patrikholm

Background
This is a guide of how you change the default background picture in the default skin for FM 08. At first I want to say that to change the background picture in FM 08 is maybe not the right thing to do right now and it may be the best to wait for an app that can fix this. But I really wanted to change my background picture because I had got tired of the default one. And after 30 minutes of reading here at SIgames forum and on the Sortitoutsis forum I came up with the idea that solved a part of the problem. I am a 17-year old boy from Sweden and therefore my English may not be THAT good but I hope you all will understand the main things in the guide. This guide was written on Swedish at the 1st of December but I today started to translate it to English.

Prolouge
To the FM 08 there are some peoples that have done different background packs to the game. HERE can you find some of those to download at Sortitoutsi. These background packs change picture, when you play matches, to that arena that you play the match on. For an example if you play as Manchester United, Old Trafford is shown when you play at home and Emirates Stadium is shown when you play away from home against Arsenal. The problem with some of these background packs is that the background picture freezes and stays until the next game. The picture doesn’t change back to the default picture between the matches. We say that you are playing home with your United and the next game is against Arsenal. If this happens, Old Trafford will be shown all the time from that you are playing your home game until the match away against Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium. And after that, the Emirates Stadium is shown all time until your next match against any other team (only if the team has a picture in the background pack of course). It was then I realized this and came up with the idea that if you only put one picture for your team that your control (and no other one than that one) and you are going to have it on your match day, then of course it should ”freeze” all the time after your first match at home. This was also right what it did and now I’m going to explain how you will make this work.

The process before you start the game
1. To make it easier for everyone, start downloading the same pack of backgrounds that I did, this one; LINK.
2. Go in to CDocuments and Settings\Yourusernameinwindows\My Documens\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2008\
3. Create a new map (if you haven’t done it already). Name it graphics.
4. Go in to the graphics map and if you have download the same background pack as me (as you should have) then do in the graphics map a new map that you name pictures.
5. Extract the map League 1 from the background pack that you have download.
6. Go in to the League 1 map that you just extracted.
7. Remove all the pictures in the map.
8. Right-click on the config file and open it with notepad.
9. In the config file it is a lot of lines in the middle which starts with <record from=" and so on. Remove all the lines except from; <record from="bournemouth" to="graphics/pictures/stadium/600/background"/>
10. Rename Bournemouth to the team that you want to manage, for an example Southport who I’m playing as. This means that the text says southport now after I changed from Bournemouth to my own team.
11. Change the numbers 600 to the team id of your team. For an example Southport have the team id 715. And that’s why I’ve write it. (The team id of your team can be found in the main editor or in FMM.)
12. Then save the file again as config.xml.
13. Choose any picture that has the right size that you want to have as your background picture in the game and name it to the name of your team (the picture should be in jpeg). I named my picture southport.
14. Place this picture in the map where the config file is. It is also the same map that all your pictures that you removed were in (Leauge 1 map).
15. In the config file it should be like this then if you are going to play as Southport as I do;
<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">&lt;record&gt;&lt;!-- resource manager options --&gt;&lt;!-- dont preload or cache anything in this folder --&gt;&lt;boolean id="preload" value="false"/&gt;&lt;boolean id="cache" value="false"/&gt;&lt;!-- turn on auto mapping --&gt;&lt;boolean id="amap" value="true"/&gt;&lt;list id="maps"&gt; &lt;!-- League 1 teams --&gt;&lt;record from="southport" to="graphics/pictures/stadium/715/background"/&gt;&lt;/list&gt;&lt;/record&gt;</pre>
!;It is not wrong at all that the map (or if the text says in the config file) is named league 1 even if you are going to play in a total different league.

The process in the game
1. Start the game as usual.
2. Go in to Preferences.
3. Go in to Display & Sound.
4. Make sure that ”Always Reload Skin On Confirm” is marked.
5. Make sure that ”Show Background Pictures” is marked.
6. Make sure that ”Use Skin Cache” is un-marked.
7. Press Confirm.
8. Start a save with the team that you have set up for in the config/load the game if you already play as the team.
9. At first when you start the game it is the same old background picture. When you then play your first match at home the picture will change and your chosen picture will be shown and would be shown until you turn of FM. The next time you start FM it will sadly be the default picture until your first match at home again but it’s not much to do about that for now.

Final Words
Now I don’t know if I’m the first one that have thought of this smart idea or if it is others that have thought it out before but just not published it on any forum (not Sortitoutsi or Sigames what I’ve seen). It feels a little bit weird that it has been right in front of the eyes of so many because many people here on SI have talked about that the stadium pictures ”freezes” between the matches. Anyhow, when I realized this I wanted that everyone that want to change the background picture in FM 08 should now this and that’s why I wrote this guide. It is totally okay to write this on any other FM-site because the guide is for all you FM-players out there. If the guide doesn’t work for you, don’t fear to bother me with some questions. This certainly works for me to 100 %.

/Yours sincerely patrikfotboll.