Trying to eliminate the user interface from Kotor 1

[Noxxarian 2]

Greetings! I am looking for ways to record in-game footage of SWKOTOR 1 but without the interface, names, or anything of that kind. Essentially, I want to record content for a story-driven video without the UI.

 

I have spent quite some time digging online, as well as the forums, and am yet to find anything I can use. So far, I managed to increase the resolution of the game with Flawless Widescreen, I got the freecam to work properly, but the only frustration is that the user interface is still present. Are you perhaps familiar with any mod or way to eliminate the user interface so I can record? I tried adjusting the text in "Hide InGame GUI=1" but that doesn't appear to do anything.

Thanks so much!

P.S. I am new, so do let me know in case I made any near-fatal errors in the process of posting this post!

[TamerBill 135]

If you want to record yourself playing the game, no, I don't think there is anything. If it's a machinima-type thing, you can go into first-person mode by pressing capslock. All the GUI is hidden while you're doing that.

[Effix 531]

Yeah, if capslock gets the job done then that's easiest.

In theory you could try exporting all the images that make up the GUI and then replace them with transparent images. Not sure if the game would still be somewhat playable if you do that.

[Guest]

You can pretty much forget about activating any Force power boost or energy shield, as well as switching between combat styles, grenades and offensive Force powers. Just a heads-up.

[Noxxarian 2]

11 hours ago, Effix said:

Yeah, if capslock gets the job done then that's easiest.

In theory you could try exporting all the images that make up the GUI and then replace them with transparent images. Not sure if the game would still be somewhat playable if you do that.

I suppose it should be playable to some extent. Uhh, I guess I'll just generate and record the highest resolution possible so any slight zoom-ins are less taxing. Thanks for the tips though! I understand that having a modding tool specifically designed for this wouldn't make too much sense as most users only need this feature for snapshots rather than recording. 

[LoneWanderer 103]

In KOTOR 2 it's actually possible to remove most of GUI elements (including names above NPCs and placeables) by deleting structures named "BORDERS", "CONTROLS", "EXTENT" from the file mipc28x6_p.gui. KOTOR I probably uses this or similarly named file for its GUI. But like La Ingobernable said, switching between combat styles, using grenades and Force powers without UI is impossible. Maybe you can use hotkeys for some actions, but I doubt.

Here is reworked file from KOTOR 2 for reference.

 

mipc28x6_p.gui

[N-DReW25 1,319]

I believe if you press "CapsLock" on your keyboard this will enter you into 1st person mode which removes the UI, if you warp to another location (let's say "warp danm13") whilst in 1st person mode this will kick you out of 1st person mode and back to 3rd person without restoring the UI. What results is the normal game, you can walk, interact with things, fight things etc but as LoneWanderer has stated it would next to impossible to create any meaningful fight footage without the UI.

[Thor110 484]

I would imagine you could use KotOR GUI Editor to shift all of the elements of the UI off-screen.

In-fact I just tested this though I was certain it would work anyway.

Just figure out which GUI you are using and chuck it all off-screen...

Not sure how nobody else saw this solution, but there ya are.

[Noxxarian 2]

9 hours ago, Thor110 said:

I would imagine you could use KotOR GUI Editor to shift all of the elements of the UI off-screen.

In-fact I just tested this though I was certain it would work anyway.

Just figure out which GUI you are using and chuck it all off-screen...

Not sure how nobody else saw this solution, but there ya are.

Thanks so much for pointing me to this. However, I am running into an error. I followed the instructions on setting it up, but I get this pop up. I reached out to the creator but he hasn't been active in a few months so i suspect I won't get a response soon. Do you have any clue on how to solve it? 

EDIT: Got past the error by reinstalling several times. But now I have the issue of it working on occasion, then stopping entirely. Quite exhausting, I'll probably stick to zooming in since I can't get this to work, sadly. 

Edited November 24, 2021 by Noxxarian

[TamerBill 135]

7 hours ago, Thor110 said:

Not sure how nobody else saw this solution, but there ya are.

I mean, probably because we learned to mod this game 15 years ago and weren't aware of what tools released last year could do.

Glad to see a solution's been found, though.

[Noxxarian 2]

Ok, so what I have discovered in approximately 10 hours of attempting to make GUI editor work: it works best, at least from my end, on resolutions which are not custom/widescreen, so only with the original resolutions in the game. YES I am sure there are workarounds, but to me it's a 50-50 if the game will run or not, so I really don't want another component on an already unstable pile .  I use the flawless widescreen to generate a higher resolution, and quite literally the GUI editor would work once, then subsequent starts of the game wouldn't work, or would nudge the HUD a bit, it was really weird so I can't really work with it since it gives me varying results.

I've settled on a solution, however, which permanently locks stuff and I don't have to go through 69 processes to get what I want  and that is to manually adjust the display size through Flawless Widescreen, under settings > configuration > display detection to set HUD width and height to be super small, like 80x60 with an X position of 100 or so. Probably gonna shrink it further. This SHOVES everything in the corners leaving a nice big empty space I can trim nicely in the video editor. This also allows me to see the minimum buttons needed, and play the game to get precise actions that I want, while having a clean surface to work with. 

[coldimmune 0]

On 11/23/2021 at 3:40 AM, LoneWanderer said:

In KOTOR 2 it's actually possible to remove most of GUI elements (including names above NPCs and placeables) by deleting structures named "BORDERS", "CONTROLS", "EXTENT" from the file mipc28x6_p.gui. KOTOR I probably uses this or similarly named file for its GUI. But like La Ingobernable said, switching between combat styles, using grenades and Force powers without UI is impossible. Maybe you can use hotkeys for some actions, but I doubt.

Here is reworked file from KOTOR 2 for reference.

 

mipc28x6_p.gui 285 B · 2 downloads

A huge thanks for this, I've been beating my head trying to get clean screenshots for days now until I found this

[NathanNukem 0]

On 11/23/2021 at 2:40 AM, LoneWanderer said:

In KOTOR 2 it's actually possible to remove most of GUI elements (including names above NPCs and placeables) by deleting structures named "BORDERS", "CONTROLS", "EXTENT" from the file mipc28x6_p.gui. KOTOR I probably uses this or similarly named file for its GUI. But like La Ingobernable said, switching between combat styles, using grenades and Force powers without UI is impossible. Maybe you can use hotkeys for some actions, but I doubt.

Here is reworked file from KOTOR 2 for reference.

 

mipc28x6_p.gui 285 B · 4 downloads

I’m relatively new to all this, but I use a controller (with a keybinding program) to play K1. I’m failing to see any reason why I wouldn’t be able to engage in basic combat using this (fairly obvious) method. Switching would certainly be difficult if the buttons were hidden, but the rest seems far from impossible.

 

To me, it seems like the simplest solution for this would be to have the GUI hidden, but reappear when holding down the right mouse button. Those types of coding things are beyond my capabilities personally, but would probably be doable for someone more experienced. 
 

Just throwing out ideas. If you see a flaw in my reasoning, lmk!

[Thor110 484]

While it is a bit late and my previous response neglected to mention this, you can simply turn it off in screenshots though I don't know if this helps you but it might help someone. ( swkotor.ini in the game directory ) -> change "GUIsInScreenShot" to equal 0

Spoiler

[Game Options]
GUIsInScreenShot=1
EnableScreenShot=0

Thor110

Edit : you also need to change "EnableScreenShot" to equal 1 and from there the print screen button on your keyboard will create a .tga file in the games directory.

Further edit : oh you can actually disable it altogether using "Hide InGame GUI=1" under Game Options.