I would like to share with you my newgen replacement pack. The pack currently consists of:
175,000 male player pictures across 60 different ethnicity categories
18000 female player pictures - this base pack is still under development, not every nation/ethnicity is covered yet.
18000 staff pictures for both male and female.
You can have a preview of my pictures and (almost all) ethnicity categories here:
MALE PICTURE SHOWCASE
FEMALE PICTURE SHOWCASE
For FM26, you can get the pack in two versions:
a) Single Bundle File (NG_Regens Lite Experience)
This is a single bundle file that you can place in your FM26 folder. It's easy to install and use, but it's significantly limited in what it can do, how many faces it includes, and what methods are used to assign faces to newgens.
b) Full Experience with Custom Software
I recommend the full experience with my custom software. It supports more than 15 times the number of pictures, categories, and assignment methods.
FULL VERSION for Mac and LINUX/SteamDeck(FM26 AND FM24)
I have a completely new version for you that reads information directly from Savefiles and requires no SIP deactivation and no sudo. It is in early testing stage, but I still think it is better for you to go directly that way now as the experience is THAT much better. Another major difference: You do not need to have the game running in the background. You still can, but it is no longer required.
Follow the guide here:
FM26/FM24 MAC/STEAMDECK/LINUX GUIDE
FULL VERSION FOR WINDOWS(FM26 AND FM24)
On Windows at this point in time you actually have a choice between two different versions. The one that reads information directly from a running FM instance and the new one that reads all information from a savefile. As of April I think it safe to switch my recomendation. I now recommend you start with the Savereader method. Only if for some reason it doesnt work for you should fallback to the memory reader.
Try this first: FM26/FM24 WINDOWS SAVEFILE READER METHOD GUIDE
If you have problems, try this instead: FM26/FM24 WINDOWS MEMORY READER METHOD GUIDE
If you can open the page from your phone, but not from your pc, then it is your Windows Antivirus/WebFilter - You can try to whitelist *.ngregens.org somewhere in its settings. As another workaround you can try to set your Windows DNS Settings to use Google DNS 8.8.8.8 or Cloudflare DNS 1.1.1.1. You can find (not mine) guide on how to do that on your Windows machine here
THE BUNDLE REPLACEMENT METHOD:
If you're on Windows, I strongly recommend using the full experience of the pack with my custom software. However, if your platform isn't supported yet or you don't want to deal with the software I've created, I have a bundle file for you to use with the bundle replacement method. Just keep in mind that this bundle represents only about 5-10% of the full experience (it's not me limiting you to force software adoption - this is simply how the bundle method works).
1. Download the updated bundle file from here: https://download.ngregens.org/ui-newgen-portraits_assets_all.bundle
2. Go to your FM26 install directory. By default, it should be \Steam\steamapps\common\Football Manager 26\fm_Data\StreamingAssets\aa\StandaloneWindows64\
3. Make a backup of the ui-newgen-portraits_assets_all.bundle file in case you want to revert to default faces.
4. Copy the file you downloaded in step 1 into the FM26 folder, replacing the original file.
5. Start FM26, go to the Preferences screen, and select "Detailed" in the top menu. Then select "Audio & Visual" in the left menu and check the "Use pre-generated pictures of players (and staff) rather than dynamically-generated images" option (as shown in the screenshot).
6. Restart the game.
To revert (or migrate to my full-featured experience with the custom software), uncheck the "Use pre-generated pictures of players (and staff) rather than dynamically-generated images" option and copy the original bundle (that you backed up in step 3) back into the FM26 directory.
If you are interested in FM24 version with shortlist export method for both Windows and Mac you can still download and use the old 25 version of the software below.
This is project costs me 100-200e monthly to develop and support, so your donations are greatly appreciated!
Stay tuned!
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BELOW IS THE OLD SHORTLIST EXPORT METHOD FOR FM23 AND BELOW FOR ALL PLATFORMS:
Due to how diverse the pack is, I had to create my own expanded folder system to accomodate all 55 categories, so the pack requires a custom NG_Regens Manager 25 software
Installation guide:
1 - Get the main NG_Regens facepack here
2 - Copy the NG_Regens folder into your FM Graphics folder. It would be the same folder where you have put the original newgan facepack or where you put real facepacks. In my case that would be “Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2024\graphics\faces\”
3. Download the NG_Regens Manager 25: Mac
4. Watch the NG_Regens Manager 25 guide on Youtube
If you need a detailed video guide on shortlist export process you can find it here
Deepdive into new version 1.2 features
I will redo all three current Youtube videos into one, but this is a time consuming process, so bear with me.
F.A.Q.
Q: Why did you create a new folder structure? / How can I unpack your pack into the old NewGAN "Italmed/YugoGreek..." folders?
A:
First off, huge shoutout to the original NewGAN team—they did an amazing job, and their work is still being used by thousands of people today. Even my project builds on the filters and views they created, so big respect to them. Seriously, none of this would be possible without their foundation.
That said, the original NewGAN pack came out about five years ago, and it was built using the tools and structure available at the time. It only has 14 categories for the entire world. A lot of care went into the big football nations, but unfortunately, many other countries kind of got lumped together in ways that don’t really make sense.
Let’s do a little experiment: I could show you a few images from my pack, each from a different category. In the old NewGAN setup, all of those would’ve ended up in the same group—meaning a player from one of those countries could randomly get any of those faces.
Notice the difference? That’s why it’s just not possible to repackage my set back into the old structure without losing all the nuance (or simply creating a mess).
Discussion: NG_Regens Newgen Megapack with Women's Football Pack 2 - FM26, FM24 and below
389 comments have been posted so far.
I'm still using my save from FM24 with more than 530K players and your packs helps a lot having fun with that same save.
There is no way yet to do that automatically to all.
a) delete all files from those folders that you dont care about (then regens that would have recieved those pictures will keep their default SI faces)
b) Keep a couple of hunderds per folder - that way players will have pictures assigned, but you will see a lot of duplicates
edit: also I feel dumb, just got the latests file but where are the women?
Amazing work otherwise btw - the women's pack is incredible work even as an early version
I will try to add the option to select between "player male, player female, staff male, staff female" on the generation page, that is not hard to do.
I am a bit more cautious about not requiering the main male pack during the setup process. You cant imagine how many users have bombarded me with questions because they have unpacked the pack incorrectly or have pointed the software to the wrong folder... Not sure what is the correct way forward here.
tldr Staff pack and Women's are VERY new additions and the complete infrustructure is not fully there yet.
So it is already further forward than you probably have expected, but no ETA yet.
Code signing certificate costs about 150e yearly on average, so I only was able to buy one when donations have covered the cost.
So your options are either whitelist this in your antivirus or wait until my certificate gets approved. There is nothing else I can do on my end right now unfortunatelly.
You make some fair points! And it wasn't so much a cheat for me, as I'd do all regens over 120pa, meaning there was still some mystery with players. I tend to have saves well into the years when it's only regens in the world! I'm grateful you've even considered it and happy to see it's on a to do list! People such as yourself genuinely make the FM experience year on year infinitely better.
@ooshosboshe thanks for kind words. Regarding your question - I can for sure add this option, it is not that big of a problem (I just need to figure out where exactly FM stores PA in-memory). But it would be kind of a cheat for you to know who is good
Also I think your view of the picture usage might be incorrect. There are basically three phases of "duplicate pain":
1. You see a picture is being used more that 1 time in your config.xml
2. You randomly see a duplicate in-game
3. You actually realize that you have seen a duplicate - like you recognize the picture
From those 3 only the last one affects your game experience. So pictures that are used on some random tier 10 england dude are not really wasted. If you never see this dude that is actually the same as if that picture were not used at all. You havent seen it, you wont see it, so it is the same as not assigning it.
What you will actually save in that case is game loading time. So in a sence you can consider your idea as a tradeoff - faster loading time vs knowing who is good because he has a picture.
You are not the first one who have requested this feature, so I have put it on my ToDo list. I will try to implement it together with the Mac release.