Changing Font In Steam
Clashen
Join Date: 2003-08-22 Member: 20087Members
Join Date: 2003-08-22 Member: 20087Members
<div class="IPBDescription">A small guide on about changing font.</div> Okey here comes a little guide about how you change font, it affects all HL mods you are playing over Steam. Only change is the size and the looks of the chatfont. You have to excuse my crappy english cus im from Sweden <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
You do this on your own risk <!--emo&::marine::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/marine.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='marine.gif'><!--endemo-->
This dont work with the original skin but the grey that comes with work fine.
Then you open your steam folder, then you go in to <i><b>Steam/skins/grey*/resource</b></i>
*if you use another skin go inte that folder instead.
In there it is a file called "TrackerScheme", back that up first, then you open it with notepad (anteckningar f?r svenska anv?ndare), Scroll down to "Engine Fonts"
There you can change the font and the size in all resolutions. I use the font Arial and on "tall" i use 12. Change to what suits you best.
This is how it looks for me, i use Arial and number 12 on "tall". I have changed this on all resolutions as you can se here on the pic below.
Then you just restart Steam and go out to grab som marines <!--emo&::nerdy::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/nerd.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='nerd.gif'><!--endemo-->
You do this on your own risk <!--emo&::marine::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/marine.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='marine.gif'><!--endemo-->
This dont work with the original skin but the grey that comes with work fine.
Then you open your steam folder, then you go in to <i><b>Steam/skins/grey*/resource</b></i>
*if you use another skin go inte that folder instead.
In there it is a file called "TrackerScheme", back that up first, then you open it with notepad (anteckningar f?r svenska anv?ndare), Scroll down to "Engine Fonts"
There you can change the font and the size in all resolutions. I use the font Arial and on "tall" i use 12. Change to what suits you best.
This is how it looks for me, i use Arial and number 12 on "tall". I have changed this on all resolutions as you can se here on the pic below.
Then you just restart Steam and go out to grab som marines <!--emo&::nerdy::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/nerd.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='nerd.gif'><!--endemo-->
Comments
Thank you, thank you <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Finnaly I can get rid of that big ugly font in steam
Yea yea, I can't type/speak swedish well! But i'm learning <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Men jag tycker om den default font <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> .
Yea yea, I can't type/speak swedish well! But i'm learning <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
That was pretty good <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
<a href='http://www.enervated.com/csfont.html' target='_blank'>Heres</a> another guide.. made for cs 1.6 but if you got some brains you can use it to fix the other mods fonts too...
As for the topic, thanks man, this is a serious help! I can finally get rid of that lame font <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Also, I thought I was the only one who used "Lucida Console" in notepad o.o
hehe
Thxs ahead of time,
Pz out.
Eng: Hi! I'm the best person in the hole wide world! <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Gogogo Flat Brush Bold and Tahoma! <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Thanks <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
J/K
Very useful thread, thx.
Here's the results of my efforts so far:
Pop-up menus, Location names, player names, MOTD messages and Helptext messages all reference their font from your skin's TrackerScheme.res. You can find the specific font at the end of the fonts section, it's called "Legacy_CreditsFont".
By default it's set to not scale with the resolution, and so looks like this:
<!--c1--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>CODE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='CODE'><!--ec1--> "Legacy_CreditsFont" // Added to accomodate 3rd party server plugins, etc. This version should not scale.
{
"1"
{
"name" "Trebuchet MS"
"tall" "20"
"weight" "700"
"antialias" "1"
"yres" "1 10000"
}
"2"
{
"name" "Arial"
"tall" "20"
"weight" "600"
"dropshadow" "1"
}
}<!--c2--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--ec2-->
The font is read from option "1". Any changes affect all resolutions.
After editing it to this:
<!--c1--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>CODE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='CODE'><!--ec1--> "Legacy_CreditsFont" // Added to accomodate 3rd party server plugins, etc. This version should not scale.
{
"1"
{
"name" "Trebuchet MS"
"tall" "18
"weight" "500"
"range" "0x0000 0x017F" // Basic Latin, Latin-1 Supplement, Latin Extended-A
"antialias" "1"
"yres" "480 599"
}
"2"
{
"name" "Trebuchet MS"
"tall" "18"
"weight" "500"
"range" "0x0000 0x017F" // Basic Latin, Latin-1 Supplement, Latin Extended-A
"antialias" "1"
"yres" "600 767"
}
"3"
{
"name" "Trebuchet MS"
"tall" "20"
"weight" "700"
"range" "0x0000 0x017F" // Basic Latin, Latin-1 Supplement, Latin Extended-A
"antialias" "1"
"yres" "1 10000"
}
"4"
{
"name" "Arial"
"tall" "20"
"range" "0x0000 0x00FF"
"weight" "600"
"dropshadow" "1"
}
}<!--c2--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--ec2-->
I found that I could edit the font settings for the resolutions 640x480 and 800x600 separately, and all other resolutions would grab their default setting from the third item in the list. I tested this by giving each resolution a completely different font face (ie flat brush, comic sans ms, tahoma, etc", and noticing that the fact face did infact completely change each time I switched resolutions.
I've also found that certain combinations of settings work better than others. The best setting for the marine menu so far I've found for 640x480 is
<!--c1--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>CODE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='CODE'><!--ec1--> "1"
{
"name" "Trebuchet MS"
"tall" "18
"weight" "700"
"range" "0x0000 0x017F" // Basic Latin, Latin-1 Supplement, Latin Extended-A
"antialias" "1"
"yres" "480 599"
}<!--c2--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--ec2-->
Most of the marine menu shows up, with the occasional missing character and around 3 of the options completely blurred while the rest display correctly. Unfortunately this doesn't work for any of the other resolutions anywhere as well...
This is when I started attempting to set individual sizes for each font, but the possibilities are just endless, and surprisingly enough making the font really small just makes things even worse. I've also found that some combinations of settings result in random letters not displaying on the HUD. For instance every H, A, c and x might be missing, and any help text, location name, menu item or alien hivesight marker that tries to use this letter will simply have a blank space where the letter should be. I haven't worked out the pattern to this bug either.
I welcome you all to try and find your own "ideal" font settings per resolution, so that we can compile a list of fonts that do work and work them into the one trackerscheme.res. To assist you, here as the definitions of each of the settings to the best of my knowledge. These are my educated guesses from trial and error experimentation over the past half a day, and while my definitions seem to work, that by no means guaruntees their accuracy. So feel free to reach your own conclusions about them, and if you come up with a better idea please post it so we can all learn from it.
<b>"Name of font group"</b> - The overall font the engine looks for. For instance "EngineFont" is used by the game to display player text messages. The game first finds this section, and then looks inside it to see exactly which font it should use for it's current resolution to display player text messages.
{
<b>"# Priority of font setting"</b> - Tells the game in which order to review each font setting, with #1 being the most important. If two or more font settings have the same number they are both ignored. If the game finds two or more font settings that could apply to the current resolution, it attempts to use the one with the smallest number.
{
<b>"name"</b> - The name of the font you wish to use, must be a font in your Windows\Fonts directory (with styles after). eg "Comic Sans MS" could be written as "Comic Sans MS bold" if you wanted the bold version.
<b>"tall"</b> - The point size of the font. eg "18"
<b>"weight"</b> - Seems to specifcy thickness... A weight of 0 makes the lines of the letters very thin. A weight of 700 and it looks like some form of super bold...
<b>"range"</b> - Seems to specify the allowable characters from that font. The skin I'm editing put these range values in, and I simply haven't touched them.
<b>"antialias"</b> - Sounds pretty self explanitory, but I haven't tested it yet.
<b>"yres"</b> - Specifies what ranges of resolutions will use this font. Any resolution covered by more than two font settings will choose from the top one in the list. So in my modified Legacy_CreditsFont when I choose a 640x480 resolution, the game sees that it can either use font settings #1 or font setting #3 (since yres says that they both apply to that particular resolution). The game will try to load #1 first since it appears first in the list. If it can't (ie the specified fontface doesnt exist), it will then attempt to load #3 instead. I'm not sure what setting #4 is for. I simply left it alone and kept it at the bottom of my list, no matter how many other resolutions I added.
}
}
If I leave all the textscheme text files from won-ns in my steamed-ns folder, but I remove the fonts from gfx\vgui\fonts folder, I will receive console errors about missing fonts. This means that steamed-ns is still parsing those text files and reading the custom fonts, it's just deciding not to use them. Perhaps there is a way to force steam to use the custom fonts instead of reading the fonts from the currently applied skin?
There was another fix for something else that I downloaded, that added a resource folder to my steamed-ns directory. In this folder was another folder with the old ns backdrop (to replace gordon's ugly mug showing up every time I ran steamed-NS), and also a gamemenu.res file. This file commented out the options to start a new single player game, so that the option wouldn't appear when I ran NS. I then thought that perhaps this was where custom mod content went, so I tried copying over TrackerScheme.res into the resource folder and editing just that, to no effect.
So while a file called trackerscheme.res inside the resource dir is ignored by the game engine, I'm still certain that there must be SOMETHING we can put in that folder to specify custom NS only fonts... What though, still eludes me...
EDIT: By the way I did try opening up the textscheme text files, and trying to convert the scheme names into the steam format...
In other words I tried creating a new "Name of font group" called "PieMenuScheme" (the name of the won-ns textscheme for the marine popup menu), however steam just completely ignored it, no matter how order I rearranged the groups (ie triying to put "PieMenuScheme" before or after "Legacy_CreditsFont" made no difference). It's not that steam is taking the font for all these various items from the last thing it finds in the font list, it is infact actively searching for "Legacy_CreditsFont" and using the font settings specified within...
Why it's doing this I've yet to figure out though...
I'm going to be tackling this issue this coming week, as I try to fix all the things that no longer work right in NS under Steam. If you learn anything else, please post it here, and I'll do the same.
This is most easily seen in the status bar at the top of every marine's screen (showing team resources and the current commander), along with the commander's status bar (showing team resources and the logout button). I'm guessing the names for these two schemes would be MarineStatusScheme and CommanderStatusScheme (as read from the xxxx_textscheme files, but I haven't tested to see if this is true yet). I'm not entirely certain yet, but the names on the scoreboard also seem to still read their values from the textscheme files (while the scoreboard title doesn't seem to). My choices of fonts and resolutions in my most recent test made a lot of the text hard to read and so trying to figure out which font was used where (so I could then see which file the font was being read from) got a tad tough. Anyways, onto the results so far...
Looking at only the MarineStatusScheme for now, when deciding what font to display for any text using this scheme at a 800x600 resolution, it seems to go through the following steps:
1) Reads 800_textscheme.txt
2) If it finds a corresponding bitmap font in the vgui\fonts folder, it will still use that font correctly.
3) If the corresponding bitmap font can't be found, it uses all the font settings defined in 800_textscheme.txt
4) If 800_textscheme.txt can't be found, it uses the font settings defined by your currently applied skin (under default, not enginefont, I think).
So if for instance I have the 800_textscheme.txt file stating that MarineStatusScheme should be displayed with a Flat Brush font, and 800_MarineStatusScheme.tga exists in my vgui\fonts folder, then it will simply display 800_MarineStatusScheme.tga as my font, and the Marine Status bar at the top of my screen will look exactly like it used to in won-ns.
If I then delete 800_MarineStatusScheme.tga, then it seems that the status bar is displayed using the Flat Brush font (unfortunately the font point size I specified was too small and so I can't be 100% certain of this). If I delete 800_textscheme.txt then ns looks to my current skin's trackerscheme.res for the default font to use. Also note that even if 800_MarineStatusScheme.tga is present in my vgui\fonts folder, it wont be used unless 800_textscheme.txt is also present in my root ns folder...
Atleast we now know for certain that some custom NS fonts are still functioning in steam. And if some work, then potentially they could all work. It'd just be a matter of examining why one works and the other doesn't.... I'm not familiar with programming in general, so I don't know how or why won-hl chooses which fonts to use when and where. I'm going to keep at it though, and I'll post anything thing else I come across here.
Hope this helps.
I hope that we find the solution of the popupproblem <!--emo&::marine::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/marine.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='marine.gif'><!--endemo-->
Anyways, I can definately confirm that the schemes "MarineStatusScheme", "CommanderStatusScheme", "Score Board Title Text", "Score Board Small Text" and "Score Board Tiny Text" are all still working 100% in steamed-ns. Editing those schemes or their bitmap font files will produce exactly the same results as in won-ns.
I've noticed that "PieMenuScheme" still reacts to the scheme settings. I'm just not entirely sure how yet... What leads me to believe this is when I changed the "FontName", and removed 800_PieMenuScheme.tga from the vgui\fonts folder, then all the text in pie menu got horribly off centre, and even the funny little blurs were off centre too. I then put everything back to default and tried changing "FontSize", and to my surprise it changed the size of the pie menu itself. The actual words on the pie menu remained unchanged, but the blue boxes got MUCH bigger when I upped the font size for PieMenuScheme....
<a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=1&t=48978' target='_blank'>http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/in...=ST&f=1&t=48978</a>
"After reading that forum post it seems you have worked out the format of defining fonts in the trackerscheme.res. You need to edit ClientScheme.res and put it in the ns\resource folder and then the
engine will use it."
If you end up by fixing this stuff Revenge, please post your work here and I'll include it ASAP.
/me bangs head on wall and goes back to editing clientscheme
<b>EDIT: Nevermind, it's fixed already!</b>
I did manage to finish downloading OWing last night (just in the nick of time too), and I have to say I'm quite impressed with both steam's flexbility towards mods and the OWing dev team's ability to figure out how the file structure works.
What interested me is that Steamed-Owing didn't need any textscheme files for its custom fonts, making me think that it could (and probably should) be the same for NS. I'm gonna set about converting the fonts that I know were carried over correctly from won to steam (ie scoreboard + marine & comm status schemes) from the textscheme files into the clientscheme.res file, however until I get my ADSL back up I wont be able to log into steam to actually test my work...
As for that coming up... Well according to the error message I'm getting, my remote access server is down, and I can't get through to the ISP on the phone to verify what's gone wrong (and 99% they answer instantly, so you know something must've gone really wrong for that many people to be ringing them). I'm not feeling too confident that the service will be restored today, or even tomorrow... This is Portugal after all... New Zealand may have had crappy broadband options but atleast they were more stable...
I played around with the top part of the CS file, changing everything that would seem to make a difference to bright blue but nothing changed.