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Skinning suggestions and improvements thread


radestock

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Thought it would be useful to have a sticky thread where people could leave their suggestions for new things they'd like to see in skinning/graphics for FM 2010 and beyond. I'm not talking 'more logos from league X' or stuff like that, I'm looking for any current problems with the current skinning/graphics interface or ways it could be improved. I'm sure it'd be useful for the people at SI if there was a single place where people involved in skinning & graphics could post their ideas/issues.

So fire away :thup:

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Some of my own to get us started:

1. Better validation for skins

I still see problems on an almost daily basis where people attempt to install a skin and don't do it correctly but the skin still shows up in game preferences. Users get a 'loading skin' popup so they presume it's loading and hours go by before they think there's a problem. To top it off when they next try and run FM they get a black screen as the game still tries to load the skin. That leaves them confused with a seemingly broken installation. IIRC this comes from an extra sub level folder created whilst extracting.

I can't imagine it would be a large task to add some sort of validation where the game checks the skin is in the correct format before it tries to load it so it can't get stuck in a loop.

2. A setting to hide/show skins depending on screen resolution

I'd love to be able to produce a skin with different versions depending on the user's screen resolution. A lot of people use high resolution screens these days so a skin designed for 1024x768 can look a little empty. At the same time, netbooks are becoming more popular so regular skins don't fit very well at lower resolutions. Much like the minimum version setting in the skin xml, it would be really useful if a skin could be set to be only visible to load at a minimum or maximum resolution. That way skinners could create high res versions of skins or indeed notebook versions.

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mor logos from d prem plz ;)

Stats needs to be clearer, the high stats 16+ look too similar to the 11+ stats depending on the angle I have my laptop screen.

A more clear, light background(similar to the Echelon sp? skin) would lighten the screen up. Maybe a slider to set the lightness and transparency.

I am going to go back to the default so I'm sure Ill think of more!

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Purely from a skin coding point of view:

The ability to know what xml files are being used on any given screen, and a bit more flexibilty with what resources we can use where (access to a team's right side background logo or competition logos on match screens, for instance)

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A Skin Editor application, for us none coders who can easily convert their PSDs into skins.

For instance, you import your PSD into it, and can use the editor to locate where the buttons are and the screens that they take you to. For certain graphics i.e Player tabs there could be a list of the graphics and you simply drag your graphic ontop of each one to replace them.

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I imagine a skin editor would be almost as complex as FM itself

I know itd be complex and something I personally could not even dream of doing ( hence needing an app like this ) but its possible.

Look at Architect for Mac for example. You build the graphics and put them into Architect to make new themes for Leopard. It would work on the same principal.

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1. Replacing the Huge Logos with Normal Logos - with the game now able to resize logos, theres no reason I can see for the game to call the huge logos rather than the normal ones on the news or wizard screens, especially considering the same graphics are used, creating the huge config file is just extra work.

2. Better organization of the graphic files, at the moment they are split seemingly randomly between the fm2008, fm2008-widgets in the skins.fmf and the normal graphics.fmf file. Sticking all the base graphics in the same place would make things easier, with the skin specific files located in their skins folder.

3. Moving non-skin graphics back to the graphics.fmf file - the 2D pitch icons, and stars etc... being in the skins folder makes adding in replacement graphics more complicated than needed.

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Less settings that can't be overridden would be nice. Things like the text colour on the sitv screen, you can try and change it to whatever you want, but it won't use anything other than text and darkened text. Which is especially annoying when the text in the little table at the side of can be recoloured quite happily.

Another example is the filter on the player training screen, the xml file contains the following:

<widget class="filter_panel" id="fltp" width="200" appearance="boxes/dialog">

Which is fine, except it looks nothing like a dialog box (and nor should it), but any attempt to change it to anything other than a titled box is ignored.

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maybe some of the great skins that are available online for free preloaded so there won't be a need to download them.

i know getting permission might be a problem and also the designers may demand money but they are so readaly available to people who have internet access.

just a suggestion

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1. Support of animated graphics, like Animated PNG or bigger pictures that have all slides of the animation in one file (like the ones that are used in Football Manager Live), I think that they would look great when you hover a button

2. The ability, to have a list with checkboxes in the Display Preferences, of your graphics folder, so you can view, for example, which facepack style suits better, if you have downloaded many styles, and have put them in folders according to their style (one folder with cut-out, one folder with Panini etc).

3. One dark skin and one light skin, as in Football Manager Handheld, would leave more people satisfied with the interface in the boxed version.

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1) Two default skins, one dark and one light.

2) As CP said, the ability to know which screen uses which panels file.

3) Tabbed browsing, maybe ?

4) Lesser text and more graphics overall (hint : StanPetrov's thread ;))

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I hope for fm2010 :

1. An ID index : For show all existing ID's in xml..

2. Facilitate the work of skinners :

For example the table/heading folder.. :eek:

I think it's possible to separate "both", "first", "last" and "normal" files, into separate folders.. Through this we can just copy and paste these 45 files, if all are not different.. Because actually we are obliged to edit 180 files into a SINGLE FOLDER !! :confused:

Another example, we can't assign a team color into "Tree Menu" in "Match Screen".. Why ? Why we can't use "t1bp" or "t2bp" several times ?

3. And a fresh look for FM2010 : A graphical revolution..:D The current design is not very aesthetic..

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- Tabbed browsing;

- Greater variety and more realistic pitch textures;

- Two skins available on release (they could be identical in design as long as one was light and one was dark);

- Clearer definition of which xml files do what to help novice skinners ('sensible' file names);

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- Two skins available on release (they could be identical in design as long as one was light and one was dark)

Definately.

Why not have a competition of sorts? When the game is still in Beta testing, there could be a few of the best skinners in the community make a skin each. The best one or two is selected to be a default FM10 skin?

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TeediuS and myself had skins included in the boxed version of FM06 and it was hell. Matt mentioned legal issues and that's exactly right. Unless a skin is VERY unique (I don't think Teedius had to make many changes with cappuchino) then there are going to be problems.

Colours, layout, shapes - all of these are huge issues in relation to the 'look and feel' of a certain other game we shall not mention. An example that I remember, I couldn't use a shade of black as the main colour because it was too 'blue' too the lawyers (???) and went through days of emails and responses just on that. I had issues and had to make radical changes with all 3 of my main sections (titlebar, tree menu and footer) and the legal team were basically requesting the skin looked more like the default one - something which is crazy when you're trying to do the opposite, provide an alternative.

That would be the main problem with any sort of 'competition'. I can guarantee that a vast majority of submissions wouldn't pass legal in anything near their initial form, so voting would be for something that's very different from what gets produced. I think that's unfair on competitors and voters alike.

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TeediuS and myself had skins included in the boxed version of FM06 and it was hell. Matt mentioned legal issues and that's exactly right. Unless a skin is VERY unique (I don't think Teedius had to make many changes with cappuchino) then there are going to be problems.

Colours, layout, shapes - all of these are huge issues in relation to the 'look and feel' of a certain other game we shall not mention. An example that I remember, I couldn't use a shade of black as the main colour because it was too 'blue' too the lawyers (???) and went through days of emails and responses just on that. I had issues and had to make radical changes with all 3 of my main sections (titlebar, tree menu and footer) and the legal team were basically requesting the skin looked more like the default one - something which is crazy when you're trying to do the opposite, provide an alternative.

That would be the main problem with any sort of 'competition'. I can guarantee that a vast majority of submissions wouldn't pass legal in anything near their initial form, so voting would be for something that's very different from what gets produced. I think that's unfair on competitors and voters alike.

I've heard that story before and I know from my experience in industry (non-graphical) that design has to be watched carefully. One of our packages for an item was rejected as it was too similar to a competitor's design. The issue? Both boxes had a diagonal line near the corner and even though both were different colours (and contained different info - their's detailed the size if the part inside, ours detailed the fitting type) it was a no go for the legal guys.

Surely there's no issue with Ter creating FM10's skin in off-white (similar to the FM08 one) and having an alternate in say charcoal as long as both skins are identical in design other than panel, graphic and text colours?

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Having the ability to choose the order the attributes are shown in on the player profile screen under Technical, Mental and Physical. It would be another bonus if we could chose from a dropdown list the particular position we wanted to see and that could be named within the xml. For example, picking 'Goalkeeper' from the dropdown list would show the attributes in the order that we have placed them in the xml for the goalkeeper.

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A Skin Editor application, for us none coders who can easily convert their PSDs into skins.

For instance, you import your PSD into it, and can use the editor to locate where the buttons are and the screens that they take you to. For certain graphics i.e Player tabs there could be a list of the graphics and you simply drag your graphic ontop of each one to replace them.

How I would love this too, like a drag drop, move around mish mash thing, but like radestock says, It would be complex sadly

I imagine a skin editor would be almost as complex as FM itself :)
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I'd like to be able to edit the pre-set drop down fees (on the transfer offer screen) for a player. Currently the options are:

£0,
£20k,
£50k,
£100k,
£250k,
£500k,
£1M,
£2.5M,
£5M,
£7.5M,
£10M,
£20M,
£30M,
£40M,
£100M. 

However, I want to edit some of these options myself or add some extra ones in.

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Easier to install skins and everything or just ahve them all as a option in the game when you buy them!! ppl like me dont reaslly know what there doing on computers and even your instructions have completely baffled me i just cant get a skin to work... ive created a post aswell to see if any1 can help me n make the steps maybe easier....needs to be easier to add things on FM

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1) Two default skins,dark one and light one

2) need much more work on 3d match engine,add fans at matches and make nets truly,now they look like concrete structures

3) All Footbal Manager have too words and a bit of graphics,need to work on this

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  • 1 month later...
A Skin Editor application, for us none coders who can easily convert their PSDs into skins.

For instance, you import your PSD into it, and can use the editor to locate where the buttons are and the screens that they take you to. For certain graphics i.e Player tabs there could be a list of the graphics and you simply drag your graphic ontop of each one to replace them.

I'm all in for this one, even if it might be unrealistic.

If not this one is a suggstion I like:

Purely from a skin coding point of view:

The ability to know what xml files are being used on any given screen, and a bit more flexibilty with what resources we can use where (access to a team's right side background logo or competition logos on match screens, for instance)

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And have some kind of user interface to enable a layperson such as myself to edit panels etc. This is a computer game, not a masturbation session for xml geeks.

The amount of effort that would take, compared to the number of people who'd actually use it makes it pretty unlikely. FM is one of the easier games to customise, most games don't bother and others are a lot more complicated (Civ, for instance).

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  • 2 weeks later...
The amount of effort that would take, compared to the number of people who'd actually use it makes it pretty unlikely. FM is one of the easier games to customise, most games don't bother and others are a lot more complicated (Civ, for instance).

100% agree with that.

You can customise CM like you customise FM ? No ! And if you think skinners are "xml geeks", don't download our skins.

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Thinking about the team information panel in fm 2009, where the kits looks weird, I thought if we could make to see the 3d Player in team information panel instead of only kit, it might be a good idea and would be more agreeable.

I hope that can be taken into consideration this request.

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I would like the opportunity to load. Jpg and. Gif images in the FM. ;)

.Gif facepacks would be fantastic ;)

Urgh. gif is a dead format, with terrible quality and poor transparency handling. PNG files are far, far superior to jpeg and gifs in every way.

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And have some kind of user interface to enable a layperson such as myself to edit panels etc. This is a computer game, not a masturbation session for xml geeks.

It astounds me that you thought customising the interface of a computer game would be point and click simple. Can you name me another game that lets you customise to the extent FM does in any easier way? You can stop insulting those that create the multitude of great skins that get released too or simply clear off. Your choice.

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Put the kits back on the match overview screen.

And have some kind of user interface to enable a layperson such as myself to edit panels etc. This is a computer game, not a masturbation session for xml geeks.

Agree with this one.

£0,

£20k,

£50k,

£100k,

£250k,

£500k,

£1M,

£2.5M,

£5M,

£7.5M,

£10M,

£20M,

£30M,

£40M,

£100M.

Can we not edit these now? Thought they would be stored in an XML file or something.

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  • 7 months later...
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The best thing that I can think of is a WYSIWIG IDE similar in function to the eclipse environment. That would speed up design and eliminate many small errors that bugger everyone up, especially if it exported stuff so that installation was as simple as possible.

It would also help if SI released a Class reference for this : class SYSTEM "http://www.sigames.com/dtds/sios/class.dtd", we just might find theres a lot more we can do...

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Aside of StanPetrov suggestions (link), here what I would like:

Side Menu - i think personally that the new type of skin could benefit a little simple organisation and be a more lot intuitive so it is easier to find where we want to go. Still call me old fashion, the side menu made things easier.

Drop down menus - This is part what i can get lost very easily, perhaps I'm used too FM07, but I seem not getting into this new organization of drop down menus. Also in relate note the right click seem to suffer from this lack of organization, which seems that I have some sort of path to make to put player on my shortlist as an example.

Player & Staff pictures - make one size a standard. if it is 180 by 140 then so be it, but don't diminish it for large screens in the news. Since we have determination of size of screen in the preferences screen, then play with that to better use the screen, specially in window mode (my advise is making window mode for small screens and another for large screens).

Large screens - make it use of the large screens where they have a lot of free space. For example the news when announcing top players team month award, why not instead of the dots putting the club logo the player play for or the actual player image and use the space in it.

League Tables - It is shown in one of StanPetrov images But I'm mentioning again, which is showing which places is relegaded or promoted, specially in the top league to know which places goes for Champion League and Europa League (of course can shift due to the country respective cups). see table picture in StanPetrov's post.

Color schemes - Make player on loan, players that already belong to the team your menaging when seeing country team (like Portugal, England and so on). These are small details that make the user to quickly identify things in a screen. Also difference in background color in the tactics screen between starting positions and subs.

Information match to ME highlight change - this has been working properly since FM09, where it shows the kits and all, because that automatic change seemed to be not working properly. Also it would be great fun to have this change also in TV view. Just because for me seems to be little unfinished when going to the next highlight the players seem to frozen on the pitch.

Stadium & location tab - this is basically shows where the match is going to happen. The stadium picture on preview screen in the background, shows where the match is going to be played (don't worry about permissions, since the fan base can provide the pictures like Facepacks and logos) in the foreground has the logos of the teams going to play (much like a combination between matchflow and fifa 2 images in StanPetrov post), the location can be zone of the preview screen that shows in map where the stadium is located, but this map is only for international matches (world Cup qualifications, World cup, Champions League) much like picture Fifa6 (in SP post).

Basically providing information that a person can easily and quickly access information. A picture can describe a thousand words. I think that was StanPetrov idea when he made that post, was not making a copy of Fifa Manager, but rather giving information to please the eyes with little things and quickly receiving information. Like instead when the match ends instead of having three different paragraphs describing the Man of the match of match and on the respective teams, for example. I think can improve the fun factor greatly.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Something I've been thinking about lately is how good an 'add-ons' system for Football manager would be that's totally in-game using repositories.

Users could simply add the address of a new repository in-game and then be able to browse stuff like skins/graphics/tactics to download and use. It would be great in terms of updates being checked for and automatically downloaded etc.

It would actually make a lot of sense for SI as well as third-party creators. They could make updates to default graphics and skins if/when they needed it rather than waiting for patches and they would be checked for. Obviously 3rd party repo's wouldn't be distributed with the game, but they would be addable by the user for stuff that doesn't fit in with SI's licensing.

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Yep ;) Just been playing with the latest nightlies to get iPlayer working again so I've been really looking at the add-on engine now it's finished.

Really, really simple and great to use. e.g. I wanted the Alaska skin for XBMC. The author has created his own repo, added the repo and then I can browse all of his work. Told me there was a new version of his 'Alaska Revisited' skin which I already had so I updated whilst I installed the original 'Alaska Skin' from the repo. Once completed both skins are there to pick from my list. Also installed iPlayer and Apple Movie Trailers in the same way.

Think it would be great tbh - sites could have their own repos with stuff in etc.

Some of the cool little features you see available for skinners in something like XBMC makes you really notice some of the nice little polishing touches we're missing here with FM. One of the nicest things would be to have access to animated UI elements like XBMC has. I'm not talking horrible logos whizzing round, I mean like when you hover over something in a menu it could grow or bounce or there being a nice transition between over and clicked states, drop down menus would slide down, processing screens where the SITV slides in from the top the slides off the bottom when it's completed that sort of thing. I really think they'd give things a lovely fluidity to them rather than the static, pop-up style we see now.

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