Custom Single and Multi-Screen Reticles

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DemonicSandwich
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Custom Single and Multi-Screen Reticles

Post by DemonicSandwich »

Custom Single and Multi-Screen Reticles
When I say "Single and Multi-Screen", I am referring to reticles that are normal sized on single-player screens and half-size on split and quad-screen.
Another advantage is that you can re-inject new HUD reticle bitmaps if necessary.

Items Required:
  • Any version of Entity (1.3 will be used in this tutorial)
  • Notepad, Wordpad, or other word processor to copy down values.
  • The Custom [bitm] tag I have supplied
  • An image editor like Photoshop
  • NVIDIA DDS plugins (Photoshop users only)
Tutorial Items.rar
All the items pertaining to this tutorial including the custom [bitm] tag, patch for the used map, and the DDS format reticles used.
(72.48 KiB) Downloaded 480 times
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Stage 1) The Bitmap Tag and HUD Links
Most of the bitmaps for the HUD can be either DXT 2/3 or DXT 4/5.
Since the 4/5 format has a more detailed alpha channel, that is the one that I used for the custom bitmap tag.
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Transfer the custom [bitm] i have supplied into your map. It goes by the tag name of ui\hud\bitmaps\new_hud\crosshairs\Sandwich_reticles.
Now go down to the [nhdt] tag list and select the HUD you want the new reticles for and open it in the meta editor. In my case it is the Plasma Pistol.
Scroll through the chunks untill you find the "crosshair" chunk. Once found, scroll down a little till you find the "bitmap" Ident.

Image Image
Change the "bitmap" Ident to ui\hud\bitmaps\new_hud\crosshairs\Sandwich_reticles.
Change the Fullscreen Sequence to 0 and the Halfscreen and Quarterscreen to 1.

Now repeat the process above on the "crosshair_friend" chunk.
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Optional:
I also intend to have custom reticles for the Plasma Lockon of the Plasma Pistol.
So I will also setup the "crosshair_plasma_tracking" the same way as above except I used 2 and 3 for the Sequence values.
Image Image
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Test 1) Viewing for Testing and Size Reference
Load up your map to see the bitmaps at work with both Single and Multi-Screen.
Image Image
I also setup the plasma lockon bitmaps.
Image Image
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Stage 2) Making and prepping the Reticle bitmaps
The purpose of Test 1) about was to let you get a sense of how big the bitmap is so you can design one to accurate size.
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Go back up to the ui\hud\bitmaps\new_hud\crosshairs\Sandwich_reticles tag and extract the DDS and open it in your choice of editor (Mine being Photoshop CS2).

Now take a look at the DDS I had you extract. First thing you will notice is that the Red, Blue, and Green channels are solid white.
The HUD will only be looking for the alpha channel so leave those color channels solid white, the alpha is what's needed to be edited. So make the reticle completely in the alpha channel.
Image

Once you have finishedsave it as a DDS file with DXT 5 format and no mipmaps just like the example below.
Image Image

Making a Multi-Screen version of your reticle is simple, just scale you image 50% but maintain the image size of 128x128.
Save it with the same format setting as above but with a different file name.
Image
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Here is my reticle I made for this tutorial. Both single and multi-screen and the corresponding lock-on versions.
Image Image Image Image
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Stage 3) The Reticle Bitmap Injection
Open your map up in Entity, goto the [bitm] tag list and open ui\hud\bitmaps\new_hud\crosshairs\Sandwich_reticles in the meta editor. Since we set submap #0 to be the Full screen reticle, you can just inject the Full Screen reticle now. Then reload the bitmap tag by selecting another tag and selecting our tag again.
Image

Now scroll down to the "Bitmap Data" reflexive, while still in chunk 0, copy down the "LOD1 Offset" and paste it into Notepad.
Now scroll to chunk 1 and copy its "LOD1 Offset" value, scroll back to chunk 0 and paste over the LOD value there. Save and reload the bitmap tag.
Now the second submap bitmap should be showing as default.
Now inject your Multi_Screen bitmap. Reload the bitmap tag.
Image Image Image Image

Go back to the "Bitmap Data" reflexive. Copy that value you saved in Notepad and paste it over the "LOD1 Offset" value in chunk 0. Save and reload the tag once more.
Image Image
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Open the bitmap in Entity's bitmap viewer and scroll through the submaps to see if you where successful.
Since I also wanted the Plasma Lock-on reticles, I injected those into submaps 2 and 3.
Image Image Image Image
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Finished
I know this was incredibly long and the reticle is rather large but if you followed this as you're supposed to, you should have what it looks like below.

Also please note that you may need to edit the reticle screen location to accommodate different designs. Mine in particular needs to me moved down.
Besides, the reticle can be shrunk down and re-injected anyway. :wink:

If you need more than 4 bitmap slots, just clone the [bitm] tag.
Image
Image
ImageImage
ImageImage
Tutorial Items.rar
All the items pertaining to this tutorial including the custom [bitm] tag, patch for the used map, and the DDS format reticles used.
(72.48 KiB) Downloaded 480 times
Model Customization Pt.01|Model Customization Pt.02|Bipd Attachments|True Marker Rotations
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NotZachary82
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Re: Custom Single and Multi-Screen Reticles

Post by NotZachary82 »

Handy. :)
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Dragonfire
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Re: Custom Single and Multi-Screen Reticles

Post by Dragonfire »

Cool, i like how u used that reticle for the example 8-)
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xxpenguinxx
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Re: Custom Single and Multi-Screen Reticles

Post by xxpenguinxx »

I think it would save some time using dothalo to inject instead of entity. Anyway nice tut. Seems modding has gone from machine built maps to custom HUD and "square" maps.
DemonicSandwich wrote:See that? You see that how it is highlighted down here but it's not highlighted right there? Ah, I guess that's what I get for pirating it.
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DemonicSandwich
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Re: Custom Single and Multi-Screen Reticles

Post by DemonicSandwich »

xxpenguinxx wrote:I think it would save some time using dothalo to inject instead of entity.
DotHalo kills map when you inject into submaps.
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xxpenguinxx
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Re: Custom Single and Multi-Screen Reticles

Post by xxpenguinxx »

DemonicSandwich wrote:
xxpenguinxx wrote:I think it would save some time using dothalo to inject instead of entity.
DotHalo kills map when you inject into submaps.
Hmm, rarely does it to me but then again I was injecting into already internal bitmaps.
DemonicSandwich wrote:See that? You see that how it is highlighted down here but it's not highlighted right there? Ah, I guess that's what I get for pirating it.
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DemonicSandwich
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Re: Custom Single and Multi-Screen Reticles

Post by DemonicSandwich »

xxpenguinxx wrote:Hmm, rarely does it to me but then again I was injecting into already internal bitmaps.
It's not weather or not they are internal, it's when you inject into any submaps other than submap #0 that DotHalo "gets hungry".
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Aumaan Anubis
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Re: Custom Single and Multi-Screen Reticles

Post by Aumaan Anubis »

Sweet tutorial, looks complicated :P
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DemonicSandwich
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Re: Custom Single and Multi-Screen Reticles

Post by DemonicSandwich »

Aumaan Anubis wrote:Sweet tutorial, looks complicated :P
No, it's just very detailed with proof of every step.
Once you do it one time the next time is a breeze. :wink:
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Re: Custom Single and Multi-Screen Reticles

Post by DoorM4n »

Wow, I never saw this but...DAMN!
Nice, nice job.
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Re: Custom Single and Multi-Screen Reticles

Post by socrates »

submap? meaning more than one image in a bitmap?
i was wondering how to do that i noticed that it messed up the map in dothalo if i did it (took a while to figure out what caused it cuz i had done a few things to the map)
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DemonicSandwich
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Re: Custom Single and Multi-Screen Reticles

Post by DemonicSandwich »

socrates wrote:submap? meaning more than one image in a bitmap?
i was wondering how to do that i noticed that it messed up the map in dothalo if i did it (took a while to figure out what caused it cuz i had done a few things to the map)
Stage three can be done via Ch2r v0.9.3 rather than Entity and the offset swap. The offset swap was only used because at the time CH2R did not work on my PC.
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