Welcome to my Football Manager Blog, the main purpose of this blog is to provide updates on the status of my Football Manager Skins & Guides Website

If you have any questions or queries then I can generally be found in the Skinning Forum at the Official Sports Interactive Forums, though I'd ask you to open a new thread rather than sending me a message.

To help with navigation I have included indexes of my content for the last few versions of Football Manager in the tabs below.

Thursday 25 December 2014

Football Manager 2015 - Replacement Stars


With the release of the Light Alternative Full Mode Skin for Football Manager 2015 I've found that the default Gold Stars don't really fit with the skin so I created some replacement stars, there are two packs available a pack of Blue Stars and a pack of Green Stars, both packs will work fine with either Full Mode skins or FMC skins.

Installation Instructions:

Extract the files from the zip file and place the extracted graphics folder inside the folder for the skin you are using, if you are using the Default Skins you will need to first download the Base Skin, add the new stars to that and then switch to the Base Skin in game.

Once you have added the stars you may need to turn off the skin cache and reload your skin from the Preferences -> Interface Menu in game to get your changes to load in game.






---
Redistribution Terms
You are free to post this content to your website provided:
1. It is not sold or behind a paywall.
2. You don't advertise it as being exclusive to your website.
3. My username and blog address are included: http://michaeltmurrayuk.blogspot.co.uk/

Wednesday 24 December 2014

FM2015: Match In-Between Highlights Alternative Skins

Match In-Between Highlight Skins are now available for the new Alternative Skins introduced with patch 15.2, there are four new skins - a normal and wide version for each of the two new Alternative Skins; the Light Alternative Full Mode Skin and the Dark FMC2015 Skin.

Normal - Maximizes the size of the in-between match highlights panel positioned in the centre of the screen and leaving space for the match feed notifications down the right. (For the FMC version some of the match feed overlays the panel even in this mode as the feed takes up more room in FMC mode).
Wide - Maximizes the size of the in-between match highlights panel, but this time uses up the full width of the screen, this allows for more information to be shown at smaller screen resolutions, but the match feed items when displayed will cover parts of the top right side of the panel.

Outside of the match screen the skins are identical in appearance to the default FM15 skins.

Advanced instructions are also available to apply them to other skins and to enable alternative views.

Screenshots show a sample of available views and the panel at different resolutions, each version has the same views and panels enabled.  



FM2015 Match Highlights Light Skin Screenshots

FM2015 Match Highlights Light Wide Skin Screenshots


FMC2015 Match Highlights Dark Skin Screenshots

FMC2015 Match Highlights Dark Wide Skin Screenshots


For full details and download links for each version (including the original ones) follow the below link:

FM2014 Match in Between Highlights Skins Download Page


---
Redistribution Terms
You are free to post this content to your website provided:
1. It is not sold or behind a paywall.
2. You don't advertise it as being exclusive to your website.
3. My username and blog address are included: http://michaeltmurrayuk.blogspot.co.uk/

Monday 15 December 2014

FM2015 Skining Guide Part 1: The Basics


This is a simple guide to help people get started with skinning in Football Manager 2015, and is an update to my old FM2010 guide that thanks to the changes made in patch 15.2 for FM2015 finally gave me an excuse to get around to updating it.

Saturday 13 December 2014

FM2015: Bases Skins for New Alternative Skins Released


Base Skins for the new Alternative Skins included with patch 15.2 have now been released, there is a Base Skin 2015 which is based on the Full Mode Light Alternative Skin and an FMC Dark Base Skin that is based on the Alternative Dark FMC Skin.

Note that for the Light Alternative Skin the font settings on the Default Skin seem to be slightly different than those set on the Default Dark Skin, as I find the font settings of the Dark Skin easier to read I have altered the font settings for the Base Skin 2015, however if you want the orignal font settings back delete the fonts folder from the Base Skin. Also the Light Base Skin has fairly solid panels compared to the Dark Skin, if you want the panels to be more transparent like the Dark Skin then delete the contents of the graphics folder.

Below are a couple of screenshots, first one shows the Light Base Skin with the font settings I've included, second screenshot shows font settings from the Official Alternative Skin (what you will get if you delete the fonts folder) and the third screenshot shows what the skin will look like if you delete the graphics folder:


Full instructions on when and how to use the Base Skins can be found on the download page, please ensure you read the page in detail before downloading the Base Skins as it will save you problems in the future.

Also as there are still some issues with the Steam Workshop I have included all the files from the Alternative skins so you do not need to have them installed before using the Alternative Base Skins this year.

 
If you have any further questions on the Base Skins please ask any questions in the Skinning Hideout on the Official SIGames Forums.

---
Redistribution Terms
You are free to post this content to your website provided:
1. It is not sold or behind a paywall.
2. You don't advertise it as being exclusive to your website.
3. My username and blog address are included: http://michaeltmurrayuk.blogspot.co.uk/

FM2015: Match Screen Mods Updated for Patch 15.2


I've updated the following Match Screen mods for Football Manager 2015 for patch 15.2, the updates are fairly minor and only include changes made to the xml files in patch 15.2 to better support the recolouring of the match screens, you only really need to download these updates if you are including them in a skin or the skin you are adding them to has changed the match titlebar to a different colour.

FM2015 Match Screen Kits Mod

FM2015 Match Titlebar Team Names Mod

 Football Manager 2015 Scoreboard Mod

Thursday 11 December 2014

FM2015: Alternative Skins now released.



With the release of patch 15.2 two Alternative skins for Football Manager 2015 have been released a Light Full Mode skin called Football Manager 2015 Alternative Skin and a Dark FMC Mode skin called Football Manager Classic 2015 Alternative Dark Skin.

Each of these skins are obtained via the Steam Workshop, thankfully the instructions are a little simpler than last years instructions and again there are two methods to obtaining the skins:


How to Download the Alternative Skins directly through Football Manager 2015


1. With Football Manager 2015 loaded either from Main Menu Click on Downloads, or if you have a save game loaded select the Downloads option from the FM menu.
2. Wait for the Store to Finish Processing (this should be a lot faster than FM2014 as it is no longer scanning your graphics).
3. Click 'Steam Workshop' Tab in the top right hand corner.
4. Click 'Download Official add-ons directly from Steam' tab.
5. Steam Overlay will open to SI Games Workshop Page for FM2015.
6. Select the Skin you want either Football Manager 2015 Alternative Skin or Football Manager Classic 2015 Alternative Dark Skin.
7. Click the Green 'Subscribe' Button.
8. Close the Steam Overlay.
9. Cose the in-game Steam Store/Workshop screen.
10. Go to the Preferences Screen.
11. In the Skin Dropdown Menu your subscribed skin should now appear, select it and click confirm to load the skin. (NOTE: Which skin appears depends on which FM mode you last accessed if your last save was a full mode save then only full mode skins will be displayed, if you last played an FMC game then the listed skins will be FMC skins, to get to other mod skins first load a save game of that type then enter the Preferences Menu).


How to Download the Alternative Skins via Steam.

1. Browse to the Football Manager 2015 Workshop screen whilst logged into Steam.
2. Now locate either the Football Manager 2015 Alternative Skin or Football Manager Classic 2015 Alternative Dark Skin depending on which one you want.
3. Click the Green Subscribe Button.
4. Load up Football Manager 2015.
5. Go to the Preferences Screen.
6. In the Skin DropDown Menu your subscribed skin should now appear, select it and click confirm to load the skin. (NOTE: Which skin appears depends on which FM mode you last accessed if your last save was a full mode save then only full mode skins will be displayed, if you last played an FMC game then the listed skins will be FMC skins, to get to other mod skins first load a save game of that type then enter the Preferences Menu).


Troubleshooting.

- If the Skins don't appear in the dropdown menu and you are within a save game of the correct type from the Preferences -> Interface Screen untick 'Use caching to decrease page loading times' and tick 'Reload skin when confirming changes in Preferences' (you can set these options back once the skin is loaded), then click the 'Reload Skin' button in the bottom right and after the skin has reloaded the new skin should now display in the skin dropdown.

- If that doesn't work check to make sure the skins have actually downloaded, you can do this in several ways:

From Steam select the Library -> Downloads option, this should the workshop content if it is still downloading or is queued, if queued start the download otherwise wait for the download to complete.

If nothing is listed then browse to the skins folder inside your Saving Location (Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2015 by default) inside should be an fmf file for each skin you have downloaded through the workshop called something like Football Manager 2015 Alternatve_B8D38160-4066-4A2F-9040-21965995C4C9 or Football Manager Classic 2015 Dark_8EA8D9C0-FC6E-4C8F-AB68-ED570EDEA6FC.

If nothing is present then unsubcribe from the file(s) and try the other method to download the skins.

Wednesday 10 December 2014

FM2015: Match In-Between Highlights Skins Updated for Patch 15.2


The Match In-Between Highlights skins have now been updated to work with patch 15.2, please download the updated files from the below link:

FM2014 Match in Between Highlights Skins Download Page

 

 

---
Redistribution Terms
You are free to post this content to your website provided:
1. It is not sold or behind a paywall.
2. You don't advertise it as being exclusive to your website.
3. My username and blog address are included: http://michaeltmurrayuk.blogspot.co.uk/

 

Football Manager 2015 Base Skins Updated for Patch 15.2

Base Skins have been updated to work with patch 15.2, please delete the exisitng files and redownload the updated versions from the below link.

Base Skins for the new Alternative skins will be released in due course.

As with recent Football Managers to make certain changes in Football Manager 2015 you are required to add files to the skin folders, whilst this isn't a problem for fan-made skins it is a slight problem if you are using the Default Skins included with the game. So to help people out I have again made some Base Skins for FM2015 that allow you to add and modify the default skins without breaking your game.

Full instructions on when and how to use the Base Skins can be found on the download page, please ensure you read the page in detail before downloading the Base Skins as it will save you problems in the future.


Currently there are two versions of the Base Skin - a Default Dark one for normal FM2015 and the other for the Classic Mode (FMC), a light skin will follow once the Default Light Skin has been released.

If you have any further questions on the Base Skins please ask any questions in the Skinning Hideout on the Official SIGames Forums.

---
Redistribution Terms
You are free to post this content to your website provided:
1. It is not sold or behind a paywall.
2. You don't advertise it as being exclusive to your website.
3. My username and blog address are included: http://michaeltmurrayuk.blogspot.co.uk/

FM2015: How to Get Skins to Work With Patch 15.2


The newly released patch 15.2 for Football Manager 2015 has changed how skins work, if you are an enduser you can either wait for the skinner to update their skin or follow the below instructions to update the skin to work on patch 15.2.

Wednesday 3 December 2014

FM2015 Guide: How to Add Content to the Action\Menubar


It is possible in Football Manager 2015 to add back in some of the content from the FM2014 action bar, things such as the star rating, value and contract details for players that were in the actions bar in FM2014.

Monday 24 November 2014

FM2015 Guide: How To Edit the League Table



This is a simple guide that covers some of the changes made to the code that displays the league table in Football Manager 2015, the changes to the coding in FM2015 mean we can now actually change the columns that are displayed on the league table in different views, unfortantly the changes have made it a bit more difficult to resize the column widths.

FM2015 Guide: How to Add an Image to the Match Pitch


This is a simple guide to show you how to add images to the Match Pitch Screen in Football Manager 2015

Tuesday 18 November 2014

FM2015: Match In-Between Highlights Skins

Like the last couple of versions the match screen we have in Football Manager 2015 is a hybrid TV-Classic view mode where again if there are no hightlights you are left on the pitch view instead of switching back to the last panel you were on, were we are left with a small pop-up giving us some information like the old TV-View widgets.

Thankfully this pop-up is editable, which is what these skins does they resize the pop-up and modifies the content of the panels to show the full panel details where possible.

As with Football Manager 2014 I have modified the panel to use the adaptive panels used elsewhere in the game this means the panel will resize itself depending on what resolution you are using (meaning no editing of the xml file just to get it working) and will also display extra panels if you have the space.

Again to make things easier I have made the mod into a skin which means there are a couple of different versions available depending what skin you are using and what you want:

There are two versions of the mod for each of the Default skins included with FM (Dark version of full FM15 mode and an FMC one for FMC2015 mode, a Light version will follow once the skin has been released):

Normal - Maximizes the size of the in-between match highlights panel positioned in the centre of the screen and leaving space for the match feed notifications down the right. (For the FMC version some of the match feed overlays the panel even in this mode as the feed takes up more room in FMC mode).

Wide - Maximizes the size of the in-between match highlights panel, but this time uses up the full width of the screen, this allows for more information to be shown at smaller screen resolutions, but the match feed items when displayed will cover parts of the top right side of the panel.

Outside of the match screen the skins are identical in appearance to the default FM15 skins.

Advanced instructions are also available to apply them to other skins and to enable alternative views.

Screenshots show a sample of available views and the panel at different resolutions, each version has the same views and panels enabled.  


FM2015 Match Highlights Dark Skin Screenshots




FM2015 Match Highlights Dark Skin Wide Version Screenshots





FMC2015 Match Highlights Skin Screenshots




FMC2015 Match Highlights Skin Wide Version Screenshots


For full details and download links for each version follow the below link:


FM2014 Match in Between Highlights Skins Download Page