Custom Cyberfaces and Player Portraits for us Idiots...

I have alwayz tried to do my custum Cyberface and player portrait. I meseed up a few times, but I finally got the hang of it. So now, I will give a bit more detailed tutorial of how to do both, crediting the so many already written tuts on this subject. Thats what I used, but it may get a bit cunfusing for us novices. so without further adue.... [whoa..... !!!..... i do my best....:]

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1st, u must have these programs...:

1)DB Commander Pro (get from nba-live.com)

2)bigGUI (get from nba-live.com)

3)FshX (get from nba-live.com)

4) EA Graphic Editor (get from nba-live.com)

5)HHD Free Hex Editor

6)Important....(in my opinion)....Photoshop or any good, reliable picture editing program.... [nothing like MS Paint...] u can actually try to download a trial from adobe.com

==================FUN PART==================

Steps: [asuming that ur NBA LIVE 06 installation forlder is C:\Program Files\EA SPORTS\NBA LIVE 06, or something similar...]

1. Find a good picture of urself. Make sure its a straight on angle of ur face... not from a side angle...it must be a reasonable size.....

2. Open EA Graphic Editor and go to 'open...', navigate to ur NBA LIVE 06 folder... and find sgsm folder... go to players and open plyrface.viv

3. Choose a cyberface to use... extract that to a desired folder...[recommend to make a lone folder on ur desktop used only for cf's]. Save the file name as is....[u can name it watever u want, but i recommend not to change it, so u can use the same one later for other cf's...]. it saves as a .fsh file. Exit.

4. Open ur CF folder and make a copy of the .fsh file... rename it as ur name...[NOTE: lets say ur name is John Smith... save it as "JOSMITH"... using only 7 characters... if u only use 6 letter, then add an "_" at the end.]

5. Open FshX and open the just saved .fsh file... u will notice that it looks like a flat version of someones head. Then hit 'Export...' and save it to ur CF folder as a .bmp. Exit.

6. Now the raw part....[right]... Open Photoshop [or sustainable substitute] and open ur 'JOSMITH.bmp' file. Then open the pic of u and cut out only ur face [ no ears, no hair, just pure face...] and copy it to the original cf. U need a pretty fair amount of image manipulation to blend in the pic of u with the original cf. Make sure u align the eyes and mouth with the orig cf. More help for this can be found at http://www.nbaliveforums.com/ftopic31503.php . Once u have that image done, save it first as a .psd [for photoshop], then as a .bmp.

7. Re-open FshX. Load the .fsh file with ur name in it. u will notice it still looks like the original image. Now click 'Import...'. Navigate to ur JOSMITH.bmp file u just made, and import it.... now u have a cf with ur face on the screen. Save the file. Exit.

8.Open DB Commander Pro. Navigate to ur C:\Documents and Settings\[ur name]\My Documents\NBA Live 06\saves, and open ur roster/season/dynasty save folder. Then open players.dbf.

9. Scroll down and look for the player u want the CF for... if its u, it usually is at the bottom. Memorize ur PLAYERID number. Make sure the ISPLAYABLE is set to True; ISCREATED, IS GENERATE, ISHISTORIC set to False. Now, set PLAYERPKG to the 7 character name u used [JOSMITH], which is what u saved ur .fsh cf to.

10. Save that... which is the little check mark under the whole datetable thing.

11. Open appearance.dbf and look for ur PLAYERID number... [u did memorize it, right?] and find FACEID and set to -1. Save. Exit.



============Player Portrait===============

Find a good pic of urself.

1. Edit so that u only have ur head, [maybe a little bit of shoulder], on a 128 x 128 pixel TRANSPARENT background document. Save it as ur name.png

2. Navigate to ur C:\Program Files\EA SPORTS\NBA LIVE 06\sgsm folder and find a .big file, such as 'plyrprts~DWWADE_.big'. Copy it and save it to a lone 'portraits' folder on ur desktop. Remeber the 7 character PLAYERPKG??? rename the .big file with it....

3. Open bigGUI. Load the 'plyrprts~JOSMITH.big' file. Select all four subfiles in the bigfile. They should be: .apt, .const, .ebo, and .fsh. Hit export... and save them to the portraits folder. Exit.

4. go to ur portraits folder. locate the four files. Again, use the 7 character PLAYERPKG name, and rename all four as so.

5. Open FshX, and load the JOSMITH.fsh file [make sure u dont confuse the JOSMITH.fsh from ur CF... they have the same name....] This file is the portrait file. Hit import.... and load the pic from step 1. Save.

6. Open HHD Free Hex Editor and locate the JOSMITH.ebo file. Scroll all the way down to the last line and replace the dwwade_, with josmith..... leave the 1 at the end alone.... make sure u type this one in lowercase!!![thats where i messed up...] save.

7. Open bigGUI and re-load the 'plyrprts~JOSMITH.big' file. Select all four subfiles.... then delete them. Now hit import, and load all four renamed subfiles, including the re-done .fsh file with ur portrait. You should have the 4 subfiles named as ur 7 PLAYERID name....[JOSMITH] and the entire .big file as 'plyrprts~JOSMITH.big'. Hit 'Rebuild', then the 'Close', then Exit.

8. Now open ur sgsm folder [C:\Program Files\EA SPORTS\NBA LIVE 06\sgsm] and copy-paste the 'plyrprts~JOSMITH.big, and the CF JOSMITH.fsh files.

9. Make sure the .dbf files are edited like it was shown above. ^

10. Load the corresponding roster/season/dynasty and check to see if the custom artwork works.... if not, go back and re-check u did everything right. GOOD LUCK!!!!!


[p.s...... it would be nice to keep this up on the boards for a while.... i know there are alot of tuts on this already, but i think this one is a bit more detailed and step-by-step [remember that show....?!?!].... not all of us novices get it right the first time.]

Last edited by __3rd-name__ on Wed Jun 07, 2006 1:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Good stuff, it doesn't hurt to have another tutorial.

on a 180 x 180 pixel TRANSPARENT background document

Correction there, it has to be a 128x128 pixel image.

ah............. tru.................. i re-wrote the whole tutorial from the top of my head...... from memory...... it slipped my head......... thanx............. i'll correct..........

Great job...but u should tell em where the file goes lol

which file...!?!?!

both...i kno where they all go....jus that you should let others kno where they go

i hoping that since noone has written again, that this tutorial has helped them.... they're probably doing their own stuff right now of somthing..... or probably this post is just wack........


******PS.... how's my sig......... hope its aiight, its my first attempt at it.....******