How to host
This is a hastily-written documentation that will most likely become outdated instead of maintained. However, it aims to reduce the amount of mystical magic so that new people can stream the cup if the staff disappears, again.
Running
Which game mode to run games in?
I'm currently planning for this:
- Regular games: UEFA Champions League -> Exhibition Match
- Grand final: Cup -> New -> Konami Cup or whatever the bottom one is called -> Tournament Format: Knockout System -> Number of Teams: 2. Set the correct difficulty, pick the teams.
The grand final option plays the cup animations and the extended victory animation. I also us DPFileLister to load an extra DLC inf_91_force_final.cpk to force the final to take place in a certain custom chosen stadium different to regular cup games, as opposed to the randomly chosen default. I did this by picking all the st002 files, renaming them st001, and editing all their contents to replace st002 with st001 (use a script, not by hand). The cup reflections broke, to fix that I removed the new /bg/stadium/stXXX/etc/env_*.dds (reflection texture).
Preparation
How to modify/replace a team
Two parts: Save data (editing EDIT00000000 in your Documents save folder) and Aesthetics DLC.
The main tool for save data importing and editing is Editor (unless the 4CC version gets better, just use the ICUP version (download ICUPEditor.zip) because it has the legality checker (Database->AATF) that uses our rules instead of theirs. Note that mine will probably remain unmaintained unless we get a new dev because Micro$oft blocked my Visual Studio account).
The main tool for aesthetics is AET Compiler. We used to use a bunch of different dodgy tools that took way more time, but I've set up all the current teams in AET. I'm using this version BUT with Engines/bins_update.bat replaced with this old version, because the new one just absolutely broke UniColor.bin editing. Make sure to disable Fox mode.
One note about AET, you can choose the UEFA opening player shirt pattern for each kit by adding the number after the shirt colours. This appears to be all the choices, but I'm skeptical as PES15 had more, like a checkerboard pattern.
How to add or remove team slots in ICUP, or other comps
[untested! written from memory. will update once I need to add a team]
Open our inf_12_competition.cpk DLC. Hex edit etc/pesdb/CompetitionEntry.bin, you'll notice a pattern pretty quickly: 4 bytes of team ID (00 00 02 BD16 = 70110 which is currently /2hu/, the byte order is different in the file due to endianness, I think) then the next 4 bytes are some empty 00s and the total team count, the next 2 bytes are the team's position in the competition it's in, and the last two are the ID of the competition (0916 is the Infinity Cup, 4516 is special teams, 4316 is spare slots for the ICUP/specials, 1116 is reserved for legacy teams, etc.)
If you can avoid it without losing EDIT face data or tactics, don't just be lazy and change a team's comp number to archive it. Keep the top 32 as the ICUP current teams. It's hard enough to use as-is.
Note: If what I described breaks something, it will involve hex editing on the encrypted save file. You need to decrypt it with pesXdecrypter or another tool, edit data.dat, re-encrypt and repeat until it works. The competitions are some kind of arcane magic, the best resource I've found is PES_2016/Edit_file#Competition_Entry on implyingrigged. Yes, that says 2016. The 2017 page left out the contents of the competitions section, I'm assuming because it didn't change...? Anyway, it seems like you just need to fill the Amount of Teams in with the teams, and the rest just seemed to work.
3D models
Honestly, just use the Blender tutorial pages on implyingrigged.info, PES 2016/17.