How to load new pics..

[sdw1000]

So as a long time Strat player, I have tons of player pics and ballpark pics. Since I've worked to get all these pics, I rather use them then the FaceGen and 3-d ballparks. So I am thinking of copying them all to this game.

Question is...are there day/night options for ballpark pics and how do you differentiate between D/N? Also, I heard ballpark dimensions don't play a role in the game, which I find ridiculous. Anyway to make dimensions a factor in the games? And I was told the size of the ballpark pics didn't matter.

For the player pics, in Strat, I have 2 folders, 1 for pitchers, 1 for batters. Are these all in one folder in OOTP? And there's a way to differentiate between different seasons for multiple pics for the same player. (Example...Babe Ruth 1915 Red Sox vs 1927 Yankees pics as one is a pitcher pic, the other is a batter pic) I would have the Babe Ruth labeled as: Babe_Ruth_BOA
and Yankee pic as Babe_Ruth_NYA
For different seasons I would have it like Babe_Ruth_1915 vs Babe_Ruth_1927

Also does size matter for player pics? The manual says 90x135, but most of my player pics vary in size.

Any help with this would help.

[Kammich]

Originally Posted by sdw1000

So as a long time Strat player, I have tons of player pics and ballpark pics. Since I've worked to get all these pics, I rather use them then the FaceGen and 3-d ballparks. So I am thinking of copying them all to this game.

Question is...are there day/night options for ballpark pics and how do you differentiate between D/N? Also, I heard ballpark dimensions don't play a role in the game, which I find ridiculous. Anyway to make dimensions a factor in the games? And I was told the size of the ballpark pics didn't matter.

For the player pics, in Strat, I have 2 folders, 1 for pitchers, 1 for batters. Are these all in one folder in OOTP? And there's a way to differentiate between different seasons for multiple pics for the same player. (Example...Babe Ruth 1915 Red Sox vs 1927 Yankees pics as one is a pitcher pic, the other is a batter pic) I would have the Babe Ruth labeled as: Babe_Ruth_BOA
and Yankee pic as Babe_Ruth_NYA
For different seasons I would have it like Babe_Ruth_1915 vs Babe_Ruth_1927

Also does size matter for player pics? The manual says 90x135, but most of my player pics vary in size.

Any help with this would help.

Hi there,
As someone who makes picture packs for seasons (and never finishes them, usually due to not having a scanner which I would need to scan in a lot of missing photos for some years I've never completed but have done about 50% give or take on), I often find myself labeling my pictures in the same way as you, and saving those within the photos file or somewhere like that, but in their own folder. Then, even as annoying as it is, I manually import them for my dynasty franchises, or if I am using accurately depicted rosters, I manually import the new photos for each year as I have them (I too often save a player with multiple hats/unis as say, Ron_Gant_ATL or Ron_Gant_STL as well- and have been doing this going back to OOTP12 I think, now, or something like that)..... sometimes when I don't follow along with historical accuracy, a player who I have a photo of in the respective cap (even if the years don't match to greater clarify what I'm pointing at here), I then can import it when needed. What the downside to this vs. putting all of them in a folder and naming them with their player names (example: just Babe_Ruth.jpg/png for example- and to answer about size, it doesn't really matter but certain sizes do work much better, and show up clearer- and you will figure out on your own as well what works and doesn't work best for you as you play around w/ it but I'm sure some more advanced members who make photopacks and use different sizes or sizes not so close to 90/135 (I sometimes will just save giant pics as they are, and they'll import in a fine way- resized and not stretched out or anything- but other times, not so much, and sometimes I like cropping the player's head/cap only from action shots and sizing to 90/135 just because it works good at times with some shots- but other times it's just best to save the whole photo, I find- check out the photothread atop the board on the sticky for not only some great contributions, but also good examples in sizes used actually- it can at least get you started until someone like BigRod or Gambo etc. can check this out and guide you in a bit of a clearer direction).

So in a tl;dr nutshell: to import all photos in the respective manner you want (ie BoSox Pitcher photo of Ruth vs. '27 Yanks, or say even Boston or something if you wanted to follow histoical accuracy and it will work that well- I think it does, but I haven't done a really old franchise playback since I did my BlackSox franchise on 11 I think and that was lost to a crash which devastated me and now I shy away from replicating history when going that far back too much but I digress!
As I was getting at, you would need to title each photo as their name appears in-game, i.e. Babe_Ruth, Ted_Williams, Roberto_Clemente; and if there's a middle name, you need to incorporate the lower-hyphens into the correct way for it to outright "import" when just using it that way, or trying to load an entire folder at once. In this case, say a guy has a middle name that needs to stay that is only an initial, and it's (making this up) Bob M. Giles, with the M. Giles coming in the last name portion of his profile. You'd save that as Bob_M. Giles in that case. Just something I figured could help as it would mess up an import, if you go that route.

Otherwise, you can save photos as you had been, and manually import them by sorting through, simply highlighting the file (jpg and png files work best I find) and importing it into your game. Playing around with sizing from there could be something you find out more on your own than with others' help, or just checking that post I reffed above would get you going in the right path at least. Others can def. help more there-- I just usually use 90/135 or whatever the shot is sized as, if appropriate, and not plastered w/ press image copyright writing and whatnot. I crop those actually, whether I can say that or not- I don't think it's illegal if I can copy and paste it into paint and handle it like that for a non-profit reason. Anyway....

My suggestion to you, personally? If you have a re-naming program, this could be VERY quick compared to if you don't; there was a great one I had used but it's on my rickety desktop, and I don't have my new OOTP games on there- though I have that program and if it's cheap or freeware I'll figure out the name, as it was the best "renaming" program for photo and other files and extensions, even giving option to resize photos all at once, I had ever found. It would help a lot in this instance. But as saying, I would suggest doing this: if you have a re-naming/(sizing?) program, all the better, and if you can find a cheap and reliable one it might be worth it if you dig OOTP- it is an engulfing experience that I recommend to anyone who likes realistic sims, and playbacks, even if I tend to play more recent playbacks in recent time (I used to like doing older ones but lost a lot of photos to be 100% honest- haha- maybe once sorted, you could share some of yours with us? ).... I would take folders, and place them somewhere you can get to easily enough in your OOTP 15 folder; make it sort of a photo archive for every single year of sorts. Just put inside of a subfolder the year names and then inside, the respective photos FROM those years (so a 1917 photo w/ Ruth in BoSox garb? Put him in there, and take the _BOS or _1917 off of the file's extension entirely, and rename it simply Babe_Ruth or whatever full name he has in your franchise at this point- and then there's a way to set it to import the entire folder, but keep in mind you would need to rename all players to their simple names and just put them in custom folders. Then import that entire folder when that year approached, if following historical accuracy to a tee like it sounds like you're looking to do (or something similar?). This would be my best recommendation if you have a nice file re-namiing program, or access to one, it would help tenfold- and if I can find mine and it's cheap or freeware I'll PM you the title if you'd like?


I hope I helped without this dragging. It's hard for me to explain phtotos, and it's mostly for the same reasons as you. I'll post a photo as an example for the Yankees I have from various years when I was doing a lot of dynasties and had acquired said players even when not following historical accuracy 100%-- I simply saved players with their city or state's extension at the end for a lot of player's secondary/third/etc. "backup" photos/headshots.)

If you have ANY questions I'll be on awhile and try to help by explaining what I mean by the individual/sub-folder thing, with the folders just being titled as reminder to what year they're meant for. You MIGHT have to c+p these, then pasting over the OOTP15's "photos" file's photos from year prior while also adding any incoming rookies or signings etc. and importing the photos/cap changes each year. And by that, I mean keep folders of each yr and then c+p them into the OOTP15 "photos" section, turn off fake face gens or the pre-generated ones or whatever (I don't like them and don't go looking into them!), and have it import the photos each year fresh- there IS a way and someone here can tell you how to do this all at once vs. the slower method of importing player's one at a time, which I often do to be honest.... I don't have enough time lately to follow up on old projects and just try to enjoy the game as much as I can without OCD freak outs until I can find time to really go headfirst in and start making some quick starts of my own, or find some cool online leagues or concepts to join into if openings were present.

But I do hope this helped to some extent. Believe me, photos frustrate the hell out of me-- so I totally feel you, not even because I too played strat-o but because I had a HUGE archive and near-complete '89* and '98 photopacks, but I lost a ton of data (a lot of the shots came from baseball cards from random years and a nice scanner I *had* + good edit work, but the time it took and the amount lost probably means those two years won't be attempted any time soon if I try at it again...and FWIW I just used 90x135 and sometimes, even smaller if only a tad to make up for bad shots and stuff. I had some odd prospect photos, minor league cards, etc. and a lot I'd never found online 'til going through my massive collecting spanning the '80s/early 00 when the roid scandal really broke bad).

Cheers and any speciific questons let me know, since a lot of this is likely clustered. It's hard to tell where I am on this thing I'm replying on with the text being small as hell and my icon bouncing since I keep hitting the screen- I don't know, I'm not used to tablets or these new-fangled things.... my OOTP stuff is on my laptop which I'll be at later but I can still help w/ any questions, if some part of my reply was really out of order seemingly- my icon is bounching like crazy because of how sensitive this is, and the keys are horrible.... anyway, good luck and let me know how you choose to do it?! I'll try to find the program name if only by searching on here before I'm at my old desktop again and loading it up. I think I remember it but it might niot be freeware now..... still, there might be others that are, if any forum members know of good renaming programs?

[sdw1000]

Awesome! Thanks man for the very good description. When I get the game tomorrow, I will try out some of those things. I'll keep ya posted.

[sdw1000]

So I've loaded all my pics....but I had to sort them by 1000s since "it only read 1000" at a time. But now do I have to load each freakin pic 1 by 1? I thought it had a photo recognizing software. I'd have it labeled and the game would go find it. Adding pics for every team could be quite tedious. Rather that than the FaceGen...but that's always a nice backup. Now I have to figure out ballparks.

[Bigrod]

Originally Posted by sdw1000

So I've loaded all my pics....but I had to sort them by 1000s since "it only read 1000" at a time. But now do I have to load each freakin pic 1 by 1? I thought it had a photo recognizing software. I'd have it labeled and the game would go find it. Adding pics for every team could be quite tedious. Rather that than the FaceGen...but that's always a nice backup. Now I have to figure out ballparks.

OOTP will read every pic in the photos folder there's no limit. You need to use the Filter button to access the pics beyond 1,000. Just type in the last name, hit ok and it'll show all players with that name.


OOTP will auto load all your pics, but only if they are all in the photos folder and named exactly as they are in game.
One error in Kammich's excellent post is that names need to be formatted like this:
firstname space middle initial underscore lastname space Jr. Sr. II III etc.
Example: Joe P._Smith Jr.
The game won't auto load real pics for any players that already have a pic in your saved game.
To get around that just go into your saved game's news\html\images
\person_pictures and profile_pictures folders and delete everything.
Restart ootp an it'll auto load all the new pics.
Also, you should click settings when ootp starts. When the popup opens, click the facegen tab and set the Picture Search option to Search for photo first to insure that ootp uses your real pics first and if it can't find one it'll use facegen.


Your ballpark pics must be loaded one by one for each team.
Select any team and click the team settings option. On that page click edit ballpark. On that page click Pictures & Coordinates tab. On that page on the left you'll see Daytime picture. Click select file and navigate to your ballparks folder and select the day time pic. Then do the same for the night pic. Do this for each team and when done, Click the Available Actions drodown on the top right and click export all ballparks. By exporting the data, you won't have to ever manually load your ballpark pics again. Just use the auto-import all ballparks option and ootp will auto load all your ballpark pics if you should start a new game.
Hope this helps

[Kammich]

Originally Posted by Bigrod

OOTP will read every pic in the photos folder there's no limit. You need to use the Filter button to access the pics beyond 1,000. Just type in the last name, hit ok and it'll show all players with that name.


OOTP will auto load all your pics, but only if they are all in the photos folder and named exactly as they are in game.
One error in Kammich's excellent post is that names need to be formatted like this:
firstname space middle initial underscore lastname space Jr. Sr. II III etc.
Example: Joe P._Smith Jr.
The game won't auto load real pics for any players that already have a pic in your saved game.
To get around that just go into your saved game's news\html\images
\person_pictures and profile_pictures folders and delete everything.
Restart ootp an it'll auto load all the new pics.
Also, you should click settings when ootp starts. When the popup opens, click the facegen tab and set the Picture Search option to Search for photo first to insure that ootp uses your real pics first and if it can't find one it'll use facegen.


Your ballpark pics must be loaded one by one for each team.
Select any team and click the team settings option. On that page click edit ballpark. On that page click Pictures & Coordinates tab. On that page on the left you'll see Daytime picture. Click select file and navigate to your ballparks folder and select the day time pic. Then do the same for the night pic. Do this for each team and when done, Click the Available Actions drodown on the top right and click export all ballparks. By exporting the data, you won't have to ever manually load your ballpark pics again. Just use the auto-import all ballparks option and ootp will auto load all your ballpark pics if you should start a new game.
Hope this helps

Ahh, yes! I am glad that the user was able to navigate through all of my post and (for the most part ) I was able to help out. I did mean to include that tidbit about those with names and middle initials, and the period afterwards or if the photo is saved as such (like that, with a period- in the instance if the player has a middle name that reflects as such, like... Chris R._Young, for example-- usually I use middle names only for those with multiple names, and if I forget to save it as such and have to manually import one or two names as a result it's OK. As is both Chris Youngs for example, just those two alone have probably been on over 12 teams combined by now. :P Being someone who doesn't always store his photos as well as he could (and really should- I admit I have tried to sort some lately, and make individual/yearly folders for that sole use, even if they're incomplete... it helps to find that one player in such-and-such team cap for historical replays, since I prefer photos to facegen tenfold!) Hell- I admit I collect photos from any hat once worn if only briefly (or as a joke, in case I don't play to historical accuracy and I rarely do!) and even have scanned in some obscure baseball cards from my personal collection spanning about the mid-late '70s or 1980 to about 04, but I'd only defer to those old cards to import for replay load-ups, or maaaaybe some newer cards for templates for in-gamebaseball cards, or if I have a rare minor league uniform card and/or something like a skinny/svelte-looking Bartolo Colon circa his rookie year with the Indians.... mainly the minor league cards w/ nice headshots I have admittedly and some young looking rookies or obscure cards/shots i can't find online! But my scanner is broken for now. AND, I am terrible at photoshopping hats on and only good at making silly paint photos and sometimes Jacsoft frame-by-frame paint workshop animations when it comes to MLB players and their doctored photos.... let's just say... Matty V., and the guys on MLB Network make my paint photoshops and animations look bad, and KEEP IT AT THAT!

I am happy that Big Rod was able to help out, and my post wasn't a total mess..... I have a hard time filtering out what matters and what's fodder when instructing (or trying to help instruct) sometimes, and i wasn't sure if it would be easy to understand. And thanks to Rob for correcting that tidbit I forgot to include! I also think (but I like Rob's way as described for middle initials and such more- and also feel just importing the photo is as simple if need-be instead or something) you might be able to save a player's photo as their player id #, and then .jpg or maybe .png? But correct me there if I am wrong. I know on older OOTP games this was possible, but when I say older, I might be thinking in the back of my head way back to the times when OOTP6.5/12 was still super popular, and it may be the version in which this was the best way for using photos with or without online leagues (when importing into your game's file). I dunno, either way, Rob's way is more foolproof I am sure and I apologize for replying so late but am glad I was able to help a bit. Been a turbulent couple of weeks .... just now have been working on some independent photopacks, for what it is worth, but I don't want to put a date on anything because when stuff gets busy these projects can hit snags and I hate to get people waiting (and have learned not to set dates as such!)....... but if I can get pumping on one or two I had over 50% done, I will post them.... Had all MLB players w. respective names finished, and most if not all prevalent minor league players and prospects from that year or general time period if the photos weren't too outdated, as well. I also had been working a tad on the quick start file to adjust a few things I thought unfit. Consider this just a teaser, but if I can finish it, I'll release it after the playoffs or near/during them, if it goes quicker than expected. It's mainly the 2 photo packs but I can include the 2 quick start seasons' years in which they are intended for import, and the minor changes and settings I have used as well (if interested). I have yet to decide if I will make a quickstart and add a few Independent leagues if I do finish the photopacks for that year, but I will definitely have logos for the years. Again, don't wanna say or delve too deep since it's no guarantee I'm going to finish, when I will or if it will be before/after the WS culminates, and also if it doesn't just get pushed into next year's OOTP release so I can have a more complete project once done. Regardless if I make any significant progress I'll make an independent post and announce more info. I don't want to spam the boards up when this isn't 100% for sure yet and I'm only half-done on each photopack about, with changes for the seasons not needing a lot of work, but enough where I'd like to address it for my own gameplay reasoning if I ever do finish the specific photopacks 100%.


Cheers and happy OOTP playin'! Also, thank you for that tip about doing the photo thing while the game is open, Rob. Sometimes my photos randomly would still load facegens even when the option was off for them everywhere it needed to be checked (or unchecked, respectively if you know what I mean). :dunno:

I'm gonna try that later when I make a new quickstart/current rosters for the means of testing a seasonal sim. Hopefully it loads the photos, since I've saved a lot of missing photos too and it shouldn't be loading some that it will on occasion anyway. Thanks again for all you do for this community- it makes the game's lifespan expand tenfold, and motivates others like myself to whip the game out and resume playing when I finally have the time, even if my hometown Cubs are horrible, and far/long since out of the race.... but rebuilding them in OOTP sounds even funner as result now >

-N

[RANGER11JP]

Do any of you guys think that an update to how photos, names, years etc might be handled better with all the game and tech advances we have had?
I'd like to see the naming parameters changed so players years could be included or even show up at random if more than one exists. Could we get an option of naming with last name first so some searching and filing are a bit more logical? Just some random thoughts I thought I'd ask here.

Thanks and welcome to the new guy!

JP