Now this does require a download which you can get from
HERE!!! Without this you will not have the templates :)
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Welcome to Part 2 of How To Skin Fm By Tazskool! – Title Panels!
Part 1 “FM Background Making” has already been released so this is the follow on from that and the start of looking into the real aspect of skinning.
This is a long drawn out process which is not easy so I shall put it as simply as I can cause I have been writing this as I go along with learning how to skin myself.
I have looked at other guides out there and there aren’t any, which really help the want to be skinner, get detailed information or templates.
It is always best practise to make BACKUPS of any files you are changing. So for this section of the Guide go into C:/Program Files/Sports Interactive/Football Manager 2006/data/graphics/ is the directory we will be dealing with through out this manual!
So here is my version and I hope you provide feedback as of ways to improve this!
First of all I am going to start with the title bar you see at the top of the screen after you have loaded or started your game.
There are 3 main files, which are used to create this title bar.
They are “Titlepanel_left.png”, “titlepanel_right.png” and “titlepanel_middle.png”
These can be found in the Data/Graphics/Navigation directory.
You will see in this zip file a selection of .pspimages. These are all my templates, which I made to assist you easily into making your own skins.
If you open your version of Paint Shop Pro and open Image1.pspimage you will see it looks something like this.
Image 1 (If this does not appear see Image1.jpg in the zip file)
This is a template of all 3 files you require to build this section put together so you are able to match colours and line everything up perfectly and simply.
You will notice there are some blue lines on this image and on your .pspimage. These are guidelines to show you where each section starts and finishes so later on you can cut and paste these into separate images, which we will cover later on in this section of the manual.
I’m going to basically show you how to recolour the image, cut it out, save and rename it.
You will also see that in the right hand side of your Paintshop Pro
screen you will have 4 layers.
Image 1 Layers (If this does not appear see Image1layers.jpg in zip file)
Each “Raster” is part of the .pspimage. It is easier to do one section of the menu bar at a time rather than the whole lot since later on you will have to copy and paste each “Raster” into its own image which I will guide you through later!
Now to explain which “Raster” is which sectionof the image.
Raster 1 is the left hand side of the image (titlepanel_left.png)
Raster 2 is the right hand side of the image (titlepanel_right.png)
Raster 3 is the middle of the image (titlepanel_middle.png)
Raster 4 is the background of the whole image.
You will see that Raster 3 is VERY small. This is due to the fact it copies itself through the space on the screen when you load the program up. So when it comes to editing this be very careful!
If you click on Raster 1 in the Layers screen (shown as Image 1 Layers) above you will be able to edit this section of the menu bar. It will highlight in blue on the layer menu.
This will allow you to colour ONLY this section of the template, which will make it easier to cut the sections out later.
Choose which colour you want from the Palette box in the top right of the screen.
Then if you wish to colour the entire Raster in the one colour choose the “Flood Fill Tool”
Which looks like a tin and the drop. See image right.
Next move the cursor over to your section “Raster” of the image you have chosen and left mouse click on the image and it should fill everything of the same colour to the new colour you have chosen earlier. If you have made a mistake you can use the UNDO arrow at the top of the Paint Shop Pro screen.
As you can see in Image 1 there are blue guidelines across it which gives you the added benefit of seeing where each section “Raster” starts and finishes. For instance the image above shows 3 sections across. The first one having the FMF words on it, which is quite a long section. The 2nd image is VERY small (1 pixel across) which you will have to magnify the image to see it clearly when colouring it. The 3rd section (right-hand side).
There are also 4 more lines on the template, which show you where the FM display section is. They mark out the edges of each side and the top and bottom just in case you do what I did when learning and colour over them and save it incorrectly.
To get a decent view of the template you will need to magnify the image. At the top of the screen on
the left hand side there is a symbol which will let you choose to zoom in and out of the image you
have selected.
Now you will need to look at the Top of the screen for the ZOOM properties.
If you click on the + symbol is makes the image bigger so you can see it clearer and this is what you need when colouring small sections of any Raster you have chosen and the Raster which is 1 pixel wide (titlebar_middle.png).
Don’t try and get too flash with designs for the for the first time and titlebar_middle.png which is only 1 pixel wide as during the game the image is multiplied across the screen (which in further skinning guides you will notice FM does this a lot!)
So remember to select your Raster Layer first and then colour it the colours you want.
Saving your changes and where to save them.
Once you have made all the changes you want to your template image and made sure the changes are on the correct “Raster” Layers then you will need to cut/copy and save these.
Remember you MUST have made backups of the whole Graphics directory before this section!!
Now you have made your changes and made it look as good as you want it to. Colours all look even and match up across the entire image (all 3 Rasters!) you are ready to cut and paste and then save into the correct place.
Select one of the Raster layers you have coloured and then click on EDIT and COPY which are at the top of the PSP Menu Screen. This will copy that section of the Raster you have selected.
Now right click in a blank section of the PSP working screen and select “Paste As New
Image”. This will create a new image of just that Raster layer which will now also
Create a new Raster Layer section of its own!
You will also see next to Raster 1 you have a sliding scale, which is, called “Opacity” and we need to slide this down to about 85 for this image and the further two images in the template.
Now with the Opacity set at 85ish and the single image selected ready to be saved.
At the top left of the screen you will see a menu called File. Click on this and then click on SAVE AS. This will open up a new window and allow you to save the image to where you want and call it what you want.
You will need to show this screen where to save it. Double click on My computer in the large section. Then double click on C Drive, Program Files, Sports interactive, Football Manager 2006, data, graphics, navigation
Now you need to tell the computer what type of image to save it as. Click on SAVE AS TYPE and from that menu select “Portable Network Graphics (*.png)”
Now you have found the correct place to save it to comes the part of finding the image to save it as. If it is the right hand side of the template at the start of this manual the image you are looking to click on is “titlepanel_right” if it’s the left one its called “titlepanel_left” and if it’s the middle section its called “titlepanel_middle”
Click on the name of the image in the large box in the middle that is what you wish to call your image (see above for names of sections). Then click SAVE. It will ask you if you wish to overwrite the image that is already there. Say YES.
Repeat these steps with all 3 sections of the image template you have coloured in and then close PSP. Start up your FM game and load or start a new game. Then when you see the main screen you should see your freshly made coloured image across the top of the screen.
If you have any problems, questions or want future versions of this guide and want to skin ALL of your FM game then please log into
www.fmformation.net and see the Guides threads.
This is where I can be found all the time so please do NOT leave private messages on the board you normally are a member of as I only check my PMs on FMFormation.
Hope this guide and the other guides on how to skin the rest of your FM game as useful!
Part 3 to follow....
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NOTE: If you are thinking of using this file on any other site please PM or EMAIL me asking for permission. If I find it on anyother site (and i keep records) I will personally join that site and speak to the Mods!
I do not mind sharing it but I like the little respect in asking first! :)
Tazskool's Skinning Guide - Part 2 - Title Panels + Templates! 
Linear Mode
