Heads-up display

The player's HUD in CTF just after picking up BLU's Intelligence (playing as the Demoman).

File:HUD default minimal comparison.gif

Comparison between normal and minimal HUDs, (playing as the Scout) on a Payload map.

“

Yo, heads up! Click to listen — The Scout

”

The Heads-up display, or HUD, is a system for quickly relaying important information to the user. It is a collection of various tabs surrounding the player's view in-game. A minimal version of the default HUD can be enabled in Advanced multiplayer options. The game also allows for the addition of HUD modification files (or "custom HUDs") to suit the players' taste (see section below).

General HUD Display

Intel arrows and score

Bottom left corner

• Your health
• Your current class
• Text chat and server notifications
• Current Killstreaks, if a killstreak weapon is equipped.
• Mann Vs. Machine Mode - Your current credit total and the amount of Credits on the field.
• With Spellbook Magazine, Fancy Spellbook, or Fireproof Secret Diary equipped during a Halloween Event - Current spell equipped
• When the Wheel of Fate is active - Current effect
• When in a bumper car match - Your damage and boost gauges, in place of health

Some Halloween-specific HUD elements, showing bumper car damage/boost and any equipped spells.

Bottom center

• Capture the Flag Mode – The locations and status of the Intelligence briefcase of the BLU and RED teams (depicted by a rotating arrow, and one of three status indicators: dropped, taken, and secure) and the current score
• Control Point, Arena, Territorial Control, and King of the Hill Modes – The status of the control points on the map (untaken, neutral, capturing, or locked)
• Payload and Payload Race Modes – Progression of cart, cart idle timer, cart reverse indicator, status of checkpoints, and slopes
• Special Delivery Mode - The location, status, and current owner of the Australium briefcase
• Mann Vs. Machine Mode - The position of the bomb or bomb carrier, as well as bomb carrier buffs.
• Robot Destruction Mode - The locations and status of the Reactor Cores.

Player's HUD death icon, seen briefly in place of the health number when the player dies.

Bottom right corner

• Your Ammo (Currently loaded/total rounds carried)
• Voice chat (Displays along with the player's name in the middle right to show when they are using voice chat)
• Rechargables (Any additional Projectiles or items that recharge or charge like the Sandman or the Buff Banner)

Top of screen

• The time left in the match (accompanied by a small circular timer)
• Kill reporter (With names and kill icons showing method of death, as well as objectives completed)
• Mann Vs. Machine Mode - Robots remaining (gray bar) and current wave, as well as health of mini-bosses and tanks.
• While MONOCULUS is present - MONOCULUS' remaining health (blue bar).
• While Merasmus is present -Merasmus' remaining health (blue bar). If hiding, green bar.

Other elements

• Your crosshair – center of screen
• Inventory select menu (Displayed by pressing your weapon select key) – center right of screen
• Player name and health – displayed by directing your view onto player
• Your teammate's current equipped items (Displayed by pressing default F while looking at a teammate.) – lower right of screen (pressing F again will scroll through the list of items)
• Amount of damage dealt or healed (combat text) – above target

Scoreboard

Main article: Scoreboard

The scoreboard is a screen accessible with Tab ⇆ ( on the Xbox 360, on the PlayStation 3) or at the end of a round. It displays player information, server name, team scores, duel score (if you are running a duel), and so on. Information is given about each player including their Steam ID, what team they are on, how many points they have, and what class they are playing as (unless on the opposing team).

Class-specific elements

 Scout

• Respawn timer for the Sandman balls and Wrap Assassin baubles (slowly recharges after every launched baseball/bauble) – bottom right corner
• Recharge timer for Bonk! Atomic Punch and Crit-a-Cola drinks (slowly recharges) – bottom right corner
• Respawn timer for Mad Milk and Flying Guillotine (recharges after every toss) – bottom right corner
• Hype meter for the Soda Popper (slowly charges while moving with the Soda Popper equipped) – bottom right corner
• Boost meter for the Baby Face's Blaster (progresses with the damage inflicted by the player) - bottom right corner

 Soldier

• Rage meter for the Buff Banner, Battalion's Backup and Concheror (progresses with the damage inflicted by the player) – bottom right corner
• Banner buff's icon (appears when under effect of Buff Banner, Battalion's Backup or Concheror) – bottom left corner above player health
• Mangler meter for the Cow Mangler 5000 (shows the remaining blasts) – bottom right corner
• Bison meter for the Righteous Bison (shows the remaining projectiles) – bottom right corner
• Kills counter for the Air Strike (clip size increases on kill) - bottom right corner
• Parachute icon for the B.A.S.E. Jumper (appears when deployed) - bottom left corner above player health

 Pyro

• Mmmph meter for Phlogistinator (fills up when causing fire damage to enemies) - bottom right corner to the left of ammo display
• Number of guaranteed critical hits for the Manmelter - bottom right corner

 Demoman

Top to bottom:
 · Stickies deployed & Fire timer bar.
 · Heads taken & Loose Cannon timer bar.
 · Shield charge timer bar.

• Stickybomb charge for Stickybomb Launcher, Scottish Resistance, etc. Holding the fire key fills the charge to lengthen the stickybomb's launch distance, automatically firing a full charge is reached) – bottom right corner beneath the Ammo display
• Number of placed Stickybombs for the Stickybomb Launcher (max 8), Sticky Jumper (max 2), and Scottish Resistance (max 14) – bottom right corner
• Heads counter for the Eyelander, Horseless Headless Horsemann's Headtaker, and Nessie's Nine Iron (more heads contribute to more health and increased speed) – bottom right corner
• Fuses timer for Loose Cannon (Holding the fire key decreases the cannonball's fuses time; emptying the timer fires the weapon automatically, causing self-damage) – bottom right corner beneath the Ammo display
• Charge meter for the Chargin' Targe, Splendid Screen, and Tide Turner (slowly regenerates after every charge) – bottom right corner
• Parachute icon for the B.A.S.E. Jumper (appears when deployed) - bottom left corner above player health

 Heavy

• Recharge timer for the Sandvich, Robo-Sandvich, and Buffalo Steak Sandvich lunchbox items (slowly recharges) – bottom right corner
• Mann Vs. Machine Mode - Rage meter for upgraded primary weapons - bottom right corner

 Engineer

Engineer panel

• Metal count – bottom right corner
• Number of revenge criticals for the Frontier Justice – bottom right corner
• Engineer panel (displays information about your various buildings) – top left corner
  • Sentry Gun status (displays health, number of kills, number of assists in parenthesis, bullet ammo, rocket ammo, upgrade meter, and whether or not your turret is being sapped or is in need of repair)
  • Dispenser status (displays health, metal stock, upgrade meter, and whether or not your Dispenser is being sapped or is in need of repair)
  • Teleporter Entrance and Exit status (displays health, number of times used, upgrade meter, and whether or not your Teleporter(s) are being sapped or are in need of repair – individual panels are shown for your entrance and exit.)
  • Mann Vs. Machine Mode - Disposable Sentry Gun status (displays health and bullet ammo)
• Pomson meter for the Pomson 6000 (shows the remaining blasts) - bottom right corner

 Medic

ÜberCharge meter

Vaccinator's ÜberCharge meter

• Damage resistance for the Vaccinator – bottom left corner above player health
• ÜberCharge progress and drain meter (shows the progress of your charge when healing friendly (or enemy Spy) players and flashes when it's 100% ready – when the ÜberCharge is activated, it shows you the charge you have left before your meter resets) – bottom right corner
• Medic! calls – shown above any nearby friendly (or enemy Spy) players that call for medical assistance
• Auto-Medic! calls have a slightly different appearance than those invoked by players themselves, but serve the same general purpose. In the Advanced Options menu, the user can set the percent threshold of health points at which other players will automatically emit these beacons

 Sniper

• Shot charge (charges when scoped, and amount of charge determines the damage output of your shot) – right of your crosshair when scoped with the Sniper Rifle, Sydney Sleeper, Bazaar Bargain, Machina, Hitman's Heatmaker or underneath ammo count with the Huntsman
• Jarate respawn timer (slowly recharges after every toss) – bottom right corner
• Headshots counter for the Bazaar Bargain (more headshots contribute to faster zoomed shot charge time) – bottom right corner
• Focus meter for the Hitman's Heatmaker (charges after every kill or assist) - bottom right corner

 Spy

A player disguised as a Demoman with the Loose Cannon.

• Current disguise – bottom left corner appearing over your own class picture
• Cloak drain and regen charge for the Invisibility Watch, Cloak and Dagger, Dead Ringer, Enthusiast's Timepiece and Quäckenbirdt – bottom right corner
• Recharge status for the Spy-cicle - bottom right corner, to the left of Cloak meter
• Cloaking visibility (The translucency of class and disguise picture changes to reflect this)
• The health of currently sapped buildings – top left corner
• Number of guaranteed critical hits for the Diamondback – bottom right corner
• Mann Vs. Machine Mode - Recharge status for Sapper and Red-Tape Recorder - bottom right corner

3D Character HUD

An example of a player's loadout in the on the 3D character

The HUD is able to show the player's current class as a 3D animated image beside their health bar if they choose to enable it. This shows what the player is currently wearing and the item currently held. This adds a benefit for Spies because a disguised Spy can see what the player they are disguised as looks like, making it easier for them to identify who they are disguised as or to avoid certain identifying items, such as the Hotrod.

HUD modification

Team Fortress 2 allows players to modify their HUD from the default layout. Many community members have made modifications that are shared with the public. Reasons for using custom HUDs vary widely, but most agree that they are primarily to improve visibility of important information, e.g. health, ammo, Damage Text, or ÜberCharge meters, and move non-vital HUD panels aside. Most custom HUDs only modify the game visually and do not provide any added functionality to the game. Custom HUDs can also be used on servers with an sv_pure setting.

• Note: Custom HUD modifications will often break after major game updates, and for that reason are disabled when you next launch the game. If your current HUD is not displaying properly, check the website of your custom HUD for an update.

Installation

Each custom HUD contains different files and their correct destination may vary (see their individual documentation for exact locations). However, custom HUD modifications generally only modify files in two folders:

• /tf/resource
• /tf/scripts

After placing all files in their correct destinations, use hud_reloadscheme or restart the game and play with your new HUD.

Often after using hud_reloadscheme when replacing or copying files from /tf/resource the hud will bug out and display fonts and other items incorrectly, requiring a restart.

Update history

September 20, 2007 Patch

• Fixed crash on opening the scoreboard after having changed between windowed and fullscreen.

October 2, 2007 Patch

• Added "Minimal HUD" option to Options->Multiplayer.

October 8, 2007 Patch

• Team Goals panels stop appearing after you've played a map several times.

October 25, 2007 Patch

• Deathcam screenshots now move the player id panel to the lower right, and hide other hud elements until the freezecam fades.
• Fixed scoreboard team scores label getting cut off.

November 7, 2007 Patch

• Freeze panel HUD improvements now trigger on usage of the "jpeg" command.

November 15, 2007 Patch

• Fixed a bug that would cause NULLNAME to be shown as the player's name in the scoreboard for a short time.

November 21, 2007 Patch

• Pass over spectator UI and scoreboard in SourceTV mode, disabled/changed some VGUI elements.

December 20, 2007 Patch

• Prevented players from hiding their name in the scoreboard.
• Tweaked achievement HUD fonts and color palette for more readability.

February 14, 2008 Patch

• Added a timer to the HUD to show the value of mp_timelimit. This is useful if you're playing a timed match on 2Fort, where you only set a time-limit on the server and no other win conditions.

March 6, 2008 Patch

• Fixed Setup timer not showing the correct percentage in the circular progress bar.

May 27, 2010 Patch

• Fixed the desktop resolution not appearing in the list of valid resolutions when using windowed-mode.

June 11, 2010 Patch

• Made the training HUD code more robust, so it doesn't crash if the client has modified HUD resource files.
• Fixed a potential crash in the HUD during startup.
• Disabled quickswitch UI in training to reduce confusion.

September 30, 2010 Patch (Mann-Conomy Update)

• [Undocumented] A green number now shows up by your health bar when you pick up health, similar to when hitting enemies with the Blutsauger.

February 3, 2011 Patch

• Fixed seeing a partial health bar in the upper left corner of the spectator menu.
• Fixed the control point progress bar not being aligned properly when using cl_hud_minmode 1.
• Changed default crosshair to be more opaque, like the custom crosshairs.
• Tournament mode HUD fixes
  • Fixed seeing an empty alert tray under the stopwatch timer.
  • Fixed a bug where the time for the tournament mode stopwatch wasn't being displayed.
  • Fixed the countdown when both teams are ready always reading "0 seconds".

March 11, 2011 Patch

• Fixed the decapitation counters not being displayed for some weapons.
• Fixed the revenge crit label not being localized correctly.

April 20, 2011 Patch

• Fixed class names/descriptions not showing up on the class menu.

September 2, 2011 Patch

• Added a checkbox to the Advanced Options dialog that will hide the HUD during freezecam screenshots.

February 2, 2012 Patch

• Added "DamagedPlayer" animation event for the HUD, fired when the local player damages other players.

March 8, 2012 Patch

• Added hud_fastswitch to the Advanced Options dialog.

November 29, 2012 Patch

• Fixed some HUD clipping issues when using cl_hud_minmode.
• Fixed missing materials in the control point HUD on attack/defend maps.

December 21, 2012 Patch

• Fixed a client crash in the Medi Gun charge meter when using a custom HUD.

February 14, 2013 Patch

• Fixed a client crash related to the HUD control point maps.

February 28, 2013 Patch

• Updated a couple HUD panels to support team scores with more than two digits.

March 19, 2013 Patch

• Fixed a scoreboard bug where domination count was reduced by 2 when a dominated player left the server.

May 13, 2013 Patch

• Updated the Linux version
  • Made loading custom fonts for third party HUDs work on certain fonts.

June 6, 2013 Patch

• Fixed a client crash caused by using custom HUD files.

August 27, 2013 Patch

• The in-game player status panel has been updated to show an animated image of your character with their current loadout.

August 27, 2013 Patch #2

• Fixed a client crash caused by using custom HUD files.

August 28, 2013 Patch

• Fixed the HUD 3D Character causing other HUD items to sometimes disappear.
• Fixed a client HUD crash when Spies disguise as class that has a non-active weapon like the Chargin' Targe.

September 3, 2013 Patch

• Fixed seeing stretched polygons in the HUD 3D Character.

October 10, 2013 Patch

• Fixed the Sandvich meter being drawn in the HUD when the Sandvich is not equipped.

April 1, 2014 Patch

• Fixed the Huntsman charge bar being misaligned.

June 11, 2014 Patch #1

• [Undocumented] Added teleport location HUD for Eureka Effect.
• [Undocumented] Added localization strings for a currently unused taunt slot and in-game taunt HUD.
• [Undocumented] Added a white line above the names of buildings on the Construction PDA menus.
• [Undocumented] Modified the Disguise Kit menu. It now has a Spy Mask icon in the upper-left corner and a white line above the class portraits.

June 11, 2014 Patch #2

• Fixed the Engineer's build menu staying open after changing class.
• Updated the materials for The Eureka Effect HUD to support mat_picmip.

June 12, 2014 Patch

• Fixed a client crash related to the HUD weapon selection menu.

June 18, 2014 Patch (Love & War Update)

• Pressing the taunt key (default: G) in game now brings up the taunt selection menu.

July 8, 2014 Patch

• [Undocumented] Added HUD for Robot Destruction gamemode.

July 17, 2014 Patch

• The HUD for Robot Destruction gamemode has been reworked.
  • Inverted the layout to better represent the layout of the level.
  • Added progress bars to represent each team's score.
  • Potential point gains from stolen reactor cores are now visually represented on the score progress bars.
  • Thief icon now moves across the score board relative to the thief's position in the level.
  • Updated thief icon to represent both the color of the power core stolen and the color of the thief's team.
• Added strings to the win panel that explain why the team won.

July 24, 2014 Patch

• Updated HUD layout for Robot Destruction gamemode.

Fixed a client crash caused by using custom HUD files

• Fixed a client crash related to the CTF HUD.
• Fixed the CTF HUD not updating properly.

November 10, 2014 Patch

• Fixed a client crash caused by using custom HUD files.

January 9, 2015 Patch

• Fixed the grappling hook using the wrong icon in the HUD weapon selection menu.

January 15, 2015 Patch #1

• Fixed an exploit related to the Sniper's scope HUD panel.

March 12, 2015 Patch

• Fixed the Killstreak icon not being positioned correctly in the HUD targetID panel.

December 18, 2015 Patch

• Fixed a client crash related to the HUD.

January 7, 2016 Patch

• Fixed objective names in deathnotice HUD using white text when the local player was involved.

March 28, 2018 Patch #1

• Fixed the Overtime label not being centered under the team status HUD.
• Updated the team status HUD to be enabled by default when playing on Community servers (for game modes other than Mann vs. Machine).
  • Can be toggled via the Adv. Options menu.

Bugs

• After a team switch, the HUD tabs may appear incorrectly colored, with a player on BLU having a RED HUD (but not vice-versa). This can be fixed by opening and closing the Advanced Options or by the console command hud_reloadscheme.
  • A similar bug can occur with the buildings panel, in which the panels of buildings left at the end of the previous round do not get greyed out after a team switch. Bringing out the relevant building's blueprint fixes this.
• The HUD may load incorrectly if the game window isn't in focus when the map is loaded. The console command hud_reloadscheme can be used to fix this.
• Inspecting another friendly player can occasionally cause the bottom right corner of the HUD to disappear after no longer inspecting them. This can be fixed by inspecting a player again.
• Changing loadout from Chargin' Targe or Splendid Screen to Stickybomb Launcher, Scottish Resistance, Sticky Jumper or using the command hud_reloadscheme may result in the HUD displaying "%A" or a blank instead of the number of stickies. This is fixed by dying or placing new stickies.
• When choosing another class and respawning, you will shortly see a red Scout on your HUD, and "%HEALTH" instead of your current health.
• The "Overtime" text can conflict with the text showing server time remaining, should the option be enabled.
• When the "Use player model in class HUD" option is in use:
  • The 3D HUD icon will display your selected loadout rather than your current loadout, which can lead to inconsistencies if you have not yet respawned or visited a resupply locker.
  • Some items that affect the appearance of the character while inactive, such as the Buff Banner and Battalion's Backup backpacks, will not display unless they are active.
  • Dying holding one weapon and respawning holding another may cause the display to continue showing the first weapon until any weapon switch is made.
  • Destruction PDA uses Wrangler animations.
  • Short Circuit does not hide the right hand bodygroup.
  • Disguised Spies who change their disguise weapon to a default Shotgun will not see the HUD update.
  • Disguised Spies may see a taunt animation instead of their selected disguise weapon in some cases (an example of this is with the Chargin' Targe). The animation will loop and play any associated sounds.

See also

• Main menu
• System messages
• Mechanics
• Health
• Ammo

External links

• Flame's HUD Guide (PDF) – a starter's guide to modifying the HUD.