How to Make Laughing Smiley Hideout Art in Path of Exile

A laughing emoji is the simplest possible hideout art: one circle, two squinted eyes and a wide open mouth. It is a perfect quick project and shows how far a few decorations can go.

The original and the in-game version

Drag the slider to compare the original image with the version rebuilt from Path of Exile decorations. Every piece on the right is a real decoration at its real in-game size, position and rotation.

Why Laughing Smiley works so well as hideout art

Icons and memes are designed to be read at a glance, so they stay recognisable even in decorations. Big shapes and strong contrast survive the conversion with almost no loss.

This Laughing Smiley uses 671 decorations of 4 types, with Arcane Astronomy Tool doing most of the work. That fits inside Path of Exile's 750-decoration hideout limit, so the complete artwork imports in one go.

Decorations used for Laughing Smiley

These are the exact decorations in this artwork, sorted by how many pieces each one contributes. The generator picks them by colour, texture and size, so large flat areas use big pieces and details use small ones.

Decoration	Pieces	Share	Used for
Arcane Astronomy Tool	412		Main fill
Book Pile	220		Outline and line art
Pooling Blood	20		Details and edges
Cathedral Tiles	19		Details and edges

How the colours were matched

Path of Exile decorations come in mostly earthy, stone and metal tones, so each colour in the Laughing Smiley image is matched to the closest decoration family while keeping light and dark areas in the right order. Here is how each colour of the original was translated:

How to make Laughing Smiley in your hideout

1. Open the generatorGo to the POE Hideout Art Generator and choose Path of Exile 1 or Path of Exile 2.
2. Pick your hideoutSelect the hideout you live in. The .hideout file only imports into the same hideout type.
3. Upload your Laughing Smiley imageDrop a Laughing Smiley picture with a clear outline and a plain background. PNG, JPG and WEBP all work.
4. Use these settingsArt size 61 units, 8 max colours, outline and line art on. This is what produced the result on this page.
5. Generate a free previewIn a few seconds you see the art built from real decorations at their in-game size.
6. Download and importUnlock the .hideout file, then in game open Edit Hideout, choose Import and select it.

Laughing Smiley in Path of Exile 2

The same image in Path of Exile 2 uses 679 decorations of 4 types (+8 compared with PoE 1). PoE 2 has its own decoration set, so the generator only uses pieces that exist in PoE 2, led by Arcane Astronomy Tool.

Choose Path of Exile 2 in the generator and pick your PoE 2 hideout: the art is rebuilt from PoE 2 decorations automatically, with the same outline and colour matching.

Tips for the best Laughing Smiley

• Emojis and icons work great at small sizes, so they are perfect for filling a corner.
• Strong black outlines make memes pop on any floor.
• Combine several small icons to decorate a whole room.

Importing the .hideout file

Go to your hideout, open Edit Hideout, choose Import and select the downloaded file. Make sure you import into the same hideout type you chose on the website. Back up your current layout with Export first if you want to keep it.

Laughing Smiley hideout art FAQ