SS2 Minimal HUD

[6648a944547eaZylonBane]

Over a decade after first threatening to do this, here it is...

System Shock 2 Minimal HUD v2
16 Mar 2020
by ZylonBane

This mod minimizes the "shoot" mode HUD as much as possible.
The "use" mode HUD is unchanged.

The mod makes the following changes:
- Changes crosshair to a small transparent dot.
- Changes enemy health bars to thin single-colored lines.
- Reduces size of targeting brackets.
- Removes background for object descriptions at top of screen.
- Removes health/psi frame and slims down bars.
- Removes weapon info frame. A transparent black background is
  retained so text is still legible against light environments.

If used with SHTUP, this should be placed at a higher priority in the mod manager.
Note that this incorporates the Minimal Health Bar mod, so you don't need to install both of them.

[6648a94454bcaCreamy]

Interesting mod. Checked it out for an hour or so. I never realized how much I used the brackets to distinguish whether or not I'm hovering over an item.

One (very) minor annoyance is that flavor text that appears at the top center of the screen isn't... well, centered for shorter description texts, as seen in the attached picture to the original post. Obviously this is no fault of the mod, but I guess isn't as noticeable with the normal box that appears. Still, this is a very clean way to play the game, and one I'm likely to use for quite a while!

[6648a94454d5cZylonBane]

The descriptive text isn't centered for anything; it's all flush left in the box that I removed. You can still see the box when hovering over things in Use mode.

Yup, the brackets are useful, but I was going for FULL MINIMALISM! with this.

[6648a94454ec2Creamy]

This is my current setup, and my preferred way of playing Shock 2 for the time being, so thanks for keeping the experience fresh! Love that minimalist approach. I've also found your no-HUD mod wonderful for capturing short videos which I've turned into a series of looping GIFs (you can check the thread out here)

EDIT: now that I look at it, I guess I don't need both audio log mods running. The autoplay one is how I prefer it.
[Capture.PNG expired]

[6648a9445501cKolya]

Some pretty loops you got there! 

[6648a94455131Creamy]

Thank you Kolya! I put all my .GIFs in a Google Drive folder for anyone to download here.

[6648a9445549fMarvin]

I wonder: Is it (easily) possible to implement Thief-style frobbin in SS2, meaning a slightly brightened overlay on a currently selected object?

[6648a94455675ZylonBane]

No. That's an engine feature. Something like that might be possible with scripting. And it's not an overlay; the object itself becomes brighter in Thief when focused.

[6648a94455c26Chandlermaki]

Interesting mod. Checked it out for an hour or so. I never realized how much I used the brackets to distinguish whether or not I'm hovering over an item.

One (very) minor annoyance is that flavor text that appears at the top center of the screen isn't... well, centered for shorter description texts, as seen in the attached picture to the original post. Obviously this is no fault of the mod, but I guess isn't as noticeable with the normal box that appears. Still, this is a very clean way to play the game, and one I'm likely to use for quite a while!

If you still want the brackets, it's easy to get them back by manually deleting all of the png files starting with "brack" inside the mod folder.

I find it to be an acceptable compromise between minimalism and functionality.


[interface_example.jpg expired]

[6648a94455d31Creamy]

That's wonderful, I think I might do just that! Appreciate it mate.

[6648a94455e2bZylonBane]

It would certainly be possible to make the corner brackets into dots, or make them transparent, etc.

[6648a94455f33ZylonBane]

Updated to v2.  Where the first version was a quick hack-and-slash job to get the HUD down to a theoretical bare minimum, this time I tried to make it look more intentionally designed. Restored the HUD brackets, and fixed/improved some antialiasing issues.

[6648a944560cdJML]

Good. The cross-hair could be a tiny bit bigger. It's quite hard to see it sometimes.

[6648a944561d6Kolya]

You could always use a cross-hair mod. Or even better: Look at it and make your own cross-hair.

[6648a944562d6ZylonBane]

If you can get a majority vote from the people who've tried this mod that the crosshair should be bigger, I'll make it bigger.

[6648a944563cbRetroshock]

This is dope, surprising how dated those HUD borders looked now that they're gone. Sweet mod 

[6648a9445676dsarge945]

This is awesome. I love how there are so many little mods coming out now to just polish the little edges of the game and modernise it a bit. It's great. It's like a ....ahem.... rebirth...... of System Shock 2

[6648a9445697dbombum]

I fixed an issue this mod had in Use Mode - BIOFULL was unaffected leading to the original cross & crescent to mesh with the new line graphics. I included an empty template file, and also an addon to use this mod with health/psi colors swapped, like I typically play.
[MinHUD - Fixed Use Mode.zip expired]
[MinHUD - PsiHealthColorSwap.zip expired]

[6648a94456e2dZylonBane]

I fixed an issue this mod had in Use Mode

This mod minimizes the "shoot" mode HUD as much as possible.
The "use" mode HUD is unchanged.

Working as designed.