 FM2008 Custom Content Guide
FM2008 Custom Content Guide
Where do I put my custom content?
Your custom content should be added to the “user data” folder (See below for details). Custom content should NOT be placed where you installed the game.
Where can I find my User Data folder?
You can choose this location yourself by going to “Options > Preferences > General” and changing the user data location from there. This will also display the user data location on your machine.
By default, this is the location on various platforms:
# Win XP: C:\Documents and Settings\\My Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2008\
# Mac OS X : /Users//Documents/Sports Interactive/Football Manager 2008/
NOTE: is the login name used when logging on to your OS
From now on, this will be referred to in this guide as
There are folders already there, where do I put my files?
Skins: /skins
Graphics (Logos/Pics/Kits): /graphics (if this directory is not present then you can simply create one)
Database Update: /db
Saved Games: /games
I’ve made my own picture and don’t know how to add it to the game. Help!
All the game will be able to see is a picture file and have no idea how to use it. This is why we need config.xml files to link up files to objects in the game.
So how do I make a config.xml file?
It’s pretty simple actually. It’s more or less just a text file that can be created in a text editor such as Notepad or Wordpad.
Below is an example xml 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="filename01" to="graphics/pictures/club/1111/logo"/>
<record from="filename02" to="graphics/pictures/club/1111/logo/huge"/>
<record from="filename03" to="graphics/pictures/club/1111/logo/background/left"/>
<record from="filename04" to="graphics/pictures/club/1111/logo/background/right"/>
<record from="filename05" to="graphics/pictures/club/1111/icon"/>
</list>
</record>
Using the example above, this would do the following…
filename01.png would be displayed as the normal team logo for a team with the unique id of 1111
filename02.png would be displayed as the huge team logo for a team with the unique id of 1111
filename03.png would be displayed as the background left team logo for a team with the unique id of 1111
filename04.png would be displayed as the background right team logo for a team with the unique id of 1111
filename05.png would be displayed as the small team logo for a team with the unique id of 1111
How do I find out what the Unique ID is?
This can be done by going to “Options > Preferences > Display & Sound” and selecting “Show Unique IDs” and Confirm. You then simply need to navigate to the team or player you want to find out the ID for and it should display as a number underneath their name in the titlebar beside the small flag.
What do I save my config file as?
You need to save it as config.xml
If you save it and it shows up as a text file or something then you have to select “All Files” or something similar in the filetype option when saving.
What other things can I add to my game?
Now that you know how to add logos, it’s a similar process when adding other things too. You just have to add another “record” to your config.xml file (or create a new one in another folder) with the details of what you want to add. I’ll go through and list them here and a brief description below of what each would show in your game.
The structure of the records are mainly made up like this…
<record from="<filename>" to="graphics/pictures/<object>/<uniqueid>/<type>"/>
* Objects
- club
- team
- comp
- person
- nation
- continent
- stadium
* Types
- logo
- logo/huge
- logo/background/left
- logo/background/right
- icon
- portrait
- kits/home
- kits/away
- kits/third
- kits/back/outfield/home
- kits/back/outfield/away
- kits/back/outfield/third
- kits/back/goalkeeper/home
- kits/back/goalkeeper/away
- kits/back/goalkeeper/third
- background | 
