How To Make Kit Graphics
This is a tutorial about how to make kit graphics for FM, using the LS’10 style and creating the Fulham 2009/2010 Home Kit.
Styles / Kit Info
In my opinion, FMG Live has the best graphic designers when it comes to FM related stuff. They have come up with amazing styles over the last couple of years, like the LS’10, SS’10 or bSS’10:
All those are different kit styles, and within these styles we can find a massive amount of templates based on the major kit makers current crop of designs. Every year, Adidas, Nike, Umbro etc come up with a bunch of designs for the current season, and they use these templates for all teams. Example: Chelsea and Bayern Munich are using the same kit design this year for their home shirts.
These templates are often collected into megapacks, and if you download this, you will have ready made templates for almost all teams in the world. Only thing you would have to do is to apply the correct colours, sponsors and club logos, and you have yourself a kit.
For this little tutorial, I’ll use the LS’10 style, as that is the one I’m currently using in game. We will be making the Fulham home shirt.
Step 1: Resources
In order to make kits, you will need;
1. Adobe Photoshop (tutorial is fine)
2. Megapack for the template you’re gonna use
3. Eye for detail
4. Google
Step 2: Download necessary files
First, we need the megapack, so we can find the correct template for the Fulham kit. You can find the latest LS’10 Megapack here:
http://www.filefront.com/15644731/LS…te-Pack-v7.rar
Now we want to find a good picture of Fulhams home shirt. Normally I would go to www.kitbag.com to see if the team is featured there, but Fulham weren’t….so the next step is their official website instead. I found this in their shop:
After that, we want to find a good LG logo, so it’s Google time. From a ‘LG logo’ search, I found this:
And the last thing on our list is to find the club logo, Google again:
So now we have all the resources we need to make the kit. Time to build it.
Step 3: Finding the right template
Unpack the megapack file, and head into the Templates – Nike folder. To find the correct template, we will need to look for the prominent features of the Fulham kit; rounded collar and a seam going from the collar all the way down to the cuffs.
After checking through all the kits, we can see that the Nike 5 design is probably the closest.
Step 4: Photoshop – Colours
Start Photoshop and load the Nike.psd located in the Nike folder (where we found the template). When Photoshop is loaded, press F7 to bring up the layers panel (if it isn’t already loaded).
First thing we do is to double-click the ‘Colour Overlay’ effect in the ‘shape’ layer in the ‘base’ folder, here:
A layer style window should pop up, where you will see a red box. Clicking that box will allow you to change the colour. Click it and pick white, then press OK twice to close down the colour and layer style windows.
Your kit should now be white in the middle part, and still red on the arms, sides and collar.
Next, we will open up the ‘Nike’ folder in the layers panel, de-select the folder called ‘Nike 39′ by clicking the eye icon next to it. Then press the eye icon next to the folder ‘nike 5′, which is the template we decided was the correct one to use for the Fulham kit.
You should now see an empty white and black kit, similar to the Fulham kit, like this:
Notice that the arms aren’t fully correct though, as the black kit sleeves on the real kit ends along the arm seam, they don’t go up to the collar like that on the front. That seems to be the only issue though, so lets start fixing the arms.
Step 5: Photoshop – Getting the arms right
In the ‘nike 5′ folder in your layers panel, you have three different folders. Expand the one that says ‘Design’.
The two layers in here control:
1. The white seam going from the collar to the cuffs
2. The black arms and shoulder parts
We need to make sure the arms end correctly, so select the layer with the black arms (called ‘Layer 78 copy’) and then pick the Elliptical Marquee Tool:
Then make a big oval, that corresponds to the curve of the arms, like this:
Now select the lasso tool:
Hold down SHIFT and start drawing within the white seam, from inside the oval selection we just did, all the way up to the collar. Then go straight up (we’re still holding SHIFT), go back left towards the top of the oval selection, and when you’re inside it, let go. You should end up with a selection like this:
Now do the same thing on the bottom of the oval selection. Hold SHIFT and draw a selection from the bottom of the oval, so we include the bottom part of the arm too, like this:
Now press M to get to the Elliptical Marquee Tool again, right-click inside the oval selection and pick ‘Invert Selection’. Now press delete. The extra bit should disappear, and so should the other arm.
It should look like this now:
To get the other arm, we just right-click the arm layer (‘Layer 78 copy’) and pick ‘Duplicate Layer’, then OK. Now go to Edit – Transform – Flip Horizontal. Drag the arm to its correct position on the right, and now we have a correct base kit for the Fulham kit! 
Step 6: Photoshop – Nike Kit Logos
First off, head into the folder called ‘Logos’. The first layer is the Nike logo, and it needs to be black. Double-click the Colour Overlay effect again, and pick black in the little colour box.
The next layer in this folder is the inside neck stamp. This should probably be a little darker, even though we can’t see it in the picture we have. Double-click that layer (‘Layer 505′) to bring up the Layer Style window. In the left hand side, tick the ‘Colour Overlay’ and select it. Change the colour in the box to a medium gray.
Now if we take a look at the real kit, we can see that the only other logos related to Nike is a small logo in the bottom right. This means we won’t be needing the next layer in the Logos folder (called ‘Layer 41 copy’). Press the eye icon next to it to make it invisible.
Now select the last layer in this folder (‘Layer 9 copy’) and go to Edit – Transform – Flip Horizontal. Drag it to the other side of the shirt. Double click the Colour Overlay effect and pick a medium gray colour.
Step 7: Photoshop – Fulham Club Logo
Open up the big logo we found on the Google Image search (open it in Photoshop).
Select the Magic Wand tool:
Make sure ‘Contiguous’ is ticked at the top of the screen, and set ‘Tolerance’ to 30:
Click the white area on the bottom left in the picture, and then hold SHIFT and click the other side. You should now have this selection:
Once again, press M, right-click one of the white spaces and ‘Select Inverse’.
With the move tool selected (you can press ‘V’ to get to it quick), drag the logo to the kit.
You should now see a very big logo on top of the kit. Go to Edit – Transform – Scale. At the top of your window, click the little chain icon, and change the value 100% to 10%;
If we look atthe real kit, we can see that the club logo is a little bigger than double the height of the Nike logo, so the 10% size actually worked very well this time. In other cases you would probably have to mess around with this percentage to get it just right.
Move the logo to the right hand side of the chest and press Enter.
We should have something like this now:
Step 8: Photoshop – LG Sponsor Logo
Using the same technique as when making the club logo, use the magic wand to select everything sround the LG logo and letters, right-click it, select inverse and then drag it to the kit tab.
Edit – Transform – Scale it to 50% and press enter.
Center it.
Now go to Image – Adjustments – Hue/Saturation and change the Hue to +20 and Saturation to +30, like this:
This is to make the LG logo more red and vibrant, as the original logo we found online was very dull.
Now go to Image – Adjustments – Brightness/Contrast and change Brightness to -30 and Contrast to 70, like this:
We do this to make the LG letters a little darker, so that the sponsor logo is more prominent.
Step 9: Photoshop – Last details
Looking at the real kit, we can see that the Nike logo and the club logo is further down than what we have so far. Move them both down a couple of notches.
We can also see that the club logo is quite bright compared to the LG logo. Select the club logo layer and go to Image – Adjustments – Brightness/Contrast and change Brightness to -50 and Contrast to 70.
Now we’re done with the basic kit, it should look like this now:
Extra: Making it look more realistic
In my personal opinion, the texture effect on the LS’10 kits isn’t that great. It is slightly too ‘cartoonish’ for my taste, so I’ve made a personal blend texture which creates more of a ‘daylight’ effect, as well as a couple of tricks I do when making new kits.
I also always go into the ‘Collar’ folder and find the inside shadow layer (in the ‘nike 5′ folder, the inside shadow layer is named ‘Layer 554 copy’). Then double-click the ‘Inner Shadow’ effect and change the opacity to at least 85%. I also change the size slightly, to about 20-25, like this:
Last thing we do is add Premiership Badges on the arms, as it just makes it looks more realistic.
To add my texture and the arm badges, download my Textures & Extras PSD
Go to the Fulham kit file, find the folder called ‘texture’, and drag it to the little bin icon on the bottom right of the layers panel.
Now go to the Texture & Extras PSD, find the layer (or layer folder) you want to add, select it, hold SHIFT and drag it to the Fulham kit. By holding shift, it becomes automatically centered in the correct position.
You should drag the folders ‘Texture Light’ and ‘Premier League Badges’ to the Fulham kit.
Remember to hold SHIFT while dragging.
The Premiership badges might be hidden, so make sure the eye icon next to the folder is activated.
Now you’re done.
Here is the comparison between the kit without my custom texture & extras, and then with:
It’s a matter of taste, and you don’t have to do this last step if you think it looks fine without my texture.
Step 10: Using the kit in Football Manager
Exporting the image
The in-game kits use a size of 160×160 pixels, so in order to create a perfect tiny version of what we’ve just done, we go to File – Save for Web & Devices.
In this window, we have to pick the preset PNG-24 in the top right hand corner. Make sure ‘Transparency’ is ticked.
Further down you’ll see the Image Size section, write ’160′ in one of the boxes and press enter. You should now see the kit in 160×160. Press ‘Save’ and save the file to your desktop as ‘fulham1.png’.
You should now have this:
Making it work (XML)
Locate your Documents/Sports Interactive/Football Manager 2010/ folder. In it there should be a folder called ‘graphics’. If not, create one. In the ‘graphics’ folder, find or create the ‘kits’ folder. In the ‘kits folder, find or create the ‘eng’ folder.
In the ‘eng’ folder, drag the exported ‘fulham1.png’ here. Now open any text editor, like Notepad, and copy the following text:
<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"> <!-- Auto generated by fmXML --></list> </record>Now, right before the last two lines (where it says</list>), write the following line of text:
<record from="" to="graphics/pictures/team/xxx/kits/home" />
Then write ‘fulham1′ within the first quotes (after <record from="). This will make the game know that it should pick the fulham1 file.
Now we have to find out what unique ID Fulham has in Football Manager, so open up FM (any save will do).
Go to Preferences – Display & Sound, and tick the ‘Show Unique Ids’ box. Press Confirm, then find Fulham in the game. Their unique ID will be in the title bar (it is 654).
Close the game, and head back into your text editor.
Where the line says ‘xxx’ (after ...team/), write the unique ID; 654.
Now we have a complete line of code to make the kit work in Football Manager, it should look like this:
<record from="fulham1" to="graphics/pictures/team/654/kits/home" />Save that file as ‘config.xml’ and put it in the same folder as the kit (Documents/Sports Interactive/Football Manager 2010/graphics/kits/eng/).
Congrats, you have just made a custom kit graphic that gets loaded in Football Manager.
To repeat the process for several teams, do the same thing again, but use the same XML for all english teams. Just add another text line, and change ‘home’ to ‘away’ or ‘third’, depending on what kit you’ve made.
Issues in FM
Some kits have what’s being called the ‘home kit bug’ in FM. This is a SI bug which makes it impossible to make custom graphics for some teams (like Arsenal and Tottenham). To avoid this bug, you can duplicate the entry, and add “/2009″ after the entry. If we would do this trick with the Fulham kit we’ve just made, it would look like this in the XML:
<record from="fulham1" to="graphics/pictures/team/654/kits/home" /> <record from="fulham1" to="graphics/pictures/team/654/kits/home/2009" />In some cases, the bugs aren’t fixed this way, and the only way to fix it would be going into the editor and duplicating the kit that doesn’t work, then deleting the original.
Help
If you’re a total beginner at this, I would suggest following this tutorial exactly as written, and if you run into any problems, post a comment at the bottom of this article.