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.
Showing posts with label fm2016. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fm2016. Show all posts

Friday, 26 February 2016

FM16 Guide - How to Enable Rotating Default Backgrounds


First of all credit for this goes to ArtDekDok, he's just asked me to type up this guide as he isn't a native English Speaker.

This may be of interest to some people, ArtDekDok has found an interesting way to get the game to rotate through a list of default backgrounds instead of you being stuck with the same background.

Easiest way to show this is with a quick video:

Wednesday, 16 December 2015

Football Manager 2016 Patch 16.2 Released


Today saw the release of Patch 16.2 for Football Manager 2016 which is the second main patch for FM16 and fixes various issues.

However the patch may cause the game to crash when pressing continue if you are using one of a number of custom skins (the problem doesn't affect the Base Skins or any of my other Mods).

 To fix the problem:

- End users if you don't want to wait for the skinner to release an updated version of the skin then just delete the 'game processing panel.xml' file located in the panels\game folder for the skin you are using (or follow the instructions below to alter the problem line in that file). Then in preferences turn off the skin cache if it is on and reload your skin and the game should stop crashing.

- For skinners you will need to redo any changes you made to the default 'game processing panel.xml' file in the file that was updated by the patch (note the updated file is located in the main panels.fmf file not one found in the updates folder), though you really should be checking and updating all of your xml files for any changes made in the patch.

Looks like the following line in that file has been changed from:

<record id="widget_properties" class="calendar_detailed_event_panel" file="game/calendar dropdown event panel" show_no_events_label="false" width="200">


To:

<record id="widget_properties" class="calendar_popup_day_panel" file="game/calendar dropdown day panel" show_no_events_label="false" width="200"> 

Updating the class and file values on that line to their post-patch versions should solve the crashing problem.

However this will only fix the problem with the game crashing when it tries to process time, if your skin or game is crashing in other places or has other problems post-patch then if you are an end user first try manually deleting your cache files (if you do not now how to do this please see this thread and look under the How To Section for your OS) if that doesn't work then you'll need to wait for the skinner to release an updated version of the skin. 

If you are a skinner than as normal you will need to check each of the files you have included in your skin (which is why you should really only include files you have modified in your skins) to see if they were updated by the patch and then update your files so they reflect the changes made in the patch.

Friday, 30 October 2015

Football Manager 2016: How to Add Custom Trophy Images


A new feature for FM2016 is the ability to assign custom trophy images to actual competitions.

Like with faces, kits and logos to add trophies to the game you need an image graphic of your trophy and a config xml file.


How to Create the Trophy Graphic


The style of graphic used for the trophy doesn't really matter, (no doubt graphic makers will soon make various different styles for you to choose from) the licensed images included with the game use cut-out style images (like the player faces), if you want some instructions on how to create cut-out images then you can have a look at this old guide I made for player faces.

When creating the graphic the best thing to do is to try and obtain the largest and cleanest image you can as they are the easiest to work from.

The dimensions of the final image aren't that important as like with the other graphics the game now scales them to the size it needs.

The default images are 180x180 pixels, however if you can I'd make them bigger say 360x360 pixels so they are upscaled better if someone is playing zoomed in or a skinner makes them appear larger in the skins.

When saving your images you want to save them as png files with transparency enabled if an option.

Filenames are up to you but it is best to avoid non-english characters, special characters, captial letters or spaces. The easiest thing to do is to name them by their competitions id as that will also make creating the config files easier.


The Config Entry


The entry you need to add to your config file is as follows:

<record from ="<FILE_NAME>" to="graphics/pictures/comp/<UNIQUE_ID>/trophy"/>

Where;

<FILE_NAME> is the name of the graphic you are adding.
<UNIQUE_ID> is the in-game id of the competition you want to link the image to. This is the same ID you would use if adding a logo to the competition.

For example the below line would link a graphic called 'prem' to the English Premier League trophy:

<record from ="prem" to="graphics/pictures/comp/11/trophy"/>

If you haven't created a config file before then have a read of this guide.


Where To Place Your Image


Trophy images are placed in the same place as your kits, logos and faces. They should be placed inside the graphics folder within your User Data Location, provided they are inside your graphics folder and are in the same folder as the config file you can freely place them in as many subfolders as you like (for example graphics\trophies\europe\england would work).

Unless you have changed it your User Data Location will be located in one of the following places:

Windows

C:\Users\[Your Windows Username]\Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2016\

Mac

/Users/[Your Mac Username]/Documents/Sports Interactive/Football Manager 2016/

Linux

/home/documents/Sports Interactive/FM2016/

Then load the game and from the Preferences -> Interface menu untick 'Use caching to decrease page loading times' and tick 'Reload skin when confirming changes in Preferences' Then click Confirm and if done right your trophy images should display. (Once they are displaying you can undo this step)

Below is an example where I have assigned the FM2016 logo to appear as the trophy for the English Premier League:



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Wednesday, 28 October 2015

Football Manager 2016 Beta Released



The Pre-Release Beta of Football Manager 2016 has now been released to those of you who have pre-ordered a digital copy from the selected retailers. 

I am in the process of checking what has been changed from a skinning, modding and graphics point in FM2016 and should have some information out over the next few days.

For the moment the most up-to-date information can be found in the Skinning Forum on the Official Sports Interactive Forums.

From a quick look it looks like logos, kits and player faces all haven't changed and as such you should still be able to use last year graphics.

Skins as always won't work and you will have to wait for the skin makers to update or release new skins.

Wednesday, 21 October 2015

Football Manager 2016 Release Date Announced


Bit of a late announcement but if you haven't heard Football Manager 2016 is due for release on 13th November 2015 with a pre-release Beta available around two weeks before release to people who pre-order the digital version from select retailers.

The plan at the moment is to try and get my mods, skins and guides up dated for FM2016 over the full release weekend, though exact timing will depend on how much needs updating. I am not planning on releasing anything during the Beta period as I don't know when or if I'll have access to it and things may change between the beta and release meaning the work would need to be redone anyway. 

I should also over this weekend have finished the latest part of my FM2015 Skinning Guide, which should leave me time to get another one or two parts done if needed before FM16 is out, and then it is a case of updating it all for FM16.