So You Want To Be a Map Modder: Preparations

Last edited by AtlasVBot on 2025-09-13 18:54:17

Making and editing Stardew Valley maps can be a fun way to add a bit of spice to your gameplay, be it customizing an already existing area more to your taste, or adding whole new places to visit and explore. However, maps are finicky because they have a lot of rules that need to be followed for making them, and they're not exactly obvious to a novice. This tutorial will hopefully help you avoid the most common map making pitfalls.

Moving the necessary files over to the mapmaking folder

First things first, we're going to need a couple of things. First is an unpacked content folder and next is Tiled. It doesn't really matter where you put either of them, as long as you have that unpacked folder and you have Tiled installed. Next, make another folder wherever you want. Label it whatever you want, but make sure you know it's for mapmaking. Enter your unpacked content folder, find the map folder, copy everything inside of it, and move it to mapmaking.

Rules of the mapmaking folder:

• We work in this folder and only this folder when we are editing the map
• We add in any additional tilesheets we might need to this folder if we need more for mapmaking and do not target anything outside the folder
• We save our mapmaking work only in this folder and in no other folders
• Any maps we copy/paste nice tile shapes from must also be in this folder.

Failure to adhere to these rules can and will result in errors for the map. Yes, that means that if you've moved the map to a mod folder to use it and you try to edit it there, you will get errors. Just move your map back into the mapmaking folder, make your edits inside the mapmaking folder, and then move the map back to the mod folder. It might seem tedious, but it's really the best way to handle things, especially if you're working on a lot of maps at once.

File Formats

Now, you've seen that your mapmaking folder has two different types of files: png and either tmx or tbin. If you have any yaml or json in it, just toss them, you don't need it. We're gonna go over the other types of files that Tiled will use for making Stardew Valley maps.

PNG Files

Also known as Portable Graphics Format. These are just basic image files, used for a variety of things besides mapmaking. These are what show Tiled and the game what each tile looks like. You can easily open these up in your favorite image editor as long as that editor has transparency features and make changes as you need, but I wouldn't really recommend that unless you're working on a custom tilesheet while you're working on the map or you're working on a recolor overhaul. Vanilla pngs are already set up for vanilla maps. There is a maximum pixel size is 16384x16384, but it's better if you don't really approach those bounds to begin with. I'd recommend just emptying out a copy of a vanilla png to use as the base to work on and then just shorten it as needed or add on new sheets.

TBIN Files

Could be known as tIDE Binary files. TIDE was the program originally used to make maps for Stardew Valley and the primary filetype for it was tbin. As can be implied by the name, this file is written in binary. Its uses are rather limited to what base-game does with maps and it cannot be edited without using a mapping program. In order to use it with Tiled, you will need to grab the .tbin plugin. Though there are several mods that still use the now-depreciated tbin map files, the majority of the community has switched to tmx files for a variety of reasons that will be discussed in that section. Consider this file type outdated. If you have a tbin file you need to convert to tmx, choose File => Export As => tmx and then save it in the CSV tile layer format to avoid compatibility issues with other OS types.

TMX Files

Or Tiled 2D Tile Map. The most current type of 2D map file used by the Tiled program. It's written in xml format and can be opened up in an xml compatible text editor to make small changes manually. You could- in theory, with enough know-how- write your whole map instead of bothering with Tiled, but then at that skill level you'd probably know how to use Tiled anyway. Besides the obvious convenience of being able to correct minor errors by altering the text instead of opening up the mapping program, there's also the added bonus of being able to flip and rotate tiles and store data more efficiently.

TSX Files

Depending on how you use Tiled, you might well never run into this filetype. All the same, it is common for Tiled and useful so we'll discuss it. Every time a tilesheet is created for use in Tiled, it needs tilesheet data. This data can either be embedded in the map or saved in a separate file. For Stardew Valley usage, the data must be map embedded (more on that in a later tutorial). This does not mean that it's meaningless to have TSX files, however. Exporting a tilesheet that you want to use the animations of will give you a matching TSX you could import to another map. For this reason, I highly suggest keeping a tilesheet file of each .png with a full set of the various types of data used filled out. Note that differences in tilesheet data will result in different tilesheets, so if you're wanting to add that nice dark dirt from the mountains to replace the lighter yellow edges of the water in the forest, you'd be better off adding the animations to the forest tilesheet than trying to copy/paste from the mountain map.