and that need execubate modification, which will be detected as cheat/mod and client constaining that modifications will be global banned from all servers, so it's impossible for now.
But, i don't know where you saw 'kill' word, it isn't common...
Also sound change will be detected as mod...

Narga · « **Reply #2 on:** March 28, 2011, 08:04:39 AM »

Quote from: Squiffy101 on March 28, 2011, 05:28:38 AM

My only dilemma is that the word "Kills" appears on the HUD.

I thought it says "eliminated". The closest thing I see to the word kill in this game is die. That happens when you fall off a ledge where there's nothing bellow you or if you drown under water, usually.

Where did you download this? Was it another website? If so, it could've been an older build. Try getting the latest one.

Squiffy101 · « **Reply #3 on:** March 28, 2011, 08:29:00 AM »

Quote from: Narga on March 28, 2011, 08:04:39 AM

I thought it says "eliminated". The closest thing I see to the word kill in this game is die. That happens when you fall off a ledge where there's nothing bellow you or if you drown under water, usually.

Where did you download this? Was it another website? If so, it could've been an older build. Try getting the latest one.

Hi Narga, thanks for replying. I'm running build 032 and it definitely says "Kills" in the top right corner. Screenshot attached. Got excited when you said the above as I was running build 31 but sadly....

Squiffy101 · « **Reply #4 on:** March 28, 2011, 08:35:10 AM »

@ payl...appreciate what your saying mate...I would normally agree completely with you, someone's hard work and dedication should be completely locked down (although the HL/HL2 show how modding can be advantageous but that's another subject!). As I said, I'm not interested in using this on the web. I just would like to change that one word and run it within the school network. Students can't get hold of the files and spread em.

That's why I asked if it's possible to make this smallest of changes. If it can't then that's that :-(

payl · « **Reply #5 on:** March 28, 2011, 08:39:38 AM »

you can disable whole hud via "cl_drawhud 0" now that is only way i found, but maybe if you write email to Jitspoe, he give option to disable/change this word.

jitspoe · « **Reply #6 on:** March 28, 2011, 08:48:23 AM »

I could change it to "Elims", though that's kind of ambiguous.

pvtjimmy · « **Reply #7 on:** March 28, 2011, 08:54:12 AM »

how about "points"?

jitspoe · « **Reply #8 on:** March 28, 2011, 08:59:46 AM »

Quote from: pvtjimmy on March 28, 2011, 08:54:12 AM

how about "points"?

There's not a direct association between kills and points, though (unless it's pure deathmatch). You get points for flag captures and such.

Squiffy101 · « **Reply #9 on:** March 28, 2011, 09:10:32 AM »

Quote from: jitspoe on March 28, 2011, 08:48:23 AM

I could change it to "Elims", though that's kind of ambiguous.

Hi Jitspoe...that would be perfect (It would also tie up with the message "You have been eliminated", which would make sense)

If you could do this, I'd gladly donate to you or your fav charity :-)

payl · « **Reply #10 on:** March 28, 2011, 09:41:33 AM »

if you are going to change this, maybe also change that in "localstats" :-] .
Wow, paintball2 without kills? I feel... strange. What about dying because of water etc.?

ViciouZ · « **Reply #11 on:** March 28, 2011, 09:52:55 AM »

Quote from: Squiffy101 on March 28, 2011, 08:35:10 AM

@ payl...appreciate what your saying mate...I would normally agree completely with you, someone's hard work and dedication should be completely locked down (although the HL/HL2 show how modding can be advantageous but that's another subject!). As I said, I'm not interested in using this on the web. I just would like to change that one word and run it within the school network. Students can't get hold of the files and spread em.

That's why I asked if it's possible to make this smallest of changes. If it can't then that's that :-(

If you're only running it locally as you say, and you're sure the students can't or won't connect to the internet (maybe use a firewall to make sure), there's nothing to stop you either compiling your own .exe from modified source, or just opening paintball2.exe up with a good editor like notepad++ and doing a find/replace on the word "kills". You'll have to replace it with "elims" or another 5 letter word though, or the offsets will break. If you need any help with either of these just PM me. Just make sure not to use it on an internet server or you'll get banned for modified content.

T3RR0R15T · « **Reply #12 on:** March 28, 2011, 09:58:17 AM »

Quote from: Squiffy101 on March 28, 2011, 09:10:32 AM

Hi Jitspoe...that would be perfect (It would also tie up with the message "You have been eliminated", which would make sense)

It's a paintball game, so normally it must be "You have been marked/tagged" instead of "You have been eliminated".

Squiffy101 · « **Reply #13 on:** March 28, 2011, 10:05:40 AM »

YOU ARE A STAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here I was thinking that you had to be a coding wizard and it was going to be stupidly difficult!!!!

Many, many thanks for that ViciouZ. I've definitely learnt something there.

This is just great, now I can take it to the management and there is NO way they can block us from running tournaments.

Cheers

Squiffy101 · « **Reply #14 on:** March 28, 2011, 10:06:31 AM »

@ T3RROR15T...your right...maybe tags would be more logical :-) Thanks for the suggestion

Squiffy101 · « **Reply #15 on:** March 28, 2011, 10:09:11 AM »

Jitspoe....just to cover it...we'll never use this out on the net and No-one but myself has access to the files. Being a school, the filtering system for our traffic is superb and your program has been added to the blacklists so rest assured this "mod" won't get out.

The donation still stands as we think this is a cracking game :-)

ViciouZ · « **Reply #16 on:** March 28, 2011, 10:10:22 AM »

Glad to help

Quote from: Squiffy101 on March 28, 2011, 10:06:31 AM

@ T3RROR15T...your right...maybe tags would be more logical :-) Thanks for the suggestion

If you do do "tags", make sure to put a space after it to make it 5 letters

Narga · « **Reply #17 on:** March 28, 2011, 10:28:56 AM »

Quote from: Squiffy101 on March 28, 2011, 08:29:00 AM

Hi Narga, thanks for replying. I'm running build 032 and it definitely says "Kills" in the top right corner. Screenshot attached. Got excited when you said the above as I was running build 31 but sadly....

Oh... I remember that. I never thought about that because I rarely use those.

webhead · « **Reply #18 on:** March 28, 2011, 11:31:53 AM »

Quote from: Squiffy101 on March 28, 2011, 10:09:11 AM

The donation still stands as we think this is a cracking game :-)

We agree

and jitspoe sure will be glad for that!

jitspoe · « **Reply #19 on:** March 28, 2011, 12:35:42 PM »

Quote from: Squiffy101 on March 28, 2011, 09:10:32 AM

Hi Jitspoe...that would be perfect (It would also tie up with the message "You have been eliminated", which would make sense)

And that's where it gets confusing - would it be the number of times you've been eliminated, or the number of times you've eliminated other people? Kills/Deaths is much more straightforward, even if it doesn't apply in a literal sense to paintball.

But, yeah, editing the exe to replace "kills" should be easy enough in the mean time. Just point the kids to digitalpaint.org if they want to get the game and play it from home.