[FM23] [TUTORIAL] A (Basic) Guide to Editing Manager Clothing

[TCSSkin]

1.    INTRODUCTION
I’d originally planned to make a detailed post with templates and more in depth guide, but unfortunately other things have come up and this has been pushed to the backburner so until I get the passion back to do a fully indepth guide, this will do for now. 

Editing the manager clothing is done by editing internal game files, unfortunately this means that we are limited to one slot per item of clothing and stuck in the game’s limits of three colours (red, green and blue), which limits the possibility, however generally you can make a pretty good attire. Finally, since the game only has one slot, It means that opposition subs/managers will also be wearing your textures, however recoloured to their colours.

Also, there’s a lack of a 3d model, and unlike other graphics require a game restart to see your changes, meaning it’s an awkward and time-consuming process.

If you'd like to download this guide: https://www.mediafire.com/file/0csq6psqq473pnp/A_basic_guide_to_editing_manager_graphcis.docx/file

[TCSSkin]

1.1    WHAT YOU’LL NEED
You’ll need an array of tools for editing manager clothing. All links will be below.
•    Image editing program WITH DDS support. Paint.Net is a great, free bit of software that does this. Altenatively, Photoshop also supports it with the Intel DDS plugin, however is a very expensive bit of equipment.
•    FM Resource Archiver
•    Your copy of Football Manager
•    Patience

Paint.Net: https://www.getpaint.net/download.html
Photoshop: https://creativecloud.adobe.com/
Intel DDS Plugin: http://gametechdev.github.io/Intel-Texture-Works-Plugin/
Resource Archiver: https://steamdb.info/app/2066760/

 

1.2    EXTRACTING THE NECESSARY FILES
Similar to skinning, you’ll need to extract FM’s default folders, so load up the Resource Archiver and press the extract archive button. Navigate to your FM install folder, typically this is

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Football Manager 2023

Go into the data folder, and extract simatchviewer-pc.fmf. This features the majority of the textures that the game uses. Extract this to a folder of your choosing, I recommend something easy such as a folder on your desktop. Open the folder you extracted the files to, and find 

Simatchviewer-pc/art/characters/male/manager/shared_textures
 

1.3 Understanding the textures

This folder contains all graphics related to the manager, in particular the clothing is as follows

File Name	Description
track_m_jacket	Track Jacket
track_m_jumper	Jumper
attire_m_wengercoat	Wengercoat
attire_m_polo	Polo Shirt
suit_three_piece_blaser	Three Piece Suit Blaser
suit_m_shirt	Suit Shirt
suit_m_overcoat	Overcoat
suit_m_blazer_shirt_tie	Suit with Blaser and Tie
track_m_bottoms	Joggers
track_m_warm	Warmup Pants

Find the track jacket. You’ll notice there are three different types of textures for each part. This is typical for all 3d models and is one of the first things you learn about materials in 3d modelling.

The textures are:

File Name	Description
track_m_jacket_[al]	Albedo – This is the actual texture
track_m_jacket_[no]	Normals – These are used to give the effect of more detail in textures, for example in clothing its used to create seams and wrinkles in the shirt. As it is only a texture, it is easier for the game to load and uses less memory.
track_m_jacket_[ro]_[me]_[ao]	Roughness, Metallic and Ambient Occlusion – While its not common in gaming to combine the three, FM does.   Roughness – Also called a gloss map, determines how glossier or shinier an object is, the less rough the glossier the object.   Metallic – Details how metallic an object is, in FMs case its used on the zip.   Ambient Occlusion – This is a complex explanation so I’ll try to summarise it. AO basically determines the shadows, again its often used as a texture to save on memory usage.

[TCSSkin]

2. Editing the Albedo Graphics

Now we have a brief understanding of the textures, we’re ready to begin editing, we’ll start with the Albedo graphics as they’re the most important. Drag and drop your file into your Photo Editor, we’ll be using Photoshop with the DDS plug in.

This is what we’re greeted with, next we need to understand how the colours are used in game. In the track jacket they’re listed as the following

Colour	Relation
Red	Colour
Green	Stripe
Blue	Highlight

As previously mentioned, we’re limited on colours so we have to be smart.

So we’re going to create our design, first off I’m going to create a blank layer with red on it, and I want a horizontal stripe across the front, so referencing the default texture I’m going to add it in the colour green.

We have our rough layout, so we’re going to add logos, again using reference images to figure out what goes where. We’re going to edit our team logo to be green and blue, meaning we can use the in game colour picker to change the colours.

[TCSSkin]

Once we’re finished, we’re going to go into our Football Manager folder in our documents. In our main folder, you’ll need to recreate the file structure you extracted, so create the following folders.

art

- characters

-- male

 --- manager

 ---- shared_textures

They must be as above, no caps or spaces, your folder should look like this.

 Documents/Sports Interactive/Football Manager 2023/art/characters/male/manager/shared_textures

 Inside that folder, save the texture you’ve created, using the exact same name using the following settings.

So all together it will look like

Documents/Sports Interactive/Football Manager 2023/art/characters/male/manager/shared_textures/track_m_jacket_[al].dds

Load up the game, and we’ve created the file! It doesn’t look perfect, as the UVs aren’t straight meaning we have a bit of distortion, however it is a great starting point.

[TCSSkin]

4. Closing Statements

For legal reasons, this forum shall not be used to share textures or anything using copyrighted material. It will be treated as a typical graphics modifcation which are forbidden on this site. Any failure to do so will result in a warning.

If you'd like to download this guide: https://www.mediafire.com/file/0csq6psqq473pnp/A_basic_guide_to_editing_manager_graphcis.docx/file

[GIMN]

Sensational work as always!

[Lumpjaw]

Great little bit of work here! 

[DamienQilBormliz]

Thank you! 

[DamienQilBormliz]

Not bad for a first try. 
A very small but defining mod, thanks for the guide!

 

[DamienQilBormliz]

 

[DamienQilBormliz]

Very time consuming but very satisfying at the end.
Far from perfect.

 

[DamienQilBormliz]

[DamienQilBormliz]