CUSTOM TEAM

[royjeanlove]

Hey will one of you patchers have plans for a custom team patch? if not can one of you at least think about it thanks.

[Rens]

Maybe if you'd define the "custom team" people could answer this question? What do you want from it, do you want to be able to add custom teams? Do you want a team added to the game? Do you want a roster patch for a different league?

[Dert]

I will make a custom team, but it will be for my franshice. I will pick up all the scrubs that no one in the NBA wants. It will be a really weak team and hopefully I will be a lottery team....

[royjeanlove]

What i meant was the ablity to add custom teams to the game itself,u know like live 2000 had custom team ablity,well just wanted to know if anyone was going to make a patch to add custom teams to the game itself.

[BShaw20]

I would like to create my own team, just like the old Live, with the Custom Slammers and Custom Jammers.

[wordtokyle]

custom teams are possible, it's just a real pain to make them... i went in and edited teams.dbf, coaches.dbf, teaminfo.dbf, and teamgear.dbf.... it took me roughly 6 hours to figure out what i was doing, but i was eventually able to add my college team. i also went in and edited players.dbf to create all the players for my custom team. it basically involves making new entries in teams.dbf and editing values in all the other files to correspond with the newly created team. another thing: the custom team uses existing graphics... so the uniforms and court are based on the atlanta hawks, and the coach is george karl... the graphics can be set to any preexisting team... i'm sure i can change that as soon as i learn how to make my own uniform and court patches... ... please don't ask me to explain exactly what i did because i'm not very good at explaining, i just wanted to let people know that it can be done incase they didn't already know it

[Dave C.]

Can you trade/sign/edit players to the new team then inside the game or just outside through dbf files ?

Would be nice if someone could make a patch with additional teams maybe a future charlotte franchise.

[wordtokyle]

yes, the game treats the custom team as it would any other normal nba team... u can sign, trade, release, and edit players to the new team inside the game... i even have my custom team inside season and franchise mode

[Dert]

Dude, you gotta tell me how to put teams on franshice mode. I tried everything, but the CPU won't put my team in any games. My schedule is empty.

[wordtokyle]

u just have to set the schedule to random instead of nba... then it accounts for ur team and gives it games to play

[Dert]

No Luck with that either... What Conference and Division do you have your team on?

[wordtokyle]

my team is in the western conference, midwest division... i put them there because east has 15 teams and west has 14... i think u might want to try checking the seed u have your team set to... if it's in the east, u should put it at 16, if on the west, then 15 is good... u could also just put it as any seed but then u have to adjust all the seeds below it...

[Sweetlou]

So changing just those four DBF files made it possible for the game to recognize a team for use with the coach and location and all that other stuff in place?

Cool. Thanks for the info.

[wordtokyle]

yeah, pretty much

[Dert]

If you don't edit the coach.dbf, you'll get a guy in a suit with a red mask one. It is kinda cool...

[Sweetlou]

Cool. Now if I can only find a few of those cool uni making guys who are not making "improved" versions of NBA uniforms...

Anyone making non-NBA uniforms yet?

[Dert]

I made uniforms for my team. If you are a girl, they are ugly. If you are a guy they are good enough. I probably would upload a few pics, but angelfire won't let me post pics on the forum!

I do have a blank template that you can use to make uniforms. It is just a white jersey with nothing on it. If you want it, I can send it to ya!

[Dave C.]

Could someone mail/pm or post a description how to make the custom teams ?

I'm new in that things but i wanna make my own teams .
Or send me at least your edited files to have a custom team (when your done).

Would be great

[hetoft]

Hi Dert!
I know it's a little late, but i'm making jerseys, and i could use the blank template...
My e-mail is:

rasmus_etnies@hotmail.com

Thank You!

[safetyman]

Is adding a custom team like adding an expansion team IRL (Charlotte '03-'04) or does the "new" team take the place of an existing one? It would suck if we couldn't add another team when the NBA expands next season.

[LegoSHAQ]

I have added 8 new custom teams so far... no problems so far... as I can tell you can add as many teams as you like without replacing existing ones... as long as they have their own unique team number and 2 character code for jerseys etc.. and you have to create the jerseys of course and the court (but teams can share the same court if you want... ) and the team gear entries and the coach... etc.. its all good fun.

[chipper]

Can you post the steps required for adding a new team?
The dbf files I need to change etc..
Thanks

[LegoSHAQ]

hmmm... perhaps... when I get home tonight... if you buy me a pack of tim tams... no scratch the tim tams... i'm on a diet...

[LegoSHAQ]

ok this will be quick... if you don't get it.. not my fault.. it works for me and you should be able to figure it out really .... but here goes...

Ok the first thing to do is to save a roster. Ok once you have saved that roster go to the saves directory... Say you used save slot number 33 then the directory would be something like: C:\Documents and Settings\David Wells\My Documents\NBA Live 2003\saves\033\

The first DBF you want to edit in that directory.. is the TEAMS.DBF.
To edit the DBF files you need a DBF editor... there are many to choose from.. some for free ... some that cost money... I personaly like Microsoft Access... it is easy to use... Ok the TEAMS.DBF... Say you wanted to add your own cool team like say um.... the Melbourne Tigers... then you would add a row (just copy an existing NBA Team... and change the Team number and the name of the team etc.. the important part is giving a unique team number like say... 41...


Once you have added your team to the DBF the next thing you have to do is edit the TEAMGEAR.DBF. Here you need to have at least a home and away jersey... just copy another teams home and away jerseys and change the team number to your new team number... in this example 41..



Next is the TEAMINFO.DBF.. just copy a line with 'itemnum' of zero.. you only need one entry but you can add more for your team if you want to show like a history of team names etc.. just increment the 'itemnum' by one each time... and make sure you set the 'team' to your team number... in this example 41...



ok and last but this is optional the extra team works without it but you get a coach with a 'red head' is to edit the COACHES.DBF and add a coach for your new team.. a coach can coach more than one team.. so just copy an existing coach and change the 'team' value to your new teams number.. in this example 41...



And that is it... you simply start the game and load your save roster... in this example save slot 33 and you will have your new team...

Now to add your own custom graphics for your new team you have to change the 'teamabr2' field in the TEAMS.DBF to be a unique two character entry which will correspond to all the .fsh files for that team... but I am not going into which .fsh files and how to update them and all that.... cause it is already explained in other places and tutorials... and I suggest for that people read the Customisation Guide as it is very helpful... have fun adding your custom teams...

now.. where are my tim tams... oh yeah.. the diet..

[nba2kstuff]

very nice explaination ?r?amSPeaker!

i also have been involved in examing issues related to adding and customizing special teams in the new 2003 game, both from a database level and also with regards to the graphics files.

in my (quick) tests, i found that adding more than the (40) 29 teams in an example rosters didn't show up in the playoffs??

i would be interested to know if this worked in your experiments and what teamcode, seed, conference and division codes used if you could get it to work.

the abbrev2 code works well (as in previous versions) for providing the basis for customized graphics files, however it seems the frontend artwork doesn't seem to follow the EA customization rules as are the other files (that i could figure out in my initial tests). i will address this in further detail later if anyone is interested, as there some subtle problems but also some possible work around solutions!

in anycase, thanks for your contributions as there is much to examine and learn in the new system!

& glad to see the NLSC and other Live communities working together to share and solve problems with enhancing the new game! as it saves everyone much time that we can spend playing and having fun in the game!


thanks & peace!