Palette Editing 101

So, you wanna change up your baller's color scheme? Here's a step-by-step guide that's to the point

Prerequisites

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Open the files lol

First things first, get your Lethal League files open
You can find those by going to your Steam installation, commonly your C: Drive, and finding

• (Steam\steamapps\common\lethalleague)

or you can find it by right clicking Lethal League on Steam > Manage > Browse local files



OR right clicking Lethal League on Steam > Properties > Local Files > Browse...



Once you have the folder open, keep it to the side

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Download GraphicsGale

It's software that's been around since 2005, pretty nifty for making and editing sprites & animation, and the software Team Reptile recommends usin! The guide will be going over using it though will cover other software towards the end.

You can download the software from https://graphicsgale.com/us/

Editing Palettes with GraphicsGale

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Now with GraphicsGale downloaded, install it and open it!

Start off by opening the sprite sheet for the character you want to edit

These character sheets can be found in:

• [...\lethalleague\resources\graphics\game\player\default]
  
  
  
  
  
  Alternatively, you can also open GaleBrowser and open the .pngs there too
  
  
  
  Each file is just the word "player" and a number so here's who they are
  
  
  • player0.png = Raptor
    
  • player1.png = Switch
    
  • player2.png = Candyman
    
  • player3.png = Sonata
    
  • player4.png = Latch
    
  • player5.png = Dice
  
  Open whichever character you want to edit and notice immediately they're all red
  
  
  
  THAT'S BECAUSE Lethal League uses this file as a base for all other colors, you need to add a color palette to the sheet.
  
  The game's color palettes are stored in a folder named Palettes found at:
  
• [...\lethalleague\resources\graphics\palettes\characters]
  
  Here you'll find a bunch of folders with different names, idk what all of them are but the ones you'll want for recolors are
  
  
  • afterImage = Palettes exclusively for the Challenge mode "You're Out!" screen
    
  • boom = Sonata
    
  • boss = Doombox
    
  • candy = Candyman
    
  • croc = Latch
    
  • disconnect = Palettes exclusively used during a disconnect in the Online mode
    
  • kid = Raptor
    
  • pong = Dice
    
  • robot = Switch
  
  I want to make Raptor blue so I'm going to open his palette folder and WGAT WHYS THERE MOER FOLDSERSD DFLKJSD
  
  so these folders are separated into "0" through "4"
  
  
  
  
  • 0 = red team palettes
    
  • 1 = blue team palettes
    
  • 2 = yellow team palettes
    
  • 3 = green team palettes
    
  • 4 = ffa palettes
  
  I wanna change Raptor's first FFA palette, so hit the down arrow near the color picker
  
  
  
  Slap "Load Palette"
  
  
  
  Now "Import from file"
  
  
  
  Find the folder for the character you want to change and select a palette!
  
  
  
  NOTE: hey you may get an error saying " Palette data is empty ", in which case you can't edit the palette in Gale. Idk how to work around it, BUT you can easily overwrite it using another palette (all defaults work) if you do want to change a palette.
  
  Once you load a palette, it should look like this!
  
  
  
  Uncheck "Match Pixels with Colors" and to hit the "All" button to replace the current red color palette with what you loaded!
  
  
  
  And now you have a colored sprite sheet!
  
  
  
  

  Using Gale to recolor

  
  Now that you have everything set up, get wild with colors!
  
  EVERYTHING you should need is all in this screenshot
  
  
  
  You can also double-click a color in the palette area to open up the Windows color menu! Helpful if you want to get specific / save a color to apply to another part of the palette.
  
  

Saving and Using custom palettes

Once you've edited colors to your desire, you'll want to hit the down arrow next to the color sliders again.



Here this time, you'll want to press "Save Palette"



Gale will save the color palette you edited as a .pal file. I keep a Custom Palettes folder in the "Characters" folder for the sake of keeping everything organized, though you can save it in the folder with the character's palette .pngs you monster



You can name it whatever, give it a funny name or just call it as it is

Side Note: Alongside saving a .pal file, you can use Gale to export a PNG of your whole sprite sheet with colors applied
Simply go to [File>Save As] and save where you want it
It's nice if you wanna share what the spritesheet looks like with your custom palette alongside the palette .png itself!

From here, open your character's default palette in Gale. You won't be overwriting it, just using it to apply your new .pal to a palette .png you want to replace.



It's a good idea to keep a backup of your entire "Characters" folder incase you mess anything up, or just save the original palette by renaming it to something like "0 Original"

Navigate to the .pal you made and load it like you loaded the palette the first time



And you should have replaced the colors sucessfully!



From here, you'll want to navigate to [File>Save As] to overwrite another pre-existing palette



For the example, I'll overwrite Raptor's Default color palette with my nifty BLUE Raptor



And that should be it! You can go in-game to test out your new custom palette





From here, you should be able to re-color to your heart's content

Extras to note

Once you've made a palette you like and made it a .png, you can edit it in other programs

Use weird effects! Crush images! Get CRAZY with it

Like here's what my Blue Raptor color palette looks like after changing the Hue and Saturation




Pretty cool!

While on the subject, it's possible to edit palettes in other software to varying degrees of success
It's possible, but far from optimal

AND a reminder that palettes have a transparent pixel to not have a color background, covering that will result in a big block around the character

Without leaving pixel transparent


Leaving pixel transparent


while making this guide I crushed the Windows XP default bliss wallpaper into a palette and i'm mad that it still resembles it vaguely

Closing notes and Credits

HEY IF YOU'RE EVEN HERE THANK YOU FOR BEING EVEN SLIGHTLY INTRUEGED IN LETHAL LEAGUE IN 2023 ONWARDS IT'S SUPER COOL

MASSIVE shout-outs to the other guide-makers who's guides helped me understand Gale and how the sprites worked, inspiring me to make a more concise step-by-step version to palette modding

• BadShot for their IN DEPTH documentation on how to mod palettes and sprites using Gale
  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=391094865
  and
  
  
• TR_Dion for the super simple straight forward image-based modding guide
  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=315142470

Shoutouts to my bestie Tusk for gifting me the og LL after I gifted him LLB for Christmas <3 <3 <3 <3



and you for enduring how many times i've said palette

This is my first guide so I'd appreciate feedback on anything to improve :3

Thanks for Reading! Like and or Fav if you found it helpful at all