Football Manager 2021 Base Skins
As with most recent Football Managers for you to make certain changes in Football Manager 2021 you need to create a new skin. Thankfully over the last few years some more stuff has been moved out of the skins folder so you only really need the Base skin if you are wanting to edit the skin graphics, fonts or colours. If you want to edit the match graphics or the most of the panel xml files you no longer really need the base skins.
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.
For Football Manager 2021 at the moment you have three skins to choose from the Default (Purple) Skin, and two Dark Skins one based on the FM21 colouring (Purple accents) and one based on the FM20 colouring (Cyan and Yellow accents). Light Base Skins will follow but with no default light skin this year they require a bit more work.
I'll also upload the Dark (and when they are ready Light) Versions to the Steam Workshop later for those that want a Dark/Light skin but don't need to edit them.
Base21 Skin
This skin is based on the Default Football Manager 2021 Skin, and is identical in appearance to that skin.
Change Log
v1.2 (15:25 22/12/2020)
- Updated files to match Patch 21.2
- client object browser xml file updated.
- couple of colour changes.
- Included Player Attribute Panel Fixes - Attribute, Scrollbar, Analyzer cut off, increased Player Face size, re-enabled Report option in the Small Selector Panel.
Base21 Dark Skin
This skin is based on the Dark Football Manager 2021 Skin, which whilst included with the game files hasn't been enabled by default. The skin layout is identical to the Default FM21 skin, however the main Purple colour has been replaced with Black, but I have left the Purple Accents. Whilst the Inbox and Scouting Centre have both been made dark unlike in the Default Skin.
Change Log
v1.2 (15:25 22/12/2020)
- Updated files to match Patch 21.2
- client object browser xml file updated.
- couple of colour changes.
v1.1 (09:45 01/12/20)
- Changed folder name due to Workshop issues.
Colours
- Tweaked the Media Tag colours on the Inbox, made them lighter.
Player Attribute Panel Tweaks
- Removed unneeded scrollbar.
- Stopped bottom option being cut from Analyzer
- Increased player pic size.
- Added Report option to Small Selector Panel.
Base21 Dark (FM20) Skin
This skin is based on the Dark Skin from Football Manager 2020. The skin layout is identical to the Default FM21 skin, and the colour is largely the same as the Base21 Dark Skin however I have switched the Accent colours over the the Yellow and Cyan used in FM20. This version also has a dark Inbox and Scouting Centre.
Change Log
v1.2 (15:25 22/12/2020)
- Updated files to match Patch 21.2
- client object browser xml file updated.
- couple of colour changes.
v1.1 (09:45 01/12/20)
- Changed folder name due to Workshop issues.
Colours;
- Fixed issue with bright yellow background colour, changed to Purple from Main Dark Skin (bg tertiary colour).
- Tweaked the media tag colours on the inbox screens, made lighter so more readable.
Player Attributes Panel;
- Removed un-needed scrollbars from Attributes panel.
- Fixed the Attribute Analyzer bottom row from being cut off.
- Increased the size of the Player Face.
- Added the Report option to the Small Selector Panels, so you can now view the Scout/Coach Report rating on this screen.
Redistribution Terms
You are free to post this content to your website provided:
1. It is not sold or behind a paywall.
2. You don't advertise it as being exclusive to your website.
3. My username and blog address are included: http://michaeltmurrayuk.blogspot.co.uk/
4. If linking to my work then please provide a link to the download page rather than the download link as the download link may change.
If you have any questions then the best place to ask them is in the Skinning Hideout at the Official SIGames Forums where I can be found most days.
If you like my work then feel free to send me a donation through paypal. Note this is completely optional all of my content will always be free.
Install Instructions
When you extract the file you have downloaded you should have one folder (with a name starting base21...) and a readme text file.
Now copy the folder into your skins folder within your User Data Location, by default this is:
For Windows:
C:\Users\[Your Windows Username]\Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2021\
For Mac:
Users\[Your Mac Username]\Library\Application Support\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2021
If done right your skins folder should look something like this:
And inside for example the base21 folder you should have the following folders:
To select the skin in game you will need to load the game, and go into the Preferences Menu, then in the middle you should have a section called Interface and in that is an option called Skin with a drop-down menu under it.
If you select the drop-down menu it should list all of the skins you have installed, if the skin you want is listed then just select it and press the Confirm button to load it.
If the skin you want isn't showing.
Then you can either select the Advanced option on the left and on the top right drop down select Interface, then scroll down the Skin section and untick Use caching to decrease loading times and tick Reload skin when confirming changes in Preferences.
Or in the search bar at the top type in Skin and in the listed results untick Use caching to decrease loading times and tick Reload skin when confirming changes in Preferences.
Then click Confirm at the bottom, this should then take you out of the Preferences menu but if you re-enter, it should have refreshed the list of skins and your skin should now be in the list.
Once the skin is loaded you can turn the skin cache back on and untick the Always Reload button.
How To Stop The Blurring Effect When Processing
FM2016 introduced a new feature where when the main screen isn't the focus of the screen it blurs out, however if you don't like this effect it is simple enough to disable it, to do this simply browse to the following locations within the Base Skin you are using:
NOTE: For FM21 there are now two locations, so you may need to edit them both to disable the blurring.
\graphics\boxes\dialog\background
\graphics\boxes\bordered\blurred
Inside each location will be a paper xml file open them and locate this line:
<boolean id="blurred" value="true"/>
and change it to read:
<boolean id="blurred" value="false"/>
How To Enable Background Changes
The Default FM21 skin somewhat supports background images this year however the fade effect and the transparent titlebar cause some issues, so I have included my Background Support Mod within the Base Skins again this year.
To Adjust the Overlay Strength
If you browse to the boxes\custom\background folder inside the graphics folder for the Base skin you installed you'll notice several graphic files these are numbered by the level of opacity - 0 is fully transparent and 100 is fully solid. For the default file I have copied over the default fade graphic so not cause issues for people who don't use background images.
To adjust the overlay strength first make copies (or at least rename) the existing paper and paper@2x files so you can revert back to this if you need to.
Next make two copies of the file with the transparency you want and rename one to paper and the other to paper@2x. (The @2x file is used for zoom modes and higher resolutions and it's a good idea to set this file even if you don't need it to stop the game defaulting to a different file that may affect you level of transparency).
To get the game to read your changes make sure the skin cache is off and reload your skin and the changes should apply, it is then just a case of picking a level that suits you.
If you want to adjust the overlay strength then just follow these instructions with one of the other files until you are happy with the level of transparency.
How To Edit The Fonts
The font settings are now controlled by the various files located inside the fonts folder. For the base skins I have included all the default font files to save you having to go look for them. To edit the fonts its just a case of changing the various variables declared in the fontxml files, whilst to change the actual font you copy the font you want to use to the font folder and then update the font names in the fontxml files to match your new font.
Like with FM20 FM21 also uses the fontxml file format, however the format of the files is the same and you can open them with the same program you use to read normal xml files, you'll just need to right click on the first file and select the open with option in Windows first to associate the files with the program you wish to use.
NOTE: The game will not read them if you change them back to plain xml files.
How 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 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.
Note that whilst this file contains most of the text colour settings, some items are hardcoded, others are determined by the individual xml files and some others are set by the xml files in the fonts folder.
Also if you have the Skin Cache on you can change some of the colours directly through the game from the Preferences -> Interface-> Skin Colours screen
FM20 made some changes to how the Skin Colours work and a full guide will follow, the main things are a change to how the RGB values are declared, and the order the colours appear in the file is now important, but for the purposes of the Base Skins nothing has really changed as you should just be adjusting existing values rather than adding new ones or moving existing ones.
How To Recolour The Game Colours
Like with the font colours these are now controlled via the files found in the settings folder, and are changed in the same way as the font colours.
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.
FM20 made some changes to how the Skin Colours work and a full guide will follow, the main things are a change to how the RGB values are declared, and the order the colours appear in the file is now important, but for the purposes of the Base Skins nothing has really changed as you should just be adjusting existing values rather than adding new ones or moving existing ones.
How To Apply Your Changes
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 previously 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 greyed out.