Colour Spray Tutorial

Custom sprays, often referred to as logos or decals, allow you to leave a personal mark on walls and surfaces in Half Life. This guide explains how to prepare a colour image, convert it into the correct decal .wad format, and use it in game. It also covers the most important technical rules relating to image dimensions, palette setup, transparency, and common faults.

Older guides from the classic community often refer to pldecal.wad, whilst some modern installations and tools may use tempdecal.wad. For the purposes of this guide, you should use whichever filename and location are required by your own game installation, mod, or logo creation tool.

Step 1: Prepare Your Image

Before converting your image, it must be prepared correctly. Half Life colour sprays are more flexible than many players realise, but they still have to obey certain engine limits.

1. Choose an image:
   • Your image may be square or rectangular.
   • Both the width and height should be divisible by 16.
   • As a practical rule, the total image area should not exceed 12288 pixels.
   • Simple, bold artwork usually works better than highly detailed images.
2. Edit the image:
   • Use Photoshop, GIMP, Paint.NET, or a similar image editor.
   • Crop and resize carefully so that the final dimensions remain valid.
   • If you want transparent areas, use pure blue with the value RGB 0, 0, 255.
3. Convert the image to indexed colour:
   • The final image should be saved as an 8 bit 256 colour BMP.
   • If you are using transparency, make sure the pure blue transparency colour is present in the palette.
   • When using Wally, the pure blue transparency entry should be placed at the end of the palette.

Quick rule: if the width and height are both multiples of 16, and width × height is no more than 12288, the spray should usually be valid.

Step 2: Convert the Image to a Decal WAD

Once your image has been prepared, it must be converted into a decal .wad file. Two common methods are shown below.

Option A: Using Wally

1. Download Wally – Wally texture and WAD editor
2. Create your decal:
   • Open Wally and choose Wizard → HL Color Decal.
   • Select your game directory and the appropriate mod folder.
   • Import your image, or copy the full image from your editor and paste it via the clipboard method.
   • Check that the decal name is {LOGO.
   • Confirm that the final palette entry is pure blue 0, 0, 255.
   • Save the finished decal file.

Option B: Using HL Logo Creator

1. Download HL Logo Creator – simpler automatic logo conversion tool
2. Convert the image:
   • Load your BMP image into HL Logo Creator.
   • Allow the tool to perform the logo conversion.
   • Save the result using the filename required by your installation.

Step 3: Place the Spray in the Game

1. Locate your Half Life folder:
   C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Half-Life\valve
2. Copy the file: Place your newly created decal file into the correct game or mod folder.
3. Protect the file: Set the file to Read Only if you want to reduce the risk of the game overwriting it.

Step 4: Test In Game

1. Launch Half Life or a compatible mod.
2. Join a local game or multiplayer server.
3. Press your spray key to test the decal on a wall or other flat surface.
4. If you are on an online server, allow a short time for the spray to upload before testing it properly.

Animated Sprays

Animated colour sprays are possible, but they are subject to much stricter size limits than ordinary sprays. In practice, the effect is quite limited. The animation usually plays only once, the frame rate is very fast, and the maximum frame count appears to be limited in practical terms. For that reason, static sprays are normally the better choice unless you specifically want to experiment.

Troubleshooting

• I can see a bright blue border: make sure the pure blue transparency colour is the final palette entry, and that the decal has been named {LOGO if you created it in Wally.
• The spray appears washed out or mostly one colour: make sure the image is saved as 8 bit 256 colour, and that the pure blue colour 0, 0, 255 exists in the image.
• The spray does not appear online: some servers disable custom spray uploads entirely.
• The game replaced my custom spray: avoid reopening the customise menu after copying the decal, and keep a backup of the finished file.

Examples

Examples from Cyber-Rat.com

Downloads

• Pikachu Logo – Hello Pikachu!
• Rick Logo – Dr. Sanchez!
• Banksy Logo – Banksy artwork!

Cyber-Rat.com Downloads

• Alerter Crap Logo – You Are Crap!
• Alerter Fragged Logo – Fragged
• Alerter HWGuy Logo – Insulting HW Guys
• Alerter LPB Logo – Low Ping Bastard.. (aren’t we all these days?)
• Bart Spam Logo – I will not spam the snipers
• Cyber-Rat Logo – Cyber-rat.com
• Dastardly Logo – Dick Dastardly
• Eat Emp Logo – Eat EMP
• Eat Spam Logo – Eat Spam!
• Hold Still Logo – Hold still! This won’t hurt a bit!
• Homer Doh Logo – Doh!
• Homer Shining Logo – Here’s Homer!!!
• Hurt Logo – That Had to Hurt!
• Mutley Logo – Mutley
• No Camping Logo – No Camping!
• Spamcan Logo – Spam!
• Spy Logo – Pssssst! I’m a Spy!
• This Way Logo – Throw your grenades this way please!
• Trust Me Logo – Trust Me… I’m a Doctor