Make an item upgrade chain

Last updated: October 12, 2026

Make an item in five upgrade tiers, from plain to legendary, that a player reads as one item getting better rather than five different items. Use it for weapon and gear upgrades, rarity tiers, currency packs and evolving buildings.

What you'll make

Five images of one item, common, uncommon, rare, epic and legendary, at the same size, angle and position, on one flat background that removes cleanly. Each is ready to cut out as an inventory icon, a shop tile or an upgrade screen asset, usually exported as PNG with transparency.

Before you start

  • An approved base tier: the plainest version of the item, isolated on a flat background, at the angle the game shows it. Make it with Create images if you do not have one.
  • A tier sheet: for each tier, the material, color and effect that marks it. Rarity reads through materials (iron, steel, silver, gold), one accent color per tier and effects that grow with the tier. The shape stays the same.
  • Each tier is a generation and costs Creative Units; the cost depends on the model and the output size. See Creative Units.

Bring the base tier in

  1. In a session, press ⌘K (Ctrl+K on Windows), choose Add asset…, pick the base tier and click Select 1 asset.

  2. Hover it on the board and click View. The edit bar sits under the image.

Make each tier from the base

Each tier is a prompt edit of the base tier. Edit an image with a prompt covers the edit bar in detail.

  1. In the edit bar, describe the tier's materials and effect, then name everything that must not move: Upgrade this sword to its rare tier: polished blue-steel blade, silver crossguard with one small sapphire, dark blue grip. Keep the shape, size, angle, outline and grey background exactly the same.

  2. Click Edit image.

  3. The tier joins the strip beside the base. Check its silhouette against the base before you go on.

  4. Click the base tier in the strip to put it back on the stage. Make every tier from the base, never from the tier before: each pass re-renders the image, so a chain of edits drifts further from the item with every step.

  5. Write the next tier the same way, with its own materials and a stronger effect, and click Edit image.

  6. Repeat until every tier is in the strip, then compare them in a row on the board.

Cut them out

  1. Open each tier and run Remove image background. Glows and embers are soft-edged; check them on a dark and a light background before you accept the cut.

  2. If the game needs the glow as a separate layer for animation, run Split image into layers on the top tiers instead.

Hand it off

Select the tiers on the board and use Download as... with PNG, at the size the game's largest use needs; name them by tier with the File name template. Smaller icon sizes are best made in the engine or your sprite tool from the one large file.

Unity

Import as Sprite (2D and UI) with Alpha Is Transparency on. Put the tiers in one Sprite Atlas so they share a draw call on the upgrade screen.

Unreal Engine

Import as a texture with Texture Group set to UI and Never Stream on, then use it in a UMG Image widget.

Godot

PNGs import as a Texture2D. Set the node's Texture Filter to Linear for painted icons, or Nearest for pixel art.

Scale it up

  • Turn the tier sheet into a workflow. A workflow with an Images input for the base items, a Prompt Template holding each tier's wording and one Edit Image node per tier makes all five tiers of a whole item catalog in one run. See Build prompts from a template in a workflow.
  • Hold the look across the catalog. Train a reference set on approved items in the game's style and attach it to the base-tier generations, so every further base item fits the set. See Create a reference set.
  • Review at icon size. Look at the five tiers side by side at the size the game shows them; the jump between tiers must read at that size. Admins can add Output Scoring rules in the workspace's AI controls to flag a tier whose silhouette moved.

If something goes wrong

  • The item changed shape or angle. Put keep the shape, size, angle and outline exactly the same at the end of the prompt and edit from the base tier, not from another tier.
  • Two tiers look alike. Give each tier a different material and accent color in the tier sheet; more detail alone does not read as a higher tier at icon size.
  • The background shifted color or gained a floor shadow. Name the background in every prompt (flat light grey background, no shadow), or remove the background after each tier.
  • The top tier's glow is cut off at the edges. The base item filled the frame. Make the base again with the item filling about two thirds of the frame, so every tier has room for its effect.

Related