Tutorials and Q&A | ODI Kit Making Tips for C09

Biggs

This guy gets it
BGZ..
Joined
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New Zealand (Silver Fern)
Online Cricket Games Owned
  1. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - PS3
  2. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - Steam PC
Hey Guys,

I generally get dozens of PMs about all manner of things, one I get more often than not is "How to make kits". The short answer is; It's difficult.

Kit making, for me, is pretty time consuming effort and there's no "easy" way to produce a quality looking kit. However, here's a few tips from me as to how to get your kit looking really good. Before I get to MY tips, here's some from other users on Kit making and some .PDF tutorials you can follow as well (which also contains plenty of free to use templates).

You can find all the tutorials HERE which cover the basics of Kit and Bat making and Face making. The more advanced stuff like pads, gloves and other in-game items is not recommended if you're not an experienced user of Photoshop.

Couple of tips from me:

  • Take your time
    MOST important tip of all... Kit Making should NOT be a "fast" process. It generally takes me between 3 - 7 hours on and off across a couple of days to make a kit. Depending on how complex it is (and how complex I want to make it!). I can't stress enough about taking your time, it's not a race.

  • Make a Kit no-one else is making
    If you really want to "stand out" on the forum, make a Kit no-one else is making right now. Or hit the "requests" thread and make someones request from there. We have literally dozens of international cricket teams and HUNDREDS more domestic teams around the world, if everyone is making a Pakistan, South Africa or Indian kit there's not much point in starting one yourself. Find a team that someone hasn't made recently, and get to it. Or, find a team that INSPIRES you to test your skills out and make that kit. DON'T make a kit that someone else has RECENTLY made. DON'T make a NEW SEASON kit the SECOND it comes out, because odds are someone else is going to do it before you... Again, be selective. Take your time.

  • Start with the shirt first
    The shirt is generally the hardest item to produce, and it should look the best. Put your time into getting that just right, trial and error, then move on to the other elements after. You'll find some of the shirt elements you can then re-use on pants, caps and other items. The key is to spend time getting the hardest element done correctly, it makes all the difference.

  • Google Images is your friend
    Finding logos and graphics is easy, thanks to Google Images. The hard part is finding the RIGHT ones. Like I said earlier... Take your time with this. I generally like to search with "Large" as my default setting for graphics. Actually, I like my work-parts as big as possible and it can never be TOO big. Find a logo that is high-resolution and then re-size to fit. Use the "Sharpen" tool to clean up any distortion you might get on re-sizing. You shouldn't get any if your source image is big enough, as you're just making it smaller to fit. Graphics, logos etc should be the LAST thing you add to a kit.

  • Test and save OFTEN
    When I start a shirt, I get a basic layout of all the items and load it into the game straight away. I test it out, see how it looks and how the characters move with the shirt on. You'll find what looks good in Photoshop, does NOT look good in game once a character is "wearing" that item. Trial and error. The Australian T20 Kit I made is a great example of a kit that was finished in a few hours, but took JUST AS MANY hours to perfect once it was loaded into the game. Getting all the lines and panels interacting correctly was pretty time consuming, but it's great fun when you get it right. Also, save your work in progress in different stages, so if you do something right... then change it and it doesn't look as good... you can always go back to an earlier save.

  • Layer. Layer. Layer.
    Can't emphasize this enough. Because there's lots of different elements to a shirt (Logos, Base, Colours, Panels) use MULTIPLE layers. Some of the tutorials have great colour bases to guide you along the way, where different elements sit on a shirt in-game. Each of those elements should be a LAYER within your work. Makes the whole process a lot easier. A small quirk; I always use the OLD (Game Original) England Kit as an under-layer in all my Kit-Making, so I can see how the logos and other elements line up. You can use any game-original kit to do the same thing, for some reason I've just always used the England Kit as a base. Gives you a guideline on a bunch of things when you're creating another kit on top and how/where things line up in-game. Layering is the key.

  • Don't upload everything you make
    You'll get much better feedback from the other forum users if you take your time and be selective with what you upload. I suggest not uploading your first Kit to the forum, try it a few times and get it right in-game before uploading your first effort to the forum. Start with a Test kit and learn about how the game works and uses the files in game... I waited MONTHS before I uploaded my first kit for this game, because I wanted to get it just right as I possibly could...

  • Get to know BIG EDITOR
    BIG EDITOR should be your best friend. Learn it, be fearless and keep backups ALWAYS of your game files. Learn where everything goes and extract elements out of the game to use or learn from (or use as colour-based templates). BIG is a fantastic little piece of software, but it's fallible and if you do the wrong thing you can really f#&k up your game something bad. If you don't know what you're doing inside of BIG Editor, I suggest not attempting to mod Cricket09. You gotta be CONFIDENT with this tool before attempting a kit. Get to learn it, keep back-ups of Cricket 09 and again, it's all about taking your time and testing, failing, and starting again...

  • Screen Grab carefully
    Don't just load up FRAPS, take a couple of screens and be done with it. Take your time, you want your work to LOOK THE BEST. You don't have to go to the lengths I go to, but present it NICELY on the forum. Make it look like something YOU would want to download. Create a nice, small selection of screen-grabs. I like to play through a full game (5 Over ODI) and select what I need from the whole match. Batting and bowling. This process also helps you iron out any little details you might have missed in the creation process, it's a nice "Beta" run of the kit, if you will. Again, taking your time is key and if the kit stands the "5 Over Test" and looks good for a whole game, then upload it. You're ready to go!...

  • "HD" and other rubbish terminology
    There's a trend (hangover from the C07 forums?) of calling a kit "HD" ...what makes it "HD?". For the record, there is no such thing as "HD" in Cricket09. There is "HQ" (High Quality) and nothing else. High Quality might refer to additional textures or graphics that you've added to make the kit look more realistic in game. Again, if you're going to use that term you might want to provide an example of what exactly makes it "High Quality" But "HD" means nothing, since Cricket09 isn't 1080i compatible for the simple reason the kit files aren't large enough to be considered 1080i native in-game, never-mind the game engine isn't true "HD" either. So simply sticking "HD" on your download might seem like a cool term to use, but it's pointless. I've used a term "Special Edition" and I instantly regretted it, but I think that's a valid term for a Kit you've revisited perhaps and enhanced or made it better (See: my Blackcaps kit). Again, you might want to provide an example of what exactly makes it "special" but again, less is more... if you make a good looking kit, just leave it at that. Don't need to put special acronyms to make it sound better


Finally, for reference. I currently use Photoshop CS5 to make kits, and I've been doing graphic work professionally for a long time now... Kit making isn't easy, but I encourage anyone to give it a go. Don't be disheartened if you don't get it right on the first run in-game... and DON'T give up. By the same token, GET IT RIGHT is my advice. Don't half ass it.

If you click on the image below you'll find Photoshop files of the Templates I use to mod Cricket 09 Kits and Bats


Feel free to ask me (or other users who want to contribute) any questions you have, please be as specific and clear as you possibly can with your questions. ...and, as per forum rules. Do not use "Text Speak" or your post will be deleted.


NOTE: Questions should be about the process of kit making, not "where to find" tutorials or any other questions. This is not a request thread for me to make a kit for you.
 

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Aggz

National Board President
Joined
Jun 2, 2012
Location
New Delhi, India
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India
I have one question, how do you get the exact shape in your kits like you released england 2012-13 kit before the first match against west indies and its exactly the same so you must do it with a site which has pictures of kit or not? Please tell.
 
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Biggs

This guy gets it
BGZ..
Joined
Jul 8, 2009
Profile Flag
New Zealand (Silver Fern)
Online Cricket Games Owned
  1. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - PS3
  2. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - Steam PC
I have one question, how do you get the exact shape in your kits like you releases england 2012-13 kit before the first match before west indies and its exactly the same so you must do it with a site which has pictures of kit or not? Please tell.

Google Images.

CricInfo is a great resource for actual in-game pictures of all the teams playing in their respective kits, keep an eye out there for images as well. I generally Google a particular kit [For Example, I would use the search tag; "England 2013 ODI" with 2013 in parenthesis or "England New ODI" and then add 2013 if you need to refine the search]

When I'm making a kit, I have a picture of a REAL in-game player worn shirt in another window (Front, Back and Side, generally sourced from CricInfo) to take colour pallets from and then the highest-resolution picture I can find of a Kit just by itself, again, found via Google Images or an online store that sells that particular shirt. I find World Cricket Store has plenty of decent-resolution source pictures of kits... but generally, Google Search is the best resource.
 

SambarVadai

Panel of Selectors
India
CSK
Joined
Dec 15, 2011
Location
Chennai,India
One question biggs....How do you make the lines of the kits accurately..And do you copy paste and resize the logos or do you trace them?
 

Biggs

This guy gets it
BGZ..
Joined
Jul 8, 2009
Profile Flag
New Zealand (Silver Fern)
Online Cricket Games Owned
  1. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - PS3
  2. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - Steam PC
Lines of the kits... Photoshop, man. By hand... combination of techniques and trial and error, basically. Usually I copy/paste circles and elements, create lines and manipulate them with the pencil or really whatever works for a particular kit. There's not real "rules" for this stuff, it's a case-by-case situation, depending on the complexity of kits.

Logo-wise, I source the highest resolution logo I can find (Google Images, set search to "Large" or a specified size) then re-size to fit. Use the sharpening tool to tidy up any artifacts and compress to fit the kit and then trial-and-error as to what looks best in game. Load the kit in, screengrab, quit the game, fix/change, wash, and repeat. It's a painstaking process, unfortunately.
 

Biggs

This guy gets it
BGZ..
Joined
Jul 8, 2009
Profile Flag
New Zealand (Silver Fern)
Online Cricket Games Owned
  1. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - PS3
  2. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - Steam PC
Not sure what you mean by "Text of the Kits" ...specifically?
 

Biggs

This guy gets it
BGZ..
Joined
Jul 8, 2009
Profile Flag
New Zealand (Silver Fern)
Online Cricket Games Owned
  1. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - PS3
  2. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - Steam PC
They're called logos. Find a hi-res version via Google Images... If the kit has the country's name on it, I find a font that matches or is the same as the source image. Easy.
 

SambarVadai

Panel of Selectors
India
CSK
Joined
Dec 15, 2011
Location
Chennai,India
Thanks a lot...That will really help me..

How do we make pads,Wicket Keeper Gloves,Batsman's gloves,Elbow guards etc for our kits and are there any templates for that?
 
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Biggs

This guy gets it
BGZ..
Joined
Jul 8, 2009
Profile Flag
New Zealand (Silver Fern)
Online Cricket Games Owned
  1. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - PS3
  2. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - Steam PC
How do we make pads,Wicket Keeper Gloves,Batsman's gloves,Elbow guards etc for our kits and are there any templates for that?

You can find all the tutorials HERE which cover the basics of Kit and Bat making and Face making. The more advanced stuff like pads, gloves and other in-game items is not recommended if you're not an experienced user of Photoshop.

Reading is good.

There are no publicly available "templates" for accessories that I am aware of, as each element needs to be created specifically (ie; You can't use a "template" for gloves, for example)
 
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