Custom Crosshairs - A Complete Guide

A complete guide on custom crosshairs for Dirty Bomb, including how to make them, how to install them, and how to use them in game.

Introduction

Hi, and welcome to my guide.

In this guide I will be covering how to create, install and use custom crosshairs in Dirty Bomb. If you have questions or feel like the guide is missing something, please comment and I'll try my best to answer your question or update the guide.

Pre-requisites and Information

Pre-requisites

For this guide, you will need

• A working installation of Dirty Bomb
  
• Image editing software. Paint will work, but I'd recommend something more powerful such as Photoshop. If you have no money to spare, you can also try Paint.NET or GIMP for free.
  
• A basic understanding of your image editing software. I will not be teaching you how to create high quality images or art work, I will be teaching you how to create a functional crosshair.

Additional Information

Crosshairs retain their colour and transparency. This means that, should you so desire, you can make a rainbow crosshairs with transparent or fading parts, and it will work in game. To the right, you can see an example crosshair I made to show this. It contains black, white, red and blue colours, as well as a gradient that fades to complete transparency.



Crosshairs can be larger than 32px, but as far as I can tell, it makes no difference to quality. You can see on the example on the right that there are small white dots at the top of the crosshair. I made this one 200px square, and those dots are actually numbers. Setting lower than 32px will likely cause a decrease in quality, so it's best to just stick to 32px as is officially recommended.

Crosshairs must be in .png format. if your file does not end in .png, the game will ignore it. If you try renaming it, you will just get no crosshair. It is best to create your crosshair in .png format from the start.

Custom crosshairs are static (meaning that they do not move when performing actions such as jumping or shooting) and to my knowledge, there is no way to make a dynamic custom crosshair.

It is only possible to have one custom crosshair at a time.

Remember that if you have the option turned on to keep your static crosshair visible when aiming down sights, your entire custom crosshair will be visible.

You do not need to restart the game or rejoin a match to refresh your custom crosshair. You can simply switch your static croshair to another, click apply, then switch it back to your custom one. This is helpful when testing multiple crosshairs, or when tweaking your crosshair.

Creating Your Crosshair

The Setup

Start by creating a new image file called "CustomCrosshair" and ensure it is in .png format. Make it 32 pixels by 32 pixels, and if your software supports it, start with a transparent background.

Image requirements recap:

• 32px square
  
• .png format
  
• Named "CustomCrosshair.png"

Crosshair Creation

Create your crosshair. This part is completely up to you. Let your imagination run wild and see what you can come up with. Think abourt what do you want your crosshair to be. Funny? Practical? Good lucking? Functional? It's up to you. Also try thinking about the features. Centre-dot? No centre dot? Target acqusition aiding elements such as brackets? Here is my example crosshair on the right. It has a centre-dot for fine aiming, and brackets on the outside for fast target acquisition. If anybody wants the crosshairs used in this guide, let me know in the comments and I'll upload them.

Tip: Using layers can make the work process significantly easier. You can flatten your image to one layer later when you have finished (though it's a good idea to keep a layered copy, too!)

Alignment

Don't forget to align your crosshair with the centre. Most software will have this tool either built in, or available as a plugin download.

In Photoshop, you can acomplish this by selecting your entire image with Ctrl + A, selecting the move tool, and clicking the alignment buttons on the toolbar at the top.

Finishing

Finally, save your crosshair with the name "CustomCrosshair" in .png if you haven't already. If you have used multiple layers, it would be a good idea to also save a copy in a format that supports layers (such as .psd) so that you can easily make changes later if needed.

Installing Your Crosshair

Take your CustomCrosshair.png file and place it in the following folder:

My Documents > My Games > UnrealEngine3 > ShooterGame > CustomCrosshair

It should be an empty folder with a readme.txt in there.

Double check your file is a .png and called "CustomCrosshair".

Using Your Crosshair In Game

From The Main Menu

Go to the settings in the top right, go to the "HUD" tab (selected by default), go to the "crosshair" tab (selected by default), go to the "Crosshair Static Type" option (the top one), and scroll through the options until you find "Custom". Click apply in the lower right and you are done.

From In-game

Press escape the bring up the menu, click on "Game", go to the "Static Crosshair Type" option (the top one), and scroll through the options until you find "Custom". Click apply in the lower right and you are done.

Conclusion

Key Points

• Name must be CustomCrosshair
  
• Must be .png format
  
• Use a size of 32x32 pixels
  
• Crosshairs retain colour and transparency

Some Example Crosshairs

The crosshair I created in this guide. Don't you think it looks like some kind of holographic when aiming down sights? Now that gives me an idea...










Holographic, anyone?









Red Dot









Deltoid









An example of how multiple colours and transprency gradients can be used.

Closing

Thank you for taking the time to read my guide. It's my first guide, so I hope you enjoyed it and found it helpful. if you have any suggestions or questions, please leave them in the comments below. Constructive criticism is appreciated.

As per request, here are the example crosshairs above, available for download: /http://www.mediafire.com/file/1kmzszvf7b5ccto/DB+Custom+Crosshair+Examples.zip

Copy the link (without the "/" at the start) into your browser. I can't paste a functioning link here as it's instantly removed automatically.

[VoidSixx]

I haven't played for a while, so I don't know for sure, but I don't think there is.

[unfettered]

"Holographic, anyone" flashbacks to back when i was a COD console peasant. Anyway, is there a way to make the custom corsshair dynamic?

[VoidSixx]

I don't think it will be stored as a raw image in the games files, and it's probably illegal to distribute in online. The best advice I can give you would be to take a screenshot of it in-game against a high-contrast background, and either use it as a reference, or trace over it.

[CheesyPwn]

oh appreciated, any idea where can i find the defualt crosshair's png?

[VoidSixx]

I think custom crosshairs are static only, so if you make it the same it should work just fie.

[CheesyPwn]

yo how to make it like just the default one but completely static while moving, shooting etc.

[Ace]

nvm i just renamed the file

[Ace]

My crosshair isn't working it just has this really weird "x marks the spot" symbol and text that says: "Add file here: C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\My Games\UnrealEngine3\Shootergame\CustomeCrosshair\CustomCrosshair.png."
IDK what to do

[Cee]

Exactly what I thought :D

[VoidSixx]

Thanks. Could make for an interesting challenge.