Heads-up display

Player's HUD in CTF while holding Blu's intelligence (playing as the Demoman)

File:HUD-default-minimal-comparison-small.gif

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

The Head-up display, or HUD, is a system for quickly relaying important information to the user. It appears as 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 player's taste (see section below).

General HUD Display

Intel arrows and score

Bottom left corner

• Your Health
• Your current class
• Text chat and server notifications

Bottom center

• Capture the Flag mode – The locations and status of the Intelligence briefcase of BLU and RED (depicted by a rotating arrow, and one of three status indicators: dropped, taken and secure) and the current score
• Control Point, Arena, Territorial Control, King of the Hill modes – The status of the Capture 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 (Payload Race only)

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 a player's name in the middle right to show when they are using voice chat)

Top of screen

• The time left in the match (accompanied by a pie chart)
• Kill reporter (with names and kill icons showing method of death as well as objectives completed)

Other elements

• Your crosshair – center of screen
• Inventory select menu (displayed by pressing your weapon select key) – center right of screen
• Your teammate's player name and health – displayed by directing your view onto player

Scoreboard

Scoreboard

The scoreboard is a screen accessible with the tab button or at the end of a round. It displays player information, server name, team scores, 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.

Team Information

• Team names (RED & BLU by default)
• Number of points each team has
• Number of players on each team

Server Information

• Server name – top left
• Map time left – top right
• Spectators – lower left
• Map name/Gamemode – bottom right

Player Information

• Friend icon (for Steam friends only)
• Steam avatar
• Player name
• Number of dominations
• The player's class (Only applies to teammates)
• Domination target if you are dominating a player
• Player score
• A user's Template:W. If the player is a bot, it will display the word BOT in place of a ping number

Personal Statistics

• A photo of your current class
• Your player name
• Total points
• Various gameplay stats

Class-specific elements

Scout

• Baseball respawn timer for Sandman (slowly recharges after every launched baseball) – bottom right corner
• Recharge timer for Bonk! Atomic Punch or Crit-a-Cola drinks (slowly recharges) – bottom right corner
• Mad Milk respawn timer (slowly recharges after every toss) – bottom right corner

Soldier

• Rage meter for Buff Banner (progresses with the damage inflicted by the player) – bottom right corner
• Rage meter for Battalion's Backup (progresses with the damage inflicted to the player) – bottom right corner

Demoman

Top: The number of currently placed Sticky bombs and charge
Bottom: Number of heads and charge meter for Chargin' Targe

• Sticky bomb charge for Stickybomb Launcher and Scottish Resistance (fills up the longer you hold the fire button to determine the its launch distance. When full charge is reached it will fire automatically) – bottom right corner beneath your ammo display
• Currently placed Sticky bombs for Stickybomb Launcher (max 8) and Scottish Resistance (max 14) – bottom right corner
• Charge meter for Chargin' Targe (slowly regenerates after every charge) – bottom right corner
• Heads counter for Eyelander (more heads contribute to more health and increased speed) – bottom right corner

Heavy

• Recharge timer for Sandvich, Dalokohs Bar or Buffalo Steak Sandvich lunchboxes (slowly recharges) – 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. There are individual panels for your entrance and exit)

Medic

ÜberCharge meter

• ÜberCharge progress/drain meter for Medi Gun, Kritzkrieg or Übersaw (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.

Sniper

• Shot charge (charges when scoped, amount of charge determines the damage output of your shot) – right of your crosshair when scoped with Sniper Rifle or underneath ammo count with Huntsman
• Jarate respawn timer (slowly recharges after every toss) – bottom right corner

Spy

Player disguised as a Demoman with a Grenade launcher

• Your current Disguise – bottom left corner appearing over your own class picture
• Your Cloak drain/regen charge for Invisibility Watch, Cloak and Dagger or Dead Ringer – bottom right corner
• Your cloaking visibility (the translucency of your class/disguise picture changes to reflect this)
• The health of currently sapped buildings. – top left corner

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 or ÜberCharge meters) and move non-vital HUD panels aside. Which custom HUD you choose or choose not to use is all up to personal preference; there is no one HUD that is "better" than another, though many would disagree. Custom HUDs can also be used on servers with an sv_pure setting.

• Note: Custom HUD modifications will often break after game updates. If your current HUD is not displaying properly, check the website of your custom HUD for an update, or delete the custom HUD files and restart your game to use the default HUD.

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, restart the game and play with your new HUD.

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

• Freezepanel 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

External links

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

Popular custom HUDs

• Flame's Community HUD: Official site – Screenshots – Download
• BroeselHUD (updated m0reHUD): Official site – Screenshots – Download
• G-Mang HUD: Official site – Screenshots – Download
• Revan XP HUD: Official site – Screenshots – Download
• Oxide HUD: Official site – Screenshots – Download
• A Toasty HUD: Official site – Screenshots – Download
• FrankenHUD: Official site – Screenshots – Download