Installing a customized crosshair in Quake Live

update: It is now possible to change the crosshair colors by using the menu or console settings! This method is a lot easier than the method described below.

Building on EmSixTeen’s custom HUD installation guide we thought it would also be interesting to explain how to install a custom crosshair in Quake Live. To change your crosshair shape, such as a dot or a cross, without customizing any special files, use the following game console command:

cg_drawCrosshair X (replace X with a numeric value from 0 to 31).

To change the crosshair size use this console command:

cg_crosshairSize X (where X is again a number)

However, if you want different shapes and colors, you must go into the Quake Live game files themselves. The first option you have is to create your own custom crosshair. Here’s a custom crosshair file which you can easily change to your own needs. The instructions are written next to each command in the “cyncrosshair.menu” file itself.You can also find a lot of prepared custom crosshairs on the Quake Live forums.

Once you’ve chosen a custom crosshair, which is basically a .menu file, you should then put it in the “ui” folder which you should create yourself if you don’t have it yet:

Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8(.1) (Standalone game): %userprofile%\AppData\LocalLow\id Software\quakelive\home\baseq3\ui

Steam version: %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Steam\SteamApps\common\Quake Live\<yoursteamID>\baseq3\ui

Windows XP (Standalone game): %appdata%\id Software\quakelive\home\baseq3\ui

For example :

Now all you have to do is go into your game hud config file (for example “HUDCONFIG.cfg”) and add:

loadMenu { “ui/CUSTOMCROSSHAIRNAME.menu” }.

If you do not yet have a custom hud config (.cfg) file, create one in the same ui folder. Make sure you have your main config execute this custom hud config, though. To do this add the following command to your main config:

seta cg_hudFiles “ui/hudconfig.cfg”.

(Read the custom HUD installation guide for a detailed explanation on this).

Now that you have a custom crosshair, you should remove the default Quake Live crosshair so both crosshairs won’t overlap. To do this set the following command to “0” in your config or in the Quake Live game console:

seta cg_drawCrosshair “0”.

You are now ready to start fragging again! Feel free to ask questions if you are having trouble.

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