Possible to change VGUI for existing game?

Grab your favourite IDE and tinker with the innards of game engines

Possible to change VGUI for existing game?

Postby JiveTofurkey on Thu Sep 12, 2013 8:24 pm

Hi all. I am at a very basic stage, just getting into Hammer. But meanwhile I have been trying to mess around with my Source games using the Oculus Rift development kit. I like the Rift. but for me, the HL VGUIs of small white text on grey are impossible to read, as is the console. So I got to thinking that maybe one could change the colors and size of the text and panels. Reading up what I could find about VGUI at Valve over the past couple of days hasn't really made it clear for me. Would I be correct in assuming that this stuff is usually handled in the SDK when a mod is made? How much of the functionality of the VGUI is coded into the game, versus residing in the resource files? Maybe I could make a mod with nothing new in it (there's a joke there!) and copy the VGUI resources over to the regular games I want to play?

I am thinking out loud here, since I am a noob. Thought maybe people could tell me if this works, if it's a crap idea, if there are other ways, etc. Hoping to avoid barking up wrong trees of re-inventing wheels unnecessarily.

Last night I did implement a few small HL2DM tweaks. At first I was boggled as to why my custom menu wasn't working, before I stumbled on the text file in the "custom" folder. So that works now. Added new startup screen. I used a font editor to make bullseye crosshairs, and changed the res to make them green - since I am usually shooting at targets against yellow or white buildings or sand. I might try making two overlapping crosshairs, to be displayed in contrasting colors, but I don't know if the game will balk at this.

As for the VGUIs, I guess I am thinking of something which fits the Rift display area of approximately 1280x800. Maybe keeping the grey background, making it opaque, losing the round corners, switching to a more squared-up font, and displaying it in larger, dark-red letters. But, like I was saying, the Valve pages give no idea how this could be done. I'll be messing around with it tonight. I'd be grateful for any ideas or insight on how this does/doesn't work.
JiveTofurkey
Dumpling
Dumpling
 
Joined: Sat Sep 07, 2013 6:15 pm

Return to Programming

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users

cron