How do I install custom graphics?

I made a few kits to use in my game but I'm wondering how to assign them to the correct club? I'd imagine it would be something to with the unique ID but I have no clue. I know they go in the graphcis folder in documents but can anyone help me to put my custom graphics to a certain team/player?

TIA.

You'll need to make a config file and obtain the unique Id for the teams you want to add kits to.

Easiest way to make a config is to copy an existing config file for kits into the same folder as your kits, if you don't have a config file to copy, open notepad (or other text editor you have) and paste the following code into the file:

<record>
<!-- resource manager options -->

<!-- dont preload anything in this folder -->
<boolean id="preload" value="false"/>

<!-- turn off auto mapping -->
<boolean id="amap" value="false"/>

<!-- logo mappings -->
<!-- the following XML maps pictures inside this folder into other positions
	 in the resource system, which allows this folder to be dropped into any
	 place in the graphics folder and still have the game pick up the graphics
	 files from the correct places
-->

<list id="maps">
	<record from="FILENAME1" to="graphics/pictures/team/###/kits/home"/>
	<record from="FILENAME2" to="graphics/pictures/team/###/kits/away"/>
	<record from="FILENAME3" to="graphics/pictures/team/###/kits/third"/>
</list>
</record>

The first line beginning record is for the home kit, next is the away kit and last is the third kit (if you don't have all three kits, just delete the line for the kit you don't have)

FILENAME is the name of the graphic you have made (for example england_home) - replace FILENAME1 with the name of the graphic for the home kit without the .png bit at the end (eg england_home), replace FILENAME2 with the name for the away kit (england_away) and replace FILENAME3 with the name for the third kit (england_third).

### corresponds to the Unique ID of the team who's kit you want to appear. You can obtain the Unique ID from either the data editor or ingame.

Ingame goto the Preferences -> Display & Sound Menu, Under Display Settings tick the box next to 'Show Unique IDs', click confirm.

Now in game go to the team screen for the team you want to add a kit to, and you'll notice in the header under the team name is now a list of numbers next to the flag, rather than the teams league position this list of numbers is the teams unique Id. (for example for England it is 765).

Now in the text document replace the ### with the Unique ID for each kit.

If you are adding kits for more than one team you'll need to repeat the above for each team.

Once done goto file and save as and save the file as config.xml - make sure you include the xml extension as this will change the text file into a format readable by FM.

So for example if you were adding 3 kits for england called england_home, england_away and england_third in the config file you would have:

<record>
<!-- resource manager options -->

<!-- dont preload anything in this folder -->
<boolean id="preload" value="false"/>

<!-- turn off auto mapping -->
<boolean id="amap" value="false"/>

<!-- logo mappings -->
<!-- the following XML maps pictures inside this folder into other positions
	 in the resource system, which allows this folder to be dropped into any
	 place in the graphics folder and still have the game pick up the graphics
	 files from the correct places
-->

<list id="maps">
	<record from="england_home" to="graphics/pictures/team/765/kits/home"/>
	<record from="england_away" to="graphics/pictures/team/765/kits/away"/>
	<record from="england_third" to="graphics/pictures/team/765/kits/third"/>
</list>
</record>

Now to get the kits to show in game, you'll need to go back to the preferences -> Display & Sound menu under Display Settings on the right untick use 'Skin Cache' and Tick 'always reload skin on confirm' you can also now untick show unique IDs if you want. Click confirm and when the skin is reloaded your kits should display, if they do then you can retick skin cache and untick always reload skin.

(Alternatively to making the config file manually you can use a programs such as fmxml to create the config file for you, but you'll still need to provide the Unique IDs).

How should they be organized in the kits folder?

The organization within the graphics\kits folder doesn't matter for the game as long as a correct config file for the kits is present.

The easiest thing from a users point is to have a clubs and nations folder within the kits folder, then for clubs seperate into countries and then leagues for example English Premier kits could go into graphics\kits\clubs\england\prem - makes it easy for you to find them, but for the game it doesn't matter aslong as the config file stays with them.

Though for best results I'd recommend keeping to standard lowercase alphanumeric characters (a-z, 0-9, - and _ are ok as well) and avoid using spaces.

(The default path that SI use, from with your User Data Folder is: \graphics\pictures\kits\front then \clubs\england\prem for example)

Thanks! The use of all lowercase characters fixed my problem that i didn't even ask yet. This was actually for the PNG file name/config entry.