Subtle HUD (Mod)

Burning Fish

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I created a mod that makes Xenus II's HUD more subtle. For example, the default HUD elements are now smaller and 50% transparent. The default reticle (when unarmed) is removed, since it's totally unnecessary in my opinion. It also contains a new simple blur-effect as a background, which gets applied when you open up your inventory or pause the game for example.

Some comparisons:​
HUD%2001.jpg

(click for full-size)

HUD%2002.jpg

(click for full-size)
Crosshair is a dot in the latest version!


The ReadMe​
SUBTLE HUD v1.1
by Burning Fish
www.burningfish.nl

This mod will make Xenus II's HUD more subtle, but still functional. This mod was designed on a LED 1920x1080 16:9 display.
The files edited in his mod are from Wesp5's unofficial 1.4 patch, so aside from the changes below, the edited content in the files belongs to him.

CHANGES
- Smaller HUD; more appropiate for today's high-res displays (e.g. 1920x1080).
- Most HUD-elements are now 50% transparent. Any help is appreciated!
- Default weapon-crosshair is now a dot.
- Unarmed crosshair (reticle) disabled. This unfortunately also disables the shotgun-crosshairs, but hey… it's a shotgun!
- Introduces a fast blur effect for certain menus, rather than the black and white effect.

INSTALLATION
Simply extract the ZIP-file to Xenus II's game-directory with subdirectories intact. Enjoy!


You can download the mod here (v1.1)!​


I edited the files from Wesp5's unofficial 1.4 patch, so aside from the above changes, the edited content in the files belongs to him.
I haven't succeeded in making all HUD-elements transparent, like the expanded minimap and the frame around the radio-box. So any feedback is appreciated!
 
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Hi, this mod is nearly perfect! It gives a much more immersive experience.
However I have a question, why you disabled the dynamic crosshairs? They fit perfectly with the gameplay and are very useful and not disturbing IMHO.

OffTopic question: Have you made any progress with disabling the motion blur? It's very annoying...
 
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Hi, this mod is nearly perfect! It gives a much more immersive experience.
However I have a question, why you disabled the dynamic crosshairs? They fit perfectly with the gameplay and are very useful and not disturbing IMHO.

OffTopic question: Have you made any progress with disabling the motion blur? It's very annoying…

Thanks for the feedback!
With the dynamic crosshairs I meant the existing crosshairs getting bigger when you're moving to indicate that your shots will be less accurate. But I think you're referring to the default reticle? I'd like to hear some more opinions on that. If more people think it's useful, I'll put it back in. I could also make two versions.

I was actually playing around with the weapon crosshair today and I succeeded in turning it into a dot, which is always my preference in any game. So I'll make a new version soon.

About the motion blur, it's in a file called HDR.TXT and it seems all the commands in there (which are a lot) are connected somehow, because if I edit one line, some other effects drop out too. There are a lot of TEMP3 and TEMP1 lines in there and to be honest, I don't have a clue how they work. Some insight on that would be very welcome! I eventually did manage to disable the motion blur, but this disabled the depth of field effect when you're reloading (which I love).
I've also been trying to get a permanent depth of field effect in the game, which would blur distant scenery, but the game only applies the effect when you're reloading or in a conversation.

So: lots of ideas, but not enough technical knowledge here I'm afraid. Again, some help would be very welcome! :)
 
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With the dynamic crosshairs I meant the existing crosshairs getting bigger when you're moving to indicate that your shots will be less accurate.

Me too, anyway there's no need to change your mod if noone else complains about this, but maybe you could simply tell how to enable it by ourself, if it's not a secret of course! :biggrin:

About the HDR.txt, yes I saw the Motionblur lines too, but I hold myself to mess with it becouse I wanted to know if you had any luck before, so ok I now will try to do something, but my knowledge about shaders and such is very very limited so I'm not sure of what I could achieve... :-/
 
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Ok probably I was able to turn off the motionblur while keeping all the other effects (or at least the illumination and dof are ok) but I don't have time to test it, and since I don't want to publicly release something that can break the game or such I would be glad if you accept to help me with testing. :)
From my quick play I saw nothing wrong, motionblur seems gone and every other effect seems still active, but obviously this needs more testing (also to be sure that doesn't lead to crasher after long game time), so if you want to try I sent you a PM with the (very simple) workaround. ;)
 
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Jul 21, 2011
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I got your message and I'm gonna try it out now! Thanks a lot for thinking with me!
You can get the dynamic crosshair back in by opening SCHEME.XML in \UI\PC\Planet. Find the line:

<!— Small Crosshairs —>
<Crosshair Name="crosshairPlanet_SmallCrosshairHeavyWeapon" Visible="false" HorizontalAnchor="Stretched" VerticalAnchor="Stretched" Opacity="0.5">

A few lines under there you will see the following:

;<OnCustom EventName="LogicalSize_Changed">
;SetStaticProperty(curWidget,"./Displacement@CurShift",GetDynamicProperty(curWidget,"LogicalSize")*130);
;</OnCustom>

Simply remove the three ; and it should be back!


[EDIT]
It works perfectly. The motion blur is gone! I put two screenshots together with and without the modifciation and there's no difference, so all the other effects are still working (including DOF)! Good work!

Now for the ultimate challenge! :p I've been driving myself crazy over this. Like I told in my previous post, I would love to see a permanent DOF-effect to blur distant scenery. But the DOF-effect only gets applied when you're reloading, healing or in a dialog with someone. If you, or anybody else could find a way to make this effect permanent you would totally make my week - hell, my holiday! :) It sound so easy, but I've been messing around with HDR.TXT for a day, but no success. I officially gave up.
 
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Disable Motion Blur

So my tweak works perfectly! Great! Ok this means that it's time to write down this very simple tweak for evenyone. :cool:

So if you want the best graphic settings but you hate the Motion Blur you simply have to change one single word in the HDR.TXT file to get rid of it. ;)

Just download the original unmodified HDR.TXT from this post:
http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1061046006&postcount=2
Place the HDR.TXT file inside a folder called POSTPROCESS located in the same folder of the xenus.exe (create the folder by yourself if not present) and open it with notepad or other text editor (since it's a simple txt).
Then find the word MotionBlur in the Motion Blur section of the text and replace it simply with the word copy so it will look like this

; Motion Blur
TEMP1 TEMP4 none none temp2 copy 0
TEMP2 NONE NONE NONE temp4 copy 0

instead of the default

; Motion Blur
TEMP1 TEMP4 none none temp2 MotionBlur 0
TEMP2 NONE NONE NONE temp4 copy 0

Now save and close the file. Open the game and enjoy that the motionblur is gone. :biggrin:



Burning Fish: I started looking for your request, but it's definately not easy! I still have several solutions to try but if I were in you I wouldn't expect anything, it seems that someone more experienced is needed here… :-/
 
Joined
Jul 21, 2011
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Nice work! I started a complete overhaul of the HUD coz I think it's pretty ugly in general; Precursors is a bit better but still a bit sega master system for my tastes. I gave it up though because I was having trouble with the transparency - looks like you know what you're doing though.
 
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See the first post for version 1.1. The crosshair is now a dot and the radio message duration is back to 8 seconds, because there were some instances of desynchronization.

I haven't yet found the time to test this, but if I like it, do I have the permission to add it to the next unofficial patch version?
 
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Oct 26, 2007
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If you mention my name, sure! And some additional testing is always welcome!

Sadly I can't do it, because the first test showed that with your mod the text ends up unreadable at lower resolutions...
 
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I decided to move your post and sticky it because I know many people will find this very useful.
 
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