Football Manager 2010 Graphic & Skin & Logo Installation Guide

Welcome to the graphics installation helper. This thread will ask you a series of questions and then point you in the direction of a guide you need to follow to install graphics in your FM 2010 game. This should hopefully minimise any problems people are having with installing skins, logos, kits and other graphics in FM 2010.

You're going to need some extra software installed to be able to 'extract' the file you've downloaded. Choose one of the two below depending on your Operating System:

Windows XP/2000/Vista/Windows 7: 7-Zip (Choose the most recent .exe)
MacOS X: The Unarchiver

7-Zip is installed using the .exe you download, following the instructions on-screen. To install The Unarchiver simply double click on the .zip file you download from their website then drag the program it extracts (called 'The Unarchiver') into your apps folder.

Once installed, create a new folder somewhere you can keep track of (on your desktop for instance) and place your downloaded graphics zip, rar or 7z in it. Now we extract:

Windows: Right click on your zip, rar or 7z. Choose 7-Zip from the menu, then select 'Extract Here'.
MacOS X: Right click (or ctrl + click) on your zip, rar or 7z. Choose 'open with' then select 'The Unarchiver'.

Your file should extract and most probably create a folder in the same directory, or perhaps a .fmf file.

Depending on what you're wanting to add you need to put your graphics in different locations. By now you will either have a folder or an .fmf file to add. Now you need to find what is called your 'user data folder' or 'UDF'. This is not the name of a folder (you don't have a folder called 'user data'), it just refers to a particular location on your system. This will by default be in different locations depending on your Operating System:

Win Vista/Windows 7: C:\Users\\Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2010\
Win 2000/XP: C:\Documents and Settings\\My Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2010\
Win 98/ME: C:\My Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2010\
Mac OS X: /Users//Documents/Sports Interactive/Football Manager 2010/

So for example in Windows 7 after just installing the game your UDF will be the 'Football Manager 2010' folder within C:\Users\\Documents\Sports Interactive\. You can if you wish change the location of your UDF by using game preferences. For example if you have little space remaining on your main drive but plenty on an external drive, you can point your UDF to a folder on the external drive. Simply access game preferences and go to the'display and sound' sub tab. At the bottom of the page you can enter or browse to any folder you want and make it your UDF. Just remember where it is if you change it when installing graphics!

For different types of graphics they need to go in different places within your UDF. Once you've found your graphic type below and placed it where it should go FOLLOW THE LINK AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST. YOU ARE NOT DONE YET!:

SKINS

These need to be added to a folder within the user data folder called 'skins'. The folder may already be there or it may need to be created - do that if you need to. Simply drag your folder or fmf file into the skins folder. The folder will likely be named the same as the skin you're installing. So for example if we were installing a skin called "Super Blue", we might have a folder called "\superblue" or a file called "superblue.fmf". We drag that into our 'skins' folder within our 'user data folder' leaving us with:

...\skins\superblue.fmf
or
...\skins\superblue\

(note '...' simply means the location of your user data folder e.g. C:\Documents and Settings\\My Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2010\)

If you are adding a folder a good way to check everything is ok is to open the folder once it's in your skins folder. There should be a .xml file in there named the same as the folder (so for us that would be superblue.xml) along with some other folders (panels, graphics and maybe some others). What you don't want is just another folder called 'superblue' then when you open that you see the xml file. You want just one level of folder, for example:

...\skins\superblue\superblue.xml + other folders (panels, graphics...) - CORRECT
...\skins\superblue\superblue\superblue.xml + other folders (panels, graphics...) - WRONG

If yours is wrong, change your folders around so they are correct.

LOGOS

These need to be added to a folder within your user data folder called 'graphics'. The folder may already be there or it may need to be created - do that if you need to. So for example in Windows XP it would be:

C:\Documents and Settings\\My Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2010\graphics\

Simply drag your folder or fmf file into the graphics folder. Logos need to be within the 'graphics' folder but it does not matter exactly where they are placed. You can organise things into sub-folders to keep your logos neat. For instance you could have a 'logos' sub folder within 'graphics'. Within that you might have sub folders for the different coutries, then within those the different leagues, and so on. Graphics you've downloaded are often already in some sort of order too.

One thing to watch out for when organising are files called config.xml. These are vital and should not be mixed and matched. A set of .png graphics will come with a config.xml that is unique to them in the same folder. Make sure they stay together, in the same folder and that new png files or config.xml files are not added or overwritten into their folder.

If your graphics are .fmf format then you can still create sub folders and organise them how you wish.

FACES

These need to be added to a folder within your user data folder called 'graphics'. The folder may already be there or it may need to be created - do that if you need to. So for example in Windows XP it would be:

C:\Documents and Settings\\My Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2010\graphics\

Simply drag your folder from or fmf file into the graphics folder. Faces need to be within the 'graphics' folder but it does not matter exactly where they are placed. You can organise things into sub-folders to keep your faces neat. For instance you could have a 'faces' sub folder within 'graphics'. Within that you might have sub folders for the different coutries, then within those the different leagues, and so on. Graphics you've downloaded are often already in some sort of order too.

One thing to watch out for when organising are files called config.xml. These are vital and should not be mixed and matched. A set of .png graphics will come with a config.xml that is unique to them in the same folder. Make sure they stay together, in the same folder and that new png files or config.xml files are not added or overwritten into their folder.

If your graphics are .fmf format then you can still create sub folders and organise them how you wish.

KITS 2D & 3D

These need to be added to a folder within your user data folder called 'graphics'. The folder may already be there or it may need to be created - do that if you need to. So for example in Windows XP it would be:

C:\Documents and Settings\\My Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2010\graphics\

Simply drag your folder or fmf file into the graphics folder. Kits need to be within the 'graphics' folder but it does not matter exactly where they are placed. You can organise things into sub-folders to keep your kits neat. For instance you could have a 'kits' sub folder within 'graphics'. Within that you might have sub folders for the different coutries, then within those the different leagues, and so on. Graphics you've downloaded are often already in some sort of order too.

One thing to watch out for when organising are files called config.xml. These are vital and should not be mixed and matched. A set of .png graphics will come with a config.xml that is unique to them in the same folder. Make sure they stay together, in the same folder and that new png files or config.xml files are not added or overwritten into their folder.

If your graphics are .fmf format then you can still create sub folders and organise them how you wish.

BACKGROUNDS

Backgrounds have been disabled with the default FM10 skin. This means team/player specific backgrounds will not work. They should be able to be re-enabled with a 3rd party skin but at present (release day) there are some issues with backgrounds not displaying even with them re-enabled. More information will be posted if a solution arises.

BALLS

You need to include your files in an actual skin rather than just putting them in the user data folder. You can either add them to your favourite downloaded skin or if you use the default skins you can download what are called 'base skins' and add your graphics to them. See this thread for information on downloading the base skins for FM10: =====>>>>> Click

Say you wanted to add balls to a skin called 'superblue'. You would add them into the following folder:

...\skins\superblue\graphics\pitch\balls\

(note '...' simply means the location of your user data folder)

You may need to create some of the folders yourself but skins can come with them already.

POPUPS

You need to include your files in an actual skin rather than just putting them in the user data folder. You can either add them to your favourite downloaded skin or if you use the default skins you can download what are called 'base skins' and add your graphics to them. See this thread for information on downloading the base skins for FM10: =====>>>>> Click

Say you wanted to add balls to a skin called 'superblue'. You would add them into the following folder:

...\skins\superblue\graphics\pitch\popup\

(note '...' simply means the location of your user data folder)

You may need to create some of the folders yourself but skins can come with them already.

NETS

You need to include your files in an actual skin rather than just putting them in the user data folder. You can either add them to your favourite downloaded skin or if you use the default skins you can download what are called 'base skins' and add your graphics to them. See this thread for information on downloading the base skins for FM10: =====>>>>> Click

Say you wanted to add balls to a skin called 'superblue'. You would add them into the following folder:

...\skins\superblue\graphics\pitch\nets\

(note '...' simply means the location of your user data folder)

You may need to create some of the folders yourself but skins can come with them already.

2D PLAYER ICONS

You need to include your files in an actual skin rather than just putting them in the user data folder. You can either add them to your favourite downloaded skin or if you use the default skins you can download what are called 'base skins' and add your graphics to them. See this thread for information on downloading the base skins for FM10: =====>>>>> Click

Say you wanted to add balls to a skin called 'superblue'. You would add them into the following folder:

...\skins\superblue\graphics\pitch\icons\kit\

(note '...' simply means the location of your user data folder)

You may need to create some of the folders yourself but skins can come with them already.

3D GRAPHICAL ELEMENTS [WIP]

With FM 10 it looks as if many more 3D graphical elements can be edited (at least their textures can be - not the shapes). As information comes to light this guide will be updated to reflect it.

Finishing Up

Now we've installed the graphics we need to get the game to load them up properly, a vital step. Launch Football Manager 2010. When loaded go straight into game preferences from the intro screen. Click on 'Display and Sound' from the sub-tab menu. Make sure that you tick the check box on the page called 'Always Reload Skin on Confirm' and un-tick then box saying 'Use Skin Cache'. Now press confirm. There should be a box that pops up saying 'loading image data for the new skin'. Once this is done your graphics should be working within the game. You may want to quit the game and reload it - just to be sure.

To select a skin you've added choose it from the drop down menu in 'preferences>display and sound' and press confirm. Other graphics do not need choosing to enable them. You do not need to start a new save game for graphics to work.

Once you're sure your graphics have worked go into preferences again and change the tick boxes back to how they were if you wish (doing so will speed up the game load times).

Football Manager 2010 (Tactics, Trainings, Graphics, Players)