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Crosshairs for Half-Life

CLICK THE PIC FOR A LARGER VERSION SHOWING THE
WEAPON TO CROSSHAIR RELATIONSHIP

The picture above is what the crosshairs.spr file in Half-Life looks like.
The x-hairs all come in this one file and change according to weapon selection. If you have already played the game, you know how easily they tend to blend in with many of the environment colors.  Often they will disappear altogether when outdoors.   Fortunately, they are very easy to change, although they must be replaced as a group unless you want to try redrawing them individually.

How to Replace the HL crosshairs.spr File 

In your half-life folder is a folder called valve, and inside that is a folder called sprites. Create a sprites folder if it's not there. Or if you're playing through Steam, follow this path to find the sprites folder:   Steam\SteamApps\youraccountname\half-life\valve\sprites.  Delete or rename any crosshairs.spr file already in your sprites folder FIRST.  Do NOT delete any other files in the sprites folder.  Download a new set of crosshairs from HL pages 1 thru 3 here by clicking on it's picture or text link.   Then put your new crosshairs.spr file in the sprites folder.  Most of the downloads are in .spr format.  A few are zipped so you'll need to extract the .spr file from the zip.  See the link to Winzip on the left if you need an unzipper.    Most are also already named crosshairs.spr, but a few may have other file names.  Just rename them to crosshairs.spr, if necessary

The directory structure should look like this when done:
half-life\valve\sprites\crosshairs.spr
(preceded by the drive letter and folder you installed in, ie: C:\Sierra\, C:\Games\, etc.)

Redesign the HL Crosshairs

If you would like to try  redesigning your crosshairs,
download the Redesign Kit.  It includes Pak Explorer, Sprite Viewer,  Sprite Wizard, and very basic instructions.  Sorry, I can't teach you how to use painting programs.  You'll have to learn that on your own.  (Try the tutorials at Wavelength.)   Pak Explorer is for extracting the crosshair file from the pak0.pak(if necessary).    Sprite Viewer is for viewing sprites and converting them to the standard .bmp format.  Once converted, you can edit it.  Sprite Wizard will convert your redesigned .bmp back into the .spr format.   It can also be used for assembling multiple bmps into a single file to create animated sprite effects.  All you need is Windows Paint or any other graphics program to do the rest.

For more detailed crosshair design help or to make a new one from scratch, see the great sprite tutorial at Wavelength.

Most mods are using the default Half-Life crosshairs for their main weapons, so any of the replacements here should work in Team Fortress Classic.  Opposing Force, and Fire Arms.  Just replace the crosshairs.spr file that's in the sprites folder inside the valve folder with your choice from pages 1-3 here in the Half-Life section.  If you have no sprites folder, create one.  If you prefer to use one set of crosshairs for regular HL and a different set for your mod, create a sprites folder (if there isn't already one) inside the mod's "game" folder, and put the crosshairs.spr file you download from this site in there.  The "game" folder will have a different name for each mod(GEARBOX, TFC, CSTRIKE, FIREARMS), but it will always be the folder installed by the mod that contains the pak0.pak file or the .wad file..   Mods that default to the regular HL crosshairs will look in the mod's sprites  folder for a crosshair first.  If there's none there, they then look in the mod's "game" folder in the pak file.  If they come up empty there, then they will look in the Half-Life sprites folder.  If there isn't one there, they will look finally in the Half-Life pak0.pak file.

Counter Strike's regular weapon crosshairs cannot be changed.   Only the sniper hairs can be replaced.