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Adding backgrounds to your gameChampionship Manager 01/02 basically
came stripped from decent backgrounds, only containing a couple of "pro football
related" pictures, but most of them were pictures of a team wearing the new
Championship Manager merchandise. SI's fault? Nope, just the clubs asking money for every
single little logo or player's face when it is being used commercially.
So is there a solution to this all? Yes, there is. You can add your own backgrounds and
it isn't even that difficult to do. We tell you how.
What to do first?
Make sure you have the right size in pixels, as anything smaller or bigger than 800 pixels
wide and 600 pixels in height won't work properly. You can verify this by using a graphics
program and look for the right width and height on the image. If needed you could decrease
the size to 800x600. Increasing it, doesn't work to well most of the time and the picture
will start to look strange.
When you have set the right size it is time for saving the file. Most graphic files
come in the JPG format, but that is not the format required to get your background into
Championship Manager. In the toolbar, select SAVE AS and instead of saving it as a JPG,
save it as a BMP file. The little pop-up window gives you the opportunity to select the
format you want. There is a little pulldown menu at the bottom of the pop-up window.
Note: remember the full path where you have saved the bitmap!! for example that could
be c:\mypictures\picture1.bmp. c:\mypictures is extremely important to remember in this
case. Be aware that this could be different with you.
Using the CM Picture Editor
Now that you have saved your background as a BMP file with the size 800 in width and
600 in height, it is time to get the CM Picture Editor up and running and to convert the
file into a Championship Manager background.
You can start your CM Picture Editor by using this path on the taskbar: START >
Programs > Championship Manager 01-02 > CM Picture Editor (and click the last one.
Once it has started you click on LOAD and select Background bitmap. From that point on you
will have to fill in the path (directory) where you have saved the bitmap file to. Click
somewhere right to the word "Directory" and fill in the path there. Press
'enter' and when you have filled in the path correctly the BMP's in that directory should
appear. Select the bitmap you desire (but think of the width and height) and press OK in
the bottom right corner. The background should appear in the editor now (background).
The next thing to do is to save the background. By clicking on SAVE in the left menu
you will be given the option of saving it as a menubar, background and history. Select
background and give it an appropriate name, so you can easily track it back. The
background will be saved as an RGN file automatically!
Adding team specific backgrounds
Head for the you Championship Manager picture directory and look for a file called
pics.cfg. Open that file with a text editor, for example notepad. Underneath [Clubs] look
for the club you wish to add this picture to and if it does exist add the club's name, but
use the FULL NAME of the club. Use the following format: Full name of club:
picturename.rgn
When you have made the changes you simply save the file and the background changes you
have made should appear the next time you boot your game.
Mark Geneste and El Botti (The Dugout Forums) |