New Users - Introduce yourself here

[matt050972]

Hey y'all... I'm new to Madden and Football in general (lifelong rugby fan and player). But not new to game modding I've modded FIFA and games in the Rugby Challenge series, and want to have a crack at this game.

[hurtenunit]

Always loved Madden 08 on the console, still have my original xbox. However, recently got into PC gaming and was led to this site. So gonna give this a try to bring a new life to one of my favorite games.

[scotchSamurai]

Howdy,
This is my first time posting on the forum, but I've been using all the utilities on here for years. I've been playing Madden 08 for years because they stopped releasing the PC versions (until recently) and aside from graphics, the new games don't add much substantively. Also, I find the game's physics somewhat more realistic than some of the modern versions, and the AI sliders generally fix the unrealistic aspects.

I play Franchise almost exclusively, with the initial fantasy draft, but I have a weird rule that I only draft rookies (24 yrs old or less). I first started modding because the game is missing all of the rookie portraits, the stats for some of the rookies are way off, and none of the draft classes are accurate. I've figured out most of the stuff over time, but I still have a few questions and I was hoping folks could point me to the right threads:

1) My custom .dds portraits are really good, but some of them end up with transparency issues when viewed in the game (faint gray patches or boxes that I can't seem to get rid of. I gather that its something to do with how big the image is compared to the canvas, but I can't quite figure it out.

2) I haven't messed with the FX/FI mod or whatever its called, because I didn't want to risk any bugs or glitches. Are the graphics mods pretty solid or is it still a work in progress?

3) I don't use the portrait packs from this site, because the quality is poor on some of them and I'm super OCD about the portraits lol. ESPN has transparent PNG's for every player now, so making portraits is pretty quick these days. I'd like to export the portraits to use piece-meal, but the DATeditor always throws a index out of bounds/overflow error for the JINX or other major portrait .lib files. Any ideas how to fix this?

4) Are the raw .dds files available anywhere? Are the .csv's available anywhere for each year's draft class since 2008?

Thanks!

[wjsalm3]

Hey,

Wow the guy above me is totally on top of things. I've been playing Madden all of my life. I love franchise mode. The Browns (lol yes) have been terrible for so long, and only I could fix them. Well now, that's maybe not the case, but madden is way worse. So I'm here to try out the Madden 08 + MODS experience to see if Franchise mode was and could be better.

[elguapo]

3) I don't use the portrait packs from this site, because the quality is poor on some of them and I'm super OCD about the portraits lol. ESPN has transparent PNG's for every player now, so making portraits is pretty quick these days. I'd like to export the portraits to use piece-meal, but the DATeditor always throws a index out of bounds/overflow error for the JINX or other major portrait .lib files. Any ideas how to fix this?

I’ve been meaning to work with someone interested in making portraits. What I’m interested is in making a mega portrait file that could be used with any roster.

I can mass create dds files out of the pngs and I can batch import them into the portrait file. I would need the pngs to have a five digit prefix that would correspond to the portrait file number in the DAT. All the portraits would be free of the white haze. I’m also picky about the portrait size and I like the 96x96 and I’m willing to double the size but not bigger than that.

The reason the current portrait file gives you an error is because the portraits were created with bmp files and imported with MUER.

[Thedtron5000]

Hello! I've been playing madden for 20+ years. Stopped buying the new ones. Saw the mods for 08 so picked it up online. Very excited and love that this exists!

[scotchSamurai]

I’ve been meaning to work with someone interested in making portraits. What I’m interested is in making a mega portrait file that could be used with any roster.

I can mass create dds files out of the pngs and I can batch import them into the portrait file. I would need the pngs to have a five digit prefix that would correspond to the portrait file number in the DAT. All the portraits would be free of the white haze. I’m also picky about the portrait size and I like the 96x96 and I’m willing to double the size but not bigger than that.

The reason the current portrait file gives you an error is because the portraits were created with bmp files and imported with MUER.

I could probably help out. I figured out the transparency issues btw. By making a 1 pixel border around the portrait it fixes the gray patches i was seeing. I also noticed that for a 384x384 portrait theres like 65 pixels of dead space so i just made a little border template to do all my pngs. the raw png kinda looks like an old polaroid, but it looks good in game. i’ll post some stuff to give you an idea of my portraits. i can usually only churn out 30 or so an hour so its kind of slow work.

[onepride]

Hello guys! Please tell me where can I find the portraits of each player directly in the dds format? I tried to create dds files by myself using online png to dds converter but DATeditor gave an error.

[elguapo]

Hello guys! Please tell me where can I find the portraits of each player directly in the dds format? I tried to create dds files by myself using online png to dds converter but DATeditor gave an error.

DATeditor is the wrong graphic editor to edit portraits. Use DEX to edit the portrait file. If you still get an error extract the mmap from the portrait file and use MUER to edit the mmap file and then insert the mmap back into the portrait file.

[elguapo]

I could probably help out. I figured out the transparency issues btw. By making a 1 pixel border around the portrait it fixes the gray patches i was seeing. I also noticed that for a 384x384 portrait theres like 65 pixels of dead space so i just made a little border template to do all my pngs. the raw png kinda looks like an old polaroid, but it looks good in game. i’ll post some stuff to give you an idea of my portraits. i can usually only churn out 30 or so an hour so its kind of slow work.

If you’re using photoshop you could probably create an action (script) to edit the pngs in a batch.