Batch Recolor Game Items

One source asset, dozens of color variants. This workflow takes a single game item (a gem, potion, sword icon, whatever you have) and produces a complete set of recolored variants, each exported as a named PNG. You define the colors once in a palette, and ArcBrush handles the rest.

This is the fastest way to produce rarity tiers, elemental variants, or team colors for game assets.

What You’ll Need

A single game asset PNG with a transparent background (ideally a clean icon with one dominant color)
A list of target colors for your variants (hex values or just names; you can eyedrop them later)

The Pipeline

Image In  ->  Trim (with padding)  ->  Palette Remap (+ Palette)  ->  Export Batch

Step-by-Step Walkthrough

1. Image In — Load Your Base Asset

Right-click the canvas and add an Image In node. In the Properties panel, click the folder icon next to the File Path field and select your base asset file, for example a gem icon at 128x128 with a transparent background.

If your asset has a colored background instead of transparency, you’ll want to run it through AI Remove Background first. For this recipe, we assume you already have a clean cutout.

Double-click the Image In node’s preview to confirm the image loaded correctly.

2. Trim — Auto-Crop and Re-Pad

Add a Trim node and connect Image In’s output to its input.

Trim automatically detects the bounding box of non-transparent pixels and crops the image down to a tight fit. It also has a built-in padding parameter, so you can crop to content and re-pad to consistent margins in a single node — no separate Pad node needed.

Key parameters:

Mode: Transparent Pixels (default) for alpha-trimmed assets. Use Top-Left Color or Bottom-Right Color if your asset has a solid color background instead of transparency.
Threshold: 0 for pixel-perfect alpha trimming. If your asset has semi-transparent antialiased edges, raise it to 2-5 to avoid clipping soft pixels.
Padding px: 8. Trim crops to the tight bounding box, then re-adds 8 pixels of transparent margin on every side. This gives every variant identical, consistent spacing for UI grids and texture atlases.

If your target engine expects power-of-two dimensions, adjust Padding until the output hits 64x64, 128x128, or 256x256 as needed.

3. Palette — Define Your Color Variants

Add a Palette node (it doesn’t need an input connection; it’s a standalone color definition).

Click the + button to add color slots. Name each one descriptively, since these names become your export filenames:

Slot Name	Color	Use Case
Crimson	#E03030	Fire / Common
Cobalt	#3060E0	Ice / Rare
Emerald	#30C060	Poison / Uncommon
Gold	#F0C030	Holy / Legendary
Amethyst	#9B6DFF	Arcane / Epic
Onyx	#404050	Shadow / Mythic

You can add as many slots as you want. Each one produces one output variant.

4. Palette Remap — Generate All Variants

Add a Palette Remap node. Make two connections:

Connect Trim’s output to Palette Remap’s Image input.
Connect Palette’s output to Palette Remap’s Palette input.

Palette Remap identifies the dominant color in your image and replaces it with each palette slot color while preserving all luminance, highlights, and shadow detail. The result looks hand-painted, not cheaply tinted.

Key parameters to set:

Source Color: Click the eyedropper and pick the most saturated color in your asset. For a red gem, pick the mid-tone red, not the highlight or shadow.
Hue Tolerance: 30 (default). Widen up to 45 for icons with broad color regions, narrow to 15 for icons where you need to remap only a single saturated hue without bleeding into nearby colors.
Min Saturation: Set to 15 (the slider runs 0-50). This protects neutral grays and whites from being remapped. Raise it if metallic or stone parts of your icon are getting recolored unintentionally.
Preserve Luminance: Leave the checkbox on. This keeps the original brightness across all variants so highlights stay bright and shadows stay dark. Turn it off only if you want the variants to skew toward the raw palette colors regardless of the original tonal range.

The node’s preview now cycles through all variants. Use the left/right arrows in the preview panel to inspect each one.

5. Export Batch — Save All Variants

Add an Export Batch node and connect Palette Remap’s Variants output to it.

Configure:

Base Name: Set to the asset name, e.g., gem. Each variant file will be named gem_crimson.png, gem_cobalt.png, etc.
Output Directory: Choose your project’s asset folder.
Format: PNG (for transparency support).

Click Export or press Ctrl+Shift+E to export all variants at once.

Result

You get one PNG per palette slot: gem_crimson.png, gem_cobalt.png, gem_emerald.png, and so on. Every file has identical dimensions and padding, ready to drop into a game engine or sprite atlas tool.

To produce a completely different set of recolors, just edit the Palette node’s colors and re-export. The entire pipeline re-evaluates in milliseconds.

Variations

Add a Drop Shadow before Export by inserting a Drop Shadow node after Palette Remap. Set Offset X/Y to 2, Blur Radius to 4, and Opacity to 0.5 for a subtle floating effect on every variant.
Generate a sprite sheet instead of individual files by enabling the Sprite Sheet toggle in Export Batch. Set Columns to match your grid layout and Padding to 1 for atlas tools that need bleed protection.
Auto-extract palette colors from reference art by replacing the manual Palette node with Palette From Image pointed at a screenshot or concept art piece.
Recolor brand assets from SVG by swapping Image In for SVG Import and loading your logo or icon. SVG Import rasterizes the vector at any resolution with clean anti-aliased edges. Enable Watch File so changes saved externally automatically re-export every brand color variant. Set Min Saturation to 0 for single-color logos so the entire fill gets remapped.