This guide will link you everything you need to start creating custom skins.
This will only list the absolute basics, you can find everything in the Tools section or Tutorials overview.
You can ask for help on the Killerskins-Discord server or you can contact the person who made the specific tutorial directly.
Table of Contents
General information
League of Legends stores all files inside .wad.client files, doesn’t matter if champions, maps, sounds, etc. You can view, extract and create them with Obsidian.
Even though you can find the files inside your League of Legends directory, you cannot edit them directly, as this would just make the game crash.
This is why you need LCS-Manager. This program enables modified .wad.client files to be loaded into League of Legends. You will need to create a mod in LCS-Manager and run the program when you want to use custom skins.
Generally Required tools & Tutorials
Those tools you will need, no matter what skin you plan on doing:
LCS-Manager is needed to install your custom Mods.
The first tutorial will simply show you how to install already existing mods in LCS.
The second tutorial will show you how to create a mod for LCS with your edited files.
This tutorial will show you how extract .wad.client files in order to edit them.
Tutorial: Extracting game files with Obsidian
This tutorial will show you how to register on the Killerskins website, get the creator role and create your first post.
Tutorial: How to contribute to Killerskins
Types of mod creation
This tutorial will mainly talk about four different kinds of edits you can do:
2D-Editing
This involves editing 2D-files, so mostly textures.
Examples: champion textures, particles textures, map textures, HUDs, indicators, fonts
3D-Editing
This involves changing 3D-models.
Examples: Champion models, ward skins, map models
Code-Editing
This involves editing .bin files, so files that determine how the game works.
Examples: particles recoloring, particle swapping, general editing
Sound editing
This involves changing sound files of champions or other things.
Examples: champion voices, champion ability sounds, announcers
Tools you need specifically
Tools for 2D-Editing
You will need to get Photoshop on your own.
Required .dds-plug-in:
Standard export settings:
Standard export settings:
Standard export settings:
In general you can use any graphic tool that can work with .dds files.
Tools for 3D-Editing
Maya is a bit hard to get as it usually can be only used if you pay for it and it’s quite expensive.
Maya 2023: Follow this video until 2:26 to set up an account. Then download Maya 2023.
Maya 2018: Tutorial for a free Maya 2018 license:
Select the one that matches your Maya version. They do not work for other versions.
Installation tutorial: https://github.com/tarngaina/lol_maya#installation
IMPORTANT NOTE: The .env file is not fully correct in this video! If you do it like this you cannot load weighted models! It is missing the \others in the path for scripts.
This is how it has to look (depends on your placement ofc, just the paths in red have to be the same):
MAYA_PLUG_IN_PATH = D:\Dokumente\Maya plugins\Maya 2018\bin\plug-ins
MAYA_SCRIPT_PATH = D:\Dokumente\Maya plugins\Maya 2018\scripts\others
XBMLANGPATH = D:\Dokumente\Maya plugins\Maya 2018\icons
Starting with patch 11.3 Riot stopped using the old .skl format that RiotFileTranslator for Maya exports, so now you will update them every time you make your own remodel or you want to use an old remodel custom skin.
- LeagueToolKit by Morilli (recommended): Download
- League-Model-Updater by TheKillerey (also updates .skn files, but does not work with a lot of skins): Download
Tutorial: Updating remodels after patch 11.3
Tools for Code-editing
Code-Editing in .bin files is obviously the most advanced editing you can do. Therefore, we would recommend mastering the basics first.
This tool let’s you easily recolor champion particles without actual coding knowledge
How to use Simple Recolor UI (Old name of binsplash)
Beginner tutorials
Tutorial:
Maya 2018 – Creating your first remodeled custom skin
This works for Maya 2018, but also for 2015.
Tutorial: Extracting config files
Tutorial: Bin Basics
Tutorial: How to edit sound effects/voiceovers
All our creation tutorials
Our creation tips
Smaller, often more advanced tutorials
