Multiplat AFL23: Academy Thread

[Pickitt]

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• Need to upload SVG's below 400 nodes

Useful links:
SVG converter- Adobe Express

Some logos that are already svg can be found in Google images/wikimedia

MOD NOTICE: This thread is for user created Academy content ONLY. Please take discussion about the game to the main thread: Multiplat - AFL 23: Launch Thread (Xbox release date TBC)

 

[Chuckinho]

Until they boost the amount of created/custom teams into the game..... the only solution to that is to buy a second console or pc/steam account and another copy of the game so you can keep making more teams

I'm not that into the creative side of some games. I made a few custom teams in Allan Border's Cricket back in the day, and obviously make created players in Fifa/Madden/NBA 2K and the WWE games. But to do what you have done takes a lot of time and patience, so well done!!

Thanks mate.
I appreciate the kind words.
I do have a console, but it's an XBox...
The scary thing is that I have a heap of league graphics ready to go and am now snookered by the custom team cap.

I started back in March. I guess I'm trying to explain why I can produce things like guernseys quite quickly for SACFL leagues, but why when getting requests, i state that "it takes a long time"

Here is the folder from Marble Range in Port Lincoln League for example.

 

[Chuckinho]

Progress made in South Australia (for those playing at home)

 

[Xtreme]

Thanks mate.
I appreciate the kind words.
I do have a console, but it's an XBox...
The scary thing is that I have a heap of league graphics ready to go and am now snookered by the custom team cap.

Hopefully they'll see the effort that you put in and help crease the custom team cap for your (and everyone else that downloads custom teams/players/grounds) benefit.

I only went through the academy briefly last night, not so much a team/ground thing... but I was like oh there's Luke Hodge and an Ablett

 

[Chuckinho]

Hopefully they'll see the effort that you put in and help crease the custom team cap for your (and everyone else that downloads custom teams/players/grounds) benefit.

I only went through the academy briefly last night, not so much a team/ground thing... but I was like oh there's Luke Hodge and an Ablett

Absolutely.
My understanding is that the expansion is being tested to stability.
The Academy adds a whole heap more breadth to the game for once you've won the flag in all modes with your favourite club.

 

[SugarShane]

Until they boost the amount of created/custom teams into the game..... the only solution to that is to buy a second console or pc/steam account and another copy of the game so you can keep making more teams

I'm not that into the creative side of some games. I made a few custom teams in Allan Border's Cricket back in the day, and obviously make created players in Fifa/Madden/NBA 2K and the WWE games. But to do what you have done takes a lot of time and patience, so well done!!

I love creating teams and players but I'm nowhere near the level of Chuck. The attention to detail of the local comps is amazing and something I wouldn't have the patience for. I did create basic versions of each of my local cricket teams on DBC17, because you could then tell the game to use those in the first step of career mode. I only created the players for my own side though, as career mode filled them with randoms anyway, but it was so cool to be able to have that in the game.

Ever since WWF Warzone I have just loved the customisation aspect of any game. I have a sort of tradition in AFL/Cricket games where I make a dumb team full of pop culture personalities (with me captaining). It's something that goes back to high school in the late 90's/early 00's when 2 super-serious cricket loving mates and I would play a whole tri-series season of calculator cricket, complete with proper scoring (change ends on 1's and 3's, 6 balls to an over, etc). We even kept statistics for the season for most runs, wickets etc.

Originally we'd "draft" our teams from our favourite cricketers. Then it just expanded to picking movie stars, characters, etc for shits and giggles. So for example, some of the heavy hitters on my custom team in AFL 23 are Chewbacca in the ruck, Freddy Krueger at FB, Mr T and Sylvester Stallone on the back flanks, Ace Ventura at FF, Captain Planet at CHF, Forrest Gump on the wing, and my two sons have made their video game debut.

Another team I'm working on is a known fictional team from the world of TV but have hit a wall of motivation half way through making the players because of the issues I mentioned above. I did however spend about 2 hours in stadium creator trying to replicate their TV stadium and ended up going to bed at 12:30 because I couldn't put it down until I had it just right. Stadium Creator is such a fun muckaround when you've got a vision in mind.

 

[Chuckinho]

I love creating teams and players but I'm nowhere near the level of Chuck. The attention to detail of the local comps is amazing and something I wouldn't have the patience for. I did create basic versions of each of my local cricket teams on DBC17, because you could then tell the game to use those in the first step of career mode. I only created the players for my own side though, as career mode filled them with randoms anyway, but it was so cool to be able to have that in the game.

Ever since WWF Warzone I have just loved the customisation aspect of any game. I have a sort of tradition in AFL/Cricket games where I make a dumb team full of pop culture personalities (with me captaining). It's something that goes back to high school in the late 90's/early 00's when 2 super-serious cricket loving mates and I would play a whole tri-series season of calculator cricket, complete with proper scoring (change ends on 1's and 3's, 6 balls to an over, etc). We even kept statistics for the season for most runs, wickets etc.

Originally we'd "draft" our teams from our favourite cricketers. Then it just expanded to picking movie stars, characters, etc for shits and giggles. So for example, some of the heavy hitters on my custom team in AFL 23 are Chewbacca in the ruck, Freddy Krueger at FB, Mr T and Sylvester Stallone on the back flanks, Ace Ventura at FF, Captain Planet at CHF, Forrest Gump on the wing, and my two sons have made their video game debut.

Thanks mate.
Modding can be heaps of fun and this game is slowly but surely opening up a world for it as the Cricket did before it.
I tried modding Evo 1 and 2, but the kits combinations were very limited and you couldn't add your own logos so AFL23 is a vast improvement there.
In Evo2, I made a bunch of leagues with crap guernseys and random players from the NAB league and the internationals to save the effort of making them.
I did have myself running around for Gawler Central in the Barossa Light Gawler League during various lockdowns. My son and I would lament how crap my goalkicking was.

 

[stkilda7894]

Would be worth BA exploring creating leagues in the academy. Nothing out of the realms of possibiliy I hope. Just the ability to add certain custom teams to a league, then you can download that league. Almost like downloading a zipped folder if you get what I mean. Hopefully the addition of extra team slots opens up soon, love following the work you have been doing Chuckinho .

 

[Xtreme]

I love creating teams and players but I'm nowhere near the level of Chuck. The attention to detail of the local comps is amazing and something I wouldn't have the patience for. I did create basic versions of each of my local cricket teams on DBC17, because you could then tell the game to use those in the first step of career mode. I only created the players for my own side though, as career mode filled them with randoms anyway, but it was so cool to be able to have that in the game.

Ever since WWF Warzone I have just loved the customisation aspect of any game. I have a sort of tradition in AFL/Cricket games where I make a dumb team full of pop culture personalities (with me captaining). It's something that goes back to high school in the late 90's/early 00's when 2 super-serious cricket loving mates and I would play a whole tri-series season of calculator cricket, complete with proper scoring (change ends on 1's and 3's, 6 balls to an over, etc). We even kept statistics for the season for most runs, wickets etc.

Originally we'd "draft" our teams from our favourite cricketers. Then it just expanded to picking movie stars, characters, etc for shits and giggles. So for example, some of the heavy hitters on my custom team in AFL 23 are Chewbacca in the ruck, Freddy Krueger at FB, Mr T and Sylvester Stallone on the back flanks, Ace Ventura at FF, Captain Planet at CHF, Forrest Gump on the wing, and my two sons have made their video game debut.

Another team I'm working on is a known fictional team from the world of TV but have hit a wall of motivation half way through making the players because of the issues I mentioned above. I did however spend about 2 hours in stadium creator trying to replicate their TV stadium and ended up going to bed at 12:30 because I couldn't put it down until I had it just right. Stadium Creator is such a fun muckaround when you've got a vision in mind.

Yeah I've always thrown a created version of myself in most games (Fifa, Cricket, NBA 2K, WWE games etc).
Outside of a few instances (I also made high school people and other friends in created teams etc), I didn't get fully in depth, I'd never create full blown leagues and multiple teams (wayyyyyyyyyy too many players to create). Just happy enough to create myself or in the case of the older WWE Smackdown games... create movie/tv show characters or wrestlers who didn't make the cut (did an awesome Eric Draven/Sting knock off, Spider-man, He-Man etc lol) and put them in the game.

 

[Chuckinho]

Would be worth BA exploring creating leagues in the academy. Nothing out of the realms of possibiliy I hope. Just the ability to add certain custom teams to a league, then you can download that league. Almost like downloading a zipped folder if you get what I mean. Hopefully the addition of extra team slots opens up soon, love following the work you have been doing Chuckinho .

Yeah, Custom leagues would be amazing. I could package everything up that way and share it. I have 4 such leagues ready to go and TSL waiting for a rise in the cap.

 

[Magpiesfooty98]

I take it this is fantasy as South Launceston aren't in the TSL and the guernseys don't match.
View attachment 1717372View attachment 1717373View attachment 1717374

That is currect, doing the same for Burnie, Hobart, New Norfolk etc

The Bulldog an't on the front yet because i don't have one, but i'm liking the classic look it has right now so i'm thinking about keeping it like that

 

[Chuckinho]

That is currect, doing the same for Burnie, Hobart, New Norfolk etc

The Bulldog an't on the front yet because i don't have one, but i'm liking the classic look it has right now so i'm thinking about keeping it like that

Sooo, you should probably put make it clear its Fantasy.
I for one am for realism, trying to be as authentic as the game allows.
I don't know that I'd call that the most classic look though. Surely someone has made that Footscray logo? Franco would expect as much... #GrandSaleGrandSale

 

[vPrissm]

I am trying to make some simple custom logos in photoshop and upload them in game. I exported it as SVG but it wont let me upload it im assuming because it is too big. Is there a way to check how many nodes there are/an easy way decrease the number of nodes without having to start again??
Any help would be greatly appreciated as I have no clue what im doing

 

[Chuckinho]

I am trying to make some simple custom logos in photoshop and upload them in game. I exported it as SVG but it wont let me upload it im assuming because it is too big. Is there a way to check how many nodes there are/an easy way decrease the number of nodes without having to start again??
Any help would be greatly appreciated as I have no clue what im doing

My advice would be to use Illustrator instead if you can. If you then click simplify, it will tell you how many nodes there.

 

[Freo16]

Yeah, Custom leagues would be amazing. I could package everything up that way and share it. I have 4 such leagues ready to go and TSL waiting for a rise in the cap.

I’d love to be able to download/share custom leagues as well as being able to share/download guernseys as a seperate item from teams (I think Ross suggested sending a ticket in about this one but I keep forgetting )

 

[Chuckinho]

I’d love to be able to download/share custom leagues as well as being able to share/download guernseys as a seperate item from teams (I think Ross suggested sending a ticket in about this one but I keep forgetting )

Definitely put one in. I'm gonna have to start making Guernseys only which ofcourse can't currently be shared on their own.

 

[Magpiesfooty98]

Sooo, you should probably put make it clear its Fantasy.
I for one am for realism, trying to be as authentic as the game allows.
I don't know that I'd call that the most classic look though. Surely someone has made that Footscray logo? Franco would expect as much... #GrandSaleGrandSale

No ones made a bulldogs logo yet

here's what i mean by classic look

 

[ZionMig22]

So there you go.
I've managed to finish recreating the Tasmanian Football League for AFL23.
I've tried to make it as authentic as possible within the framework available in the game.
The only issue is that due to my filling up of my Custom Teams, I am only able to share three teams with the community - Clarence, Kingborough and Lauderdale.

View attachment 1716017

G'day are all the current players added to each team?
If so how did you come up with heights etc?

 

[Chuckinho]

G'day are all the current players added to each team?
If so how did you come up with heights etc?

All players are current as per 2023. I had to trawl the net for pictures of players. One club did list their heights helpfully. Otherwise, there is a bit of guesswork involved from photos and videos.

 

[Chuckinho]

No ones made a bulldogs logo yet

here's what i mean by classic look

Are you sure nobody made one?

 

[ZionMig22]

All players are current as per 2023. I had to trawl the net for pictures of players. One club did list their heights helpfully. Otherwise, there is a bit of guesswork involved from photos and videos.

Awesome effort mate

Just curious who was the tallest player you made?

 

[Chuckinho]

Awesome effort mate

Just curious who was the tallest player you made?

One of the rucks. Can;t remember off hand, maybe Sam Siggins...

 

[SugarShane]

I am trying to make some simple custom logos in photoshop and upload them in game. I exported it as SVG but it wont let me upload it im assuming because it is too big. Is there a way to check how many nodes there are/an easy way decrease the number of nodes without having to start again??
Any help would be greatly appreciated as I have no clue what im doing

Gotta get yourself into Inkscape (free, but limited), and/or Illustrator (however you choose to obtain it).

Sorry for the wall of text, but here you go.

Understanding what an SVG is is the first step which makes it easier to tell what will or won't work. An SVG is not a bunch of pixels like a JPG, PNG, etc. It is a set of shapes and instructions. A JPG/PNG is the finished painting, an SVG is a stroke by stroke description of how the artist painted it. The S stands for scalable, which means theoretically you can scale it up as far as you want without losing quality because you're telling the program how to draw it, not what it looks like.

You can convert any image into SVG using a converter, but they don't truly convert it. They change the file type and call it a day. This is where Inkscape/Illustrator come in. They trace the image. You tell them how specific you want the tracing.

But, the more complex the image, the more nodes (points/instructions) there are. BA limit uploads to 400 nodes. This is why the Maccas M, Nike Swoosh, things with lots of straight lines, etc are easy to import, but more complex logos need to be really simplified or dumbed down. Every angle, colour, etc is another instruction. After a while you'll more or less be able to look at an image and know whether it's even achievable, let alone in good quality.

Once you have your image editor, google basic instructions with something like "Tracing a bitmap in Illustrator/Inkscape" to get your svg started.

This is where you just have to play around with it. Raise and lower the detail until you have the happy medium of fewer nodes and lesser quality but still recognisable logo.

If you can view the node count accurately in Inkscape, I don't know how. If anyone knows how to do it, please let me know. I tried a few different versions of logos it said were under 400 but they weren't, which Illustrator later confirmed once I'd installed it. Illustrator is perfect at it. I've also found Illustrator's trace function to be a bit better than Inkscape, while Inkscape at times does happen to simplify better than Illustrator, but it's a case by case thing.

My process is currently this:
Import image into Illustrator
Trace bitmap - play with settings until it looks decent (even if the node count is over 400), you want it low-ish, but doesn't have to be perfect yet. *However if you can get it under 400 nodes without looking terrible at this stage, the job is done, save and upload.
If not, either: a) continue to apply Simplify in Illustrator and check node count until under 400, then save and upload
or b) save as SVG, open in Inkscape and Simplify, then save as SVG and open back in Illustrator to check node count, rinse and repeat until it's <400
I personally use both separately in the Simplify phase and then find whichever works better

Chuckinho manually traces his I'm pretty sure, which is always going to deliver better results because you're choosing when and where to drop detail, but I'm more a quick and nasty, get it done type operator. I've never done it manually so can't offer any tips on that.

 

[Chuckinho]

Gotta get yourself into Inkscape (free, but limited), and/or Illustrator (however you choose to obtain it).

Sorry for the wall of text, but here you go.

Understanding what an SVG is is the first step which makes it easier to tell what will or won't work. An SVG is not a bunch of pixels like a JPG, PNG, etc. It is a set of shapes and instructions. A JPG/PNG is the finished painting, an SVG is a stroke by stroke description of how the artist painted it. The S stands for scalable, which means theoretically you can scale it up as far as you want without losing quality because you're telling the program how to draw it, not what it looks like.

You can convert any image into SVG using a converter, but they don't truly convert it. They change the file type and call it a day. This is where Inkscape/Illustrator come in. They trace the image. You tell them how specific you want the tracing.

But, the more complex the image, the more nodes (points/instructions) there are. BA limit uploads to 400 nodes. This is why the Maccas M, Nike Swoosh, things with lots of straight lines, etc are easy to import, but more complex logos need to be really simplified or dumbed down. Every angle, colour, etc is another instruction. After a while you'll more or less be able to look at an image and know whether it's even achievable, let alone in good quality.

Once you have your image editor, google basic instructions with something like "Tracing a bitmap in Illustrator/Inkscape" to get your svg started.

This is where you just have to play around with it. Raise and lower the detail until you have the happy medium of fewer nodes and lesser quality but still recognisable logo.

If you can view the node count accurately in Inkscape, I don't know how. If anyone knows how to do it, please let me know. I tried a few different versions of logos it said were under 400 but they weren't, which Illustrator later confirmed once I'd installed it. Illustrator is perfect at it. I've also found Illustrator's trace function to be a bit better than Inkscape, while Inkscape at times does happen to simplify better than Illustrator, but it's a case by case thing.

My process is currently this:
Import image into Illustrator
Trace bitmap - play with settings until it looks decent (even if the node count is over 400), you want it low-ish, but doesn't have to be perfect yet. *However if you can get it under 400 nodes without looking terrible at this stage, the job is done, save and upload.
If not, either: a) continue to apply Simplify in Illustrator and check node count until under 400, then save and upload
or b) save as SVG, open in Inkscape and Simplify, then save as SVG and open back in Illustrator to check node count, rinse and repeat until it's <400
I personally use both separately in the Simplify phase and then find whichever works better

Chuckinho manually traces his I'm pretty sure, which is always going to deliver better results because you're choosing when and where to drop detail, but I'm more a quick and nasty, get it done type operator. I've never done it manually so can't offer any tips on that.

Great explanation.
I used to trace in Photoshop and then import SVG into Illustrator for my earlier stuff. I found that when simplifying, it wouldn't simpfly as I wanted, it would round edges I wanted straight and keep things that could be rounded. I learnt how to trace and tbh I prefer it. It takes a bit longer, but once youc an look at an image and work out how to "attack" it, you can work at a sensible pace. Also, by having differnt colours and elements on different layers, you can prioritise certain things so you can pick which compormises to make. Do you for example prioritise the white feathers in the wing, or the bird's eye?
Text is a killer. It takes up nodes big time and so sometimes you have to compromise to fit under 400.
Another trick is that if the image is for a guernsey, you could split the parts over numerous SVG files and then merge them back together in the guernsey editor. I did this recently with my Glenorchy logo which has two parts.

 

[ZionMig22]

Anyone having a crack at the NTFL?

Stadium is already made (TIO Stadium)
VFL/WAFL/SANFL players that play mid season are in the game already
Lists are available on PlayHQ for locals and others who come up to play

Can help out with sizes etc

 

[Magpiesfooty98]

Here's Burnie, Hobart and Prospect (Work in Progress)

The Sponsor on Hobart is temporary

I've also got the finished intenion for what i'm aiming for

jumper artwork templates by Club by Club Jumpers