Base Skins for Football Manager 2015
As with most recent Football Managers for you to make certain changes in Football Manager 2015 you need to create a new skin.
So to make things easier for people I've put up some base skins that are identical to the default skins that come with the game, so you can add new files/graphics to these without messing up the original skins, and anything that isn't located in these new skin folders will be taken from the default locations within the game.
UPDATE: 13th December 2014 - Base Skins for the Alternative skins added in patch 15.2 are now up.
For Football Manager 2015 you have four skins to choose from with both Light and Dark skins for both the Full Mode and FMC Mode:
Dark Base Skin 2015 - This is the Default Base Skin and is identical in appearance to the Default FM2015 Dark Skin.
*NEW* Base Skin 2015 - This is the Light Alternative Full Mode Skin and is based on the Default FM2015 Light Skin.
Classic Base Skin - This is the Base Skin for the FMC (Classic) Mode of FM2015 and is identical in appearance to the Default FMC Skin.
*NEW* Classic Dark Base Skin - This is the Dark Base Skin for the FMC (Classic) Mode of FM2015 and is identical in appearance to the Alternative Dark FMC Skin.
Also as there are still some issues with the Steam Workshop I have included all the files from the Alternative skins so you do not need to have them installed before using the Alternative Base Skins this year.
DOWNLOAD DARK BASE SKIN 2015
DOWNLOAD LIGHT BASE SKIN
DOWNLOAD FMC CLASSIC BASE SKIN
DOWNLOAD FMC DARK BASE SKIN
NOTE: For the Base Skin 2015 the font settings of the Default Alternative Skin seem to be slightly different to the Default Dark Skin, as I find the font settings of the Dark Skin easier to read I have altered the font settings for the Base Skin 2015, however if you want the orignal font settings back delete the fonts folder from the Base Skin. Also the Light Base Skin has fairly solid panels compared to the Dark Skin, if you want the panels to be more transparent like the Dark Skin then delete the contents of the graphics folder.
Below are a couple of screenshots, first one shows the Light Base Skin with the font settings I've included, second screenshot shows font settings from the Official Alternative Skin (what you will get if you delete the fonts folder) and the third screenshot shows what the skin will look like if you delete the graphics folder:
Change Log:
v15.2 (Uploaded 10th December 2014 22:17 UK Time)
- Applies to both the Dark and Classic Base Skin.
- Updated to work with patch 15.2
- Updated files to patch version 15.2
- Only additions are some extra colour settings located at the bottom of the settings file.
v1.1.3.1 (Uploaded 27th November 2014 13:13 UK Time)
- FM DARK: Fixed colour of sidebar should be black not blue.
v1.1.3 (Uploaded 13th November 2014 11:37 am UK Time)
- Checked files with Retail 15.1.3 patch.
- Added a couple of missing font files to both base skins.
This year I have also included to make things easier for people:
- All the files included with the default Skins.
- The Default Fonts for the FM2015 skins.
- Extra entries in the settings.xml file to include all settings used by the skin into one file for ease of editing.
Instructions:
When you extract the file you have have downloaded you should have one folder called base_dark2015 (or base15_fmc for the FMC Skin) and a readme.txt file.
Now copy the folder into your skins folder within your Saving Location, by default this is:
For the Demo:
\My Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2015 Demo\skins\
For the full game:
\My Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2015\skins\
If you cannot find your Saving Location, load up the game and go into the preferences -> Overiew Screen, on the right of the screen should be a section headed Saving, there should be a folder location listed in the box, this is the location of your Saving folder, if you browse to that location on your computer (not through FM) there should be a skins folder located within that folder, this is where you put your downloaded skins.
For example my Saving location is: S:\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2015\ as shown by the below screenshot:
You can also change the location of your Saving Location if you wish or reset its location to default. (you’ll need to reload the game for it to take affect)
If done right your skins folder should look something like this:
And inside the base_dark2015 folder you should have the following folders:
When you load the game up if the skin cache is off any skins in the above folder should appear in the skins menu like the below image:
NOTE That FMC skins will only appear when you are playing the FMC mode and normal skins will only appear when playing the normal mode.
If the skin cache is on you'll need to turn it off, exit the Preferences menu and re-enter it and any new skins should appear, if not tick 'Always Reload Skin on Confirm' and change skins, click confirm and go back in and your skin should appear.
To Replace Graphics
To replace the following graphics you need to copy the graphics you have made or downloaded into the correct folders within the folder for the skin you are using:
Gold Stars:
My Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2015\skins\<SKIN_NAME>\graphics\icons\custom\star rating\senior
Silver Stars:
My Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2011\skins\<SKIN_NAME>\graphics\icons\custom\star rating\youth
To get the 2D pitch icons (balls, nets, players) into the game they no longer need to go into the skins folder and can instead now be installed directly into the graphics folder.
To Edit the Fonts
The font settings for each skin are now controlled by a couple of locations. Overall settings are controlled by the <SKIN_NAME> settings.xml file located inside the settings folder.
For the Dark Base Skin this is the ‘\dark_base2015\settings\dark_base2015 settings.xml’ file.
For the FMC Base Skin this is the ‘\base15_fmc\settings\base15_fmc settings.xml’ file.
Whilst more detailed instructions for various screen and items are controlled by the various xml files located inside the fonts folder for the skin.
For the base skins I have copied in the relevant coding for you to change the various text settings – style, size etc, you just need to open the <SKIN_NAME> settings.xml file scroll down to the bottom of the file until you see the TEXT SETTINGS text and edit the relevant code below that line. I've also included the various font files in the fonts folder for you to edit.
To change the actual font used by the game, you will first need to copy the relevant font file into the fonts folder for your skin and then change the font name in the settings file and the fonts file.
To Edit the Font Colours
The colour settings for each skin are controlled by the <SKIN_NAME> settings.xml file located inside the settings folder.
For the Dark Base Skin this is the ‘\dark_base2015\settings\dark_base2015 settings.xml’ file.
For the FMC Base Skin this is the ‘\base15_fmc\settings\base15_fmc settings.xml’ file.
For the base skins I have copied in the relevant coding for you to change the various colours used by the skin – you just need to open the <SKIN_NAME> settings.xml file and locate the relevant line for the colour setting you wish to change – the colour names and comments should explain what the majority of the colours control.
The colours are declared in RGB values, that range from 0-255 where Red=255 Green=255 Blue=255 is white and Red=0 Green=0 Blue=0 is black.
To locate the RGB value of a colour you want to use you can either use a image editing program to obtain the RGB Value of the colour or type rgb values into google and it will bring up several websites that list the RGB Values for various colours.
NEW FOR FM2015 - How to Recolour the Game Colours
A new feature for Football Manager 2015 is that the colours of the various graphics that make up the skin are now controlled by settings in the <SKIN NAME> settings.xml file located inside the settings folder.
For the Dark Base Skin this is the ‘\dark_base2015\settings\dark_base2015 settings.xml’ file.
For the FMC Base Skin this is the ‘\base15_fmc\settings\base15_fmc settings.xml’ file.
For the base skins I have copied in the relevant coding for you to change the various colours used by the skin – you just need to open the <SKIN_NAME> settings.xml file and locate the relevant line for the colour setting you wish to change – the colour names and comments should explain what the majority of the colours control.
This coding is the last section of coding in the xml file and is edited in the same way as you would change the text colours in previous versions, most of these options are also commented so it shouldn't take much time to work out what each option recolours.
To Edit the Attribute Threshold
This is now done in game via the Preferences -> Interface -> Skin Colours screen.
For your changes to take affect
If you have made any changes to the base skins (colours, fonts, graphics) to get your changes to show you’ll need to go into the Preferences -> Interface Menu and untick ‘Use caching to decrease page loading times’ if it is ticked and then tick ‘Reload skin when confirming changes in Preferences’ then click confirm and your changes should be applied, if you have previousily ticked and unticked the required boxes a 'Reload Skin' button should appear in the bottom left corner, if this button appears you can click that if the Confirm Button is grayed out.