Team Fortress 2: How to Disable Decals on Casual Mode (A Mod that Actually Works)

https://gamebanana.com/mods/462569

Watch me going to a Casual Server and showcasing that none of the decals from my decal-ed items are showing up.

It seems that on Casual Servers, TF2 still allows you to use custom models, but, not custom textures and materials. Knowing this, I used EXISTING materials currently in the game files, and applied to the UV map on each decalable item to use that material instead.

Because I’m using things that are in the game, not custom things, it still accepts as a valid mod on casual mode.

However, because each of the model’s .qc file loads a material instead of a direct texture, I was unable to use the default decals for the Objector, Photo Badge, Clan Pride, and Flair!, due to these item’s materials having the syntax that allows decalability.

With that out of the way, I used the following materials in the game files to replicate the original textures:

– Conscientious Objector and Photo Badge: It uses the back of the Star-Spangled Strategy taunt prop, as it has a huge TF2 logo on it.
– The Clan Pride uses the back texture of the medal.
– The Flair was the most difficult, as I had to do for each class, and, use different textures for each button. The RED and BLU logos comes from the pins on the Whoopee Cap’s textures (both RED and BLU textures), the TF2 logo comes from the Tuxxy’s texture, and the Saxton Hale head comes from the Saxton Hale Mask texture.

Since the models now uses textures / materials from other items, if you have any mod that does any changes to them, it will reflect on them as well. Although your mod wouldn’t show up in Casual Mode due to its restriction of custom files, it would still show on community servers that do not enable sv_pure.

This is probably the best method to achieve this and it’s the only method I know how to achieve for the Conscientious Objector. Mods that can disable “hats” can still disable Clan Pride, Photo Badge, and Flair!’s completely, however, not the Objector.

Using the same method of hiding these models for the Objector simply does not work. I also decided to try make that the items were similar to their default decal visuals instead of simply making them invisible completely, for the case of everything except the Objector.

The mod also includes an extra pack that will hide the decal image on Freezecam Screenshots, inspecting someone, inspecting someone on MVM, as well when using the spectator mode, under the file name / folder: “Hide Decal Icon on UI (Default HUD)”

However, because the game uses the same syntax as the paint splatter icon, this will also hide that. There’s no way around it without custom textures, which are not possible in Casual Mode.

This will also hide the decals from items you applied from your inventory. Don’t panic! Your decals are still safe, just that the UI no longer shows them, and, neither the texture with this pack, but they are still properly applied, and will show up again if you decide to no longer use both mods.

If you wish to hide the decal icon on your custom HUD, you will have to do the following:

• If the HUD is on a .vpk, you’ll have to extract it using GCFScape. It can be downloaded here: https://web.archive.org/web/20200131172739/http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/files/files/gcfscape186.zip
• Go to tf/custom, and create a folder like “MyCustomHUD”, and drop the files from the .vpk there. Make sure to extract what is inside “root”, and not the “root” folder.
• Create a file called “info.vdf” inside “MyCustomHUD”. If it already exists, you don’t need to do this step.
• Open “info.vdf” with Notepad by dragging and dropping to the Notepad window.
• Make sure to put this on the file:

• Go to “resource/ui/econ”, and find a file called “itemmodelpanel.res”. Open on Notepad the same way you did “info.vdf”.
• Find the section called “paint_icon”, and replace “wide”, “tall”, “visible” and “enabled” values to “0”.
• Now you have disable the decals on the UI as well, on your custom HUD of choice.

Well, because it’s the only current way of hiding decals on Casual Servers. The Guides also have a category for Game Customization. Considering that has been countless requests to add an option in-game to hide decals, I decided to turn into a guide as well.

Special thanks to Asomn to help me testing the mod that hides the decal from the UI.