Tool: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a GB/GBC/GBA/NDS/SNES tilemap and Town Map editor

Rangi · Oct 5, 2019

Tilemap Studio is a tilemap editor for any Game Boy, Color, Advance, DS, or SNES project, but with particular focus on the pokered, pokecrystal, and pokeemerald disassemblies. It's a counterpart to Polished Map: Polished Map is for editing overworld maps, as well as their associated tilesets and other data; Tilemap Studio is for editing tilemaps like the Town Map, Pokégear cards, slot machines, diploma, and other screens.

I was inspired at first by Town Map editors like GSC Town Map Editor and Karteneditor; then when this advanced from 1.1 to 2.0 and I added GBA support, I looked to Tilemap Creator, NTME, and NTME+ for ideas. If you use any of those tools for your project, whether it's a binary or disassembly hack, then you can probably use Tilemap Studio too.

Download:

Download version 4.0.1 on GitHub and follow the instructions to install it.

Features:

Tilemap Studio can open tilemaps in many different formats:

Plain tiles: A simple sequence of tile IDs, top to bottom, left to right. Every platform uses this sometimes.
GBC tiles + attributes: Meant for Game Boy Color tilemaps. Pairs of bytes combine 9-bit tile IDs (8-bit plus a bank bit), 8 palettes, X/Y flip bits, and priority and OAM1 (sprite-related bits).
GBC tilemap + attrmap: Meant for Game Boy Color tilemaps with corresponding attrmaps, with tile IDs in one file and attribute bytes in the other.
GBA tiles + 4bpp palettes: Meant for Game Boy Advance tilemaps. Pairs of bytes combine 10-bit tile IDs, 16 palettes, and X/Y flip bits.
GBA tiles + 8bpp palette: Meant for Game Boy Advance tilemaps. Pairs of bytes combine 10-bit tile IDs and X/Y flip bits. Assumed to use a single 256-color palette.
NDS tiles + 4bpp palettes: Meant for Nintendo DS NSCR/RCSN tilemaps. Pairs of bytes combine 10-bit tile IDs, 16 palettes, and X/Y flip bits.
NDS tiles + 8bpp palette: Meant for Nintendo DS NSCR/RCSN tilemaps. Pairs of bytes combine 10-bit tile IDs and X/Y flip bits. Assumed to use a single 256-color palette.
SGB border: Meant for pokered's gfx/red/sgbborder.map and gfx/blue/sgbborder.map. Pairs of bytes combine 8-bit tile IDs and SGB attributes (4 palettes and X/Y flip bits).
SNES tiles + attributes: Pairs of bytes combine 10-bit tile IDs and SNES attributes (8 palettes, X/Y flip, and priority).
RBY Town Map: Meant for pokered's gfx/town_map.rle. Bytes combine 4-bit tile IDs and run lengths; ended by a $00 byte.
GSC Town Map: Meant for pokecrystal's gfx/pokegear/johto.bin and kanto.bin. Plain tilemaps ended by a $FF byte.
SW Town Map: Meant for pokegold-spaceworld's gfx/trainer_gear/town_map.tilemap.rle. Plain tilemaps ended by a $00 byte.
PC Town Map: Meant for Polished Crystal's gfx/town_map/*.bin. files. Bytes combine 6-bit tile IDs and X/Y flip bits; ended by a $FF byte.
Pokégear card: Meant for pokecrystal's gfx/pokegear/*.tilemap.rle files. Plain tilemaps with run-length compression; ended by a $FF byte.

The first formats are meant for all kinds of Game Boy projects, GB, GBC, GBA, NDS, or SNES. The rest are more specific to the Pokémon disassemblies and various hacks using those bases, including Polished Crystal, Red++, Orange, and Prism.

Tilemap Studio can create a tilemap, tileset, and palette from an input image, and then it can edit the tilemap, but to edit the tileset or palette you'll need a different program.

A few tips:

You can make a copy of a tileset image and color it in to view tilemaps better; Tilemap Studio will load any 8x8px-tile tileset image, regardless of colors, but it can't apply palettes to grayscale images.
Use the Image to Tiles feature to generate a tilemap, tileset, and palette from a screenshot or mockup of how you want a static tilemap to look.
The indexed palette format will make Image to Tiles output a tileset PNG with an indexed palette, instead of a separate palette file.
Shift+click to flood-fill tiles; Ctrl+click to replace all of one kind of tile; Alt+click to swap two kinds of tile.
Right-click in the tilemap to select from the tileset; right-click in the tileset to highlight in the tilemap.
Left- or right-drag to select rectangles of tiles from the tileset or tilemap.
Read the Help file for more details, including more mouse-controlled features which might be harder to discover than menu items and toolbar buttons.
If you are using Windows, right-click install.bat and click "Run as Administrator". This will install Tilemap Studio to your account's AppData folder and place a shortcut on your Desktop. You will also be able to double-click a .tilemap file to open it in Tilemap Studio.

Screenshots:

Spoiler:

OceanManFug · Oct 6, 2019

Neat program!

How would I drag and drop the entire tileset on the left side, to paste into the tilemap pane? I would also need to be able to flip the x. With Tilemap Creator, this is simple by simply adjusting the width of the tileset pane.

Rangi · Oct 6, 2019

OceanManFug said:
Neat program!

How would I drag and drop the entire tileset on the left side, to paste into the tilemap pane? I would also need to be able to flip the x. With Tilemap Creator, this is simple by simply adjusting the width of the tileset pane.

Placing multiple tiles at once is not supported yet, but it's the next item on the to-do list; expect it in 2.1.

The X and Y flip buttons are top-right of the tileset.

Rangi · Oct 20, 2019

Tilemap Studio 2.1.0 is ready! It doesn't have multi-tile selection yet—although that's definitely next on the list—but it does 1x to 10x zoom; various GUI improvements and bugfixes; and palette creation, thanks to an optimization algorithm from superfamiconv.

Here's how it works. Say you have a mockup image (this one is by wowjinxy):

Open Tilemap Studio; press Ctrl+X for Image to Tiles; and choose your options. This is for a GBC game, we want the tile IDs and attributes stored in separate files, and following the existing Pokémon Crystal intro, we want the first tile to be $80, not $00.

Then just press OK and—if your image fits within the limits of the chosen format—it outputs the tilemap, tileset, and palette!

Palettes are in JASC format for GBA tilemaps; otherwise they use the same RGB macros as the pokered and pokecrystal disassemblies. They're automatically sorted from lightest to darkest colors, and optimized to use as few palettes as possible.

If you don't like the order that the tiles or palettes are in, that's fine; just rearrange them in your graphics or text editor. Then reopen the tilemap, and use Alt+click in the Tiles or Palettes tabs to rearrange the tilemap itself.

Rangi · Oct 31, 2019

Version 2.1.1 has a couple of updates. The themes have been improved a bit, and there's a new dark High Contrast theme. Also, when you do Image to Tiles and make a .pal file, the tileset .png will be saved as grayscale 2-bit (for GBC) or 4-bit (for GBA). That means smaller files and simpler conversion to 2BPP or 4BPP Game Boy graphics formats.

Happy Halloween! :t200:

Rangi · Nov 17, 2019

Version 3.0.0 finally adds multi-tile selection! Just left-drag in the tileset or right-drag in the tilemap. If the tilemap format supports X+Y flip, those buttons will also make the entire selection flip when you place it.

This version was built with Visual Studio 2019, and it comes with some optimizations and bugfixes. It also supports SNES-format tilemaps.

Rangi · Nov 24, 2019

Version 3.1.0 is out, with some significant updates.

I've understood the GBA tilemaps better, so now there are separate 4bpp and 8bpp formats like NTME and Tilemap Creator have. The difference is mostly relevant for Image to Tiles: creating a 4bpp allows 16 palettes of 16 colors each, but an 8bpp allows one 256-color palette for the whole tileset.

The Image to Tiles feature is more powerful now:

You can pick any format to save palettes, including Paint Shop Pro JASC, Photoshop ACT, GIMP GPL, or a PNG or BMP image to easily see the colors. Plain tilemaps support 8BPP palette creation; this is relevant for GBA "affine" or "rotation/scaling" tilemaps. And, when the created tilemap opens, its width is correct by default.

There are other changes here and there, described in the changelog.

Rangi · Nov 24, 2019

Here's one of the more useful 3.1.0 changes for Gen 2 ROM hackers: Town Map palette support!

Instructions are in a spoiler due to the screenshots:

Spoiler:

(Credit to SaveState for the original image of Sinnoh.)

Rangi · Jun 2, 2020

Tilemap Studio has its first release of 2020: 3.2.0. It's a pretty significant update from 3.1.0. You can download it and read the whole changelog at that link on GitHub.

The major changes have been in the Image to Tiles feature. The dialog has been reorganized; it lets you specify a color #0 to use for every palette (useful for transparent backgrounds); and if it can't build the tiles, the dialog reappears without losing your settings, so you can quickly edit the input image or fix the settings and try again.

Two other convenience features: Tilemap→Print can export to an image or copy to the clipboard; and Options→Auto-Load Tileset will load a tileset image with the same name as a tilemap.

There have also been some bugfixes, such as placing flipped multiselected tiles past the edges of the tilemap, or outputting JASC palette files (used for GBA graphics in pokeruby and pokeemerald).

Rangi · Aug 23, 2020

Version 3.2.1 is released! It's mostly an internal improvement, using new C++17 features and fixing some issues found with static analysis. It does make the Image to Tiles dialog's Palette checkbox on by default, since that's the common setting, and it improves editing for RBY Town Maps.

Gavoca · Sep 11, 2020

Wait i can edit town map of fire red and also the titlescreen (sry i'm confused?)

Rangi · Nov 13, 2020

For Friday the 13th, here's another Tilemap Studio update; version 3.2.2.

The most visually obvious new feature is the Brushed Metal theme:

Besides that, it also supports the pokegold-spaceworld Town Map format (prototype Gen 2 ended its Town Map data with $00 instead of $FF):

There's also F11 Full Screen mode, and some other improvements described in the release changelog.

Gavoca said:
Wait i can edit town map of fire red and also the titlescreen (sry i'm confused?)

Yes, you can edit any tilemap file in the supported formats, including pokefirered.

Rangi · Jun 1, 2021

The first release of 2021: Tilemap Studio 3.3.0 is out!

The biggest feature is that Image to Tiles can output its palette as an indexed PLTE chunk in the tileset PNG, instead of a separate file: just pick PLTE for the palette format. Other changes include remembering if the window is maximized or fullscreen, and some minor bug fixes and UI tweaks.

Rangi · Aug 29, 2021

A major update today: Tilemap Studio 4.0.0! The linked release changelog lists many new improvements, but I'll go over some notable ones here.

• Tilemaps can be imported and exported in formats that aren't just raw binary. GBDK users who like "unsigned char" data arrays can import and export their C files. CSV is also supported, and RMP in case anyone has such files lying around from the old days of using Sphere Game Maker and NTME.

• The Image to Tiles tool is more powerful. It supports more formats for tilemaps, tileset images, and palette files, including the NSCR tilemaps used by DS ROMs. It can start at a nonzero palette index (like how the Gen 3 Town Map's 8bpp tileset starts at index $70). If you don't want any extra blank tiles in the output tileset, check the box to have it pick a width that's an exact rectangle. And drag an image onto Tilemap Studio to load it right away in the Image to Tiles dialog.

• A right-click-and-drag selected area in the tilemap can be erased, X/Y flipped, or copied to the clipboard (via the Edit menu); or you can Crop to Selection (via the Tools menu).

• Flood fill (Shift+click) supports pattern fill with multiple selected tiles. If the X and/or Y Flip buttons are enabled, they'll apply to the filled pattern.

• View→Transparent (F10) makes the window transparent. Potentially useful for seeing an image underneath the window and designing your tilemap on top of it.

Rangi · Nov 1, 2021

Tilemap Studio 4.0.1 was just released! The main addition is that it can import and export .asm tilemaps: files with 'db' sequences of tile IDs. It also adds support for 1bpp and 2bpp .ncgr graphics files and .col palette files; confirms before closing a modified tilemap to open one from Image to Tiles; and has improved compatibility with international characters in filenames.

Gold_n_Silver · Aug 26, 2022

So yeah... Quick question. I couldn't build the software by myself so is there a exe version of it? I will be eternally grateful if someone built it.

MariaJumpMan! · Aug 30, 2022

Gold_n_Silver said:
So yeah... Quick question. I couldn't build the software by myself so is there a exe version of it? I will be eternally grateful if someone built it.

Here's the link to the latest installer.
And here's the tutorial on how to installed it to your computer. ...Simple enough, right?
The OP suggested you to build it from scratch over to installing it like a normal application.
That's just its preferred way of "installing" it, which means that it's not entirely necessary to build it from scratch if you don't want to/you can't do it.

Hope that helps you out. :)

EDIT: If you somehow don't know what to do, you have to download the install.bat and the tilemapstudio.exe from the installer link. After downloading both of them, hold down shift while right-clicking the install.bat and click the "Run as administrator" option to install the application. And after the installation finished, you can safely deleted the install.bat and tilemapstudio.exe you download and start editing!
If you want to understand more, the tutorial I linked has the same tutorial on how to installed it with a much better explanations. So, check it out to make sure!

MyGuySlevy · Monday at 9:04 PM

Rangi said:
Tilemap Studio 4.0.1 was just released! The main addition is that it can import and export .asm tilemaps: files with 'db' sequences of tile IDs. It also adds support for 1bpp and 2bpp .ncgr graphics files and .col palette files; confirms before closing a modified tilemap to open one from Image to Tiles; and has improved compatibility with international characters in filenames

MariaJumpMan! said:

Here's the link to the latest installer.
And here's the tutorial on how to installed it to your computer. ...Simple enough, right?
The OP suggested you to build it from scratch over to installing it like a normal application.
That's just its preferred way of "installing" it, which means that it's not entirely necessary to build it from scratch if you don't want to/you can't do it.

Hope that helps you out. :)

EDIT: If you somehow don't know what to do, you have to download the install.bat and the tilemapstudio.exe from the installer link. After downloading both of them, hold down shift while right-clicking the install.bat and click the "Run as administrator" option to install the application. And after the installation finished, you can safely deleted the install.bat and tilemapstudio.exe you download and start editing!
If you want to understand more, the tutorial I linked has the same tutorial on how to installed it with a much better explanations. So, check it out to make sure!

Click to expand...

is there a Mac version?