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#1 2019-11-02 18:15:20

Rangi
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Registered: 2019-11-02
Posts: 19
Website

Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

Tilemap Studio is a tilemap editor for any Game Boy, Color, Advance, or DS project, but with particular focus on the pokered, pokecrystal, and pokeemerald disassemblies.

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

I've noticed that GBTD and GBMB are still used for editing tilesets and tilemaps; this speaks well for their quality and stability, but they still haven't been updated since the last millenium. tongue I hope Tilemap Studio can cover some tilemapping needs with a more modern and convenient UI, in conjunction with other tools like Tilemap Helper.

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, or DS. 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:

https://i.imgur.com/uENOGHC.png

https://i.imgur.com/EAvM7mT.png

https://i.imgur.com/X6OX6Xe.png

There are more screenshots and discussion on the Skeetendo Forums or PokéCommunity.

Last edited by Rangi (2021-11-01 20:34:41)


My projects:
Tilemap Studio: GB+GBC+GBA+NDS+SNES tilemap editor
Polished Map: Pokémon map+tileset editor
• Pokémon Polished Crystal and Red★/Blue★

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#2 2019-11-02 18:30:43

Ardis
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2019-06-06
Posts: 58
Website

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

Oh. This looks nice. I will certainly take a look when I'm starting on my next project.


Also known as Arvex in other places.

Interceptor (Demo)
https://arvex.itch.io/interceptor

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#3 2019-11-02 20:10:26

Rangi
Member
Registered: 2019-11-02
Posts: 19
Website

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

Ardis wrote:

Oh. This looks nice. I will certainly take a look when I'm starting on my next project.

Great! smile

The "Game Boy Tile Data Generator" once linked to in the Sheep It Up! post-mortem is now offline, and not everyone might want to use superfamiconv or grit, so here's a demo of the Image to Tiles tool.

Take your screen design:

https://i.imgur.com/i4uDlKs.png

Pick the input and output files:

https://i.imgur.com/Dv82ATO.png

And click OK!

https://i.imgur.com/ZjV1AED.png

Or you can pick a format that uses the X+Y flip attributes:

https://i.imgur.com/JR1x4lc.png

Here that ends up saving four tiles:

https://i.imgur.com/m9nrLYS.png

The colors were also extracted into a .pal file (using an RGB macro meant for the pret disassemblies), which doesn't really matter for a single-palette DMG game, but can be convenient for CGB.

Code:

; palette 0
    RGB 28, 31, 26
    RGB 17, 24, 14
    RGB 06, 13, 10
    RGB 01, 03, 04

My projects:
Tilemap Studio: GB+GBC+GBA+NDS+SNES tilemap editor
Polished Map: Pokémon map+tileset editor
• Pokémon Polished Crystal and Red★/Blue★

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#4 2019-11-04 06:34:05

Zalo
Member
From: Spain
Registered: 2016-07-26
Posts: 103
Website

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

This looks really interesting

Quick question, why do I need administrator privileges to run it? wouldn't it be easier to just have an exe we can run?  (like gbtd or gbmv)

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#5 2019-11-04 08:00:24

Rangi
Member
Registered: 2019-11-02
Posts: 19
Website

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

Zalo wrote:

This looks really interesting

Quick question, why do I need administrator privileges to run it? wouldn't it be easier to just have an exe we can run?  (like gbtd or gbmv)

You can always just run tilemapstudio.exe. You only need admin privileges to run install.bat, since it copies the .exe to your AppData, creates a Desktop shortcut, and associates .tilemap files with it.


My projects:
Tilemap Studio: GB+GBC+GBA+NDS+SNES tilemap editor
Polished Map: Pokémon map+tileset editor
• Pokémon Polished Crystal and Red★/Blue★

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#6 2019-11-04 09:34:18

Ardis
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2019-06-06
Posts: 58
Website

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

Zalo wrote:

This looks really interesting

Quick question, why do I need administrator privileges to run it? wouldn't it be easier to just have an exe we can run?  (like gbtd or gbmv)

It looks like it might require admin to run the first time. After I installed it, clicking "Open" caused the program to hang for a while, then crash. After running it once with admin, it works fine.


Also known as Arvex in other places.

Interceptor (Demo)
https://arvex.itch.io/interceptor

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#7 2019-11-04 09:53:36

Zalo
Member
From: Spain
Registered: 2016-07-26
Posts: 103
Website

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

Ok, that worked
Thanks!

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#8 2019-11-04 12:11:44

Tomi
Member
From: France
Registered: 2018-04-30
Posts: 29

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

Wow, this seems really COOL!!!!!!

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#9 2019-11-04 14:41:11

Tomi
Member
From: France
Registered: 2018-04-30
Posts: 29

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

this tool is really AMAZING! thanks a lot, Rangi !

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#10 2019-11-08 13:07:31

angel333119
New member
From: Brazil
Registered: 2019-11-08
Posts: 2

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

I am trying to use your tool to translate the Rock n Roll Racing game from Super Nintendo. I need to edit the game tilemaps...

I opened the tilemap and tileset in SGB border and this was the result:

https://i.imgur.com/R9AjGyB.png

Almost perfect...

I tried opening in other formats, but it doesn't work correctly like the SGB border...

I was wondering if you can modify your tool to work with the game format... Can I send you the files for you to check out?

Last edited by angel333119 (2019-11-08 13:08:44)

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#11 2019-11-08 20:49:57

Rangi
Member
Registered: 2019-11-02
Posts: 19
Website

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

angel333119 wrote:

I am trying to use your tool to translate the Rock n Roll Racing game from Super Nintendo. I need to edit the game tilemaps...

I opened the tilemap and tileset in SGB border and this was the result:

https://i.imgur.com/R9AjGyB.png

Almost perfect...

I tried opening in other formats, but it doesn't work correctly like the SGB border...

I was wondering if you can modify your tool to work with the game format... Can I send you the files for you to check out?

Please do! It doesn't support any of the SNES tilemap formats yet, unless they happen to coincide exactly with the GB ones, but I'll try and add that.

If anyone else has examples of SNES tilemap+tileset files, and ideally a screenshot of how it should look, that would help me implement it.


My projects:
Tilemap Studio: GB+GBC+GBA+NDS+SNES tilemap editor
Polished Map: Pokémon map+tileset editor
• Pokémon Polished Crystal and Red★/Blue★

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#12 2019-11-08 23:00:59

angel333119
New member
From: Brazil
Registered: 2019-11-08
Posts: 2

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

Rangi, I cannot find a Private Menssage place, so here is the link to one of the tilemaps.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hty7q … lQTe1y502X

Your tool will be a great help to me... Thank you very much

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#13 2019-11-08 23:41:28

Rangi
Member
Registered: 2019-11-02
Posts: 19
Website

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

angel333119 wrote:

Rangi, I cannot find a Private Menssage place, so here is the link to one of the tilemaps.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hty7q … lQTe1y502X

Your tool will be a great help to me... Thank you very much

Thanks! The next release will support that format:

https://i.imgur.com/9VcIy71.png

Note: the Image to Tiles feature assumes 4 bits per pixel (Mode 2), not 2 bits (Mode 0). If someone really wants it, I'll add separate Mode 0 and Mode 2 formats that only differ in that respect, but since it only matters for the Image to Tiles feature (for which superfamiconv is a more powerful tool for SNES anyway), I doubt it's a big deal.

Last edited by Rangi (2019-11-08 23:51:27)


My projects:
Tilemap Studio: GB+GBC+GBA+NDS+SNES tilemap editor
Polished Map: Pokémon map+tileset editor
• Pokémon Polished Crystal and Red★/Blue★

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#14 2019-11-14 16:30:12

bbbbbr
Member
Registered: 2019-03-04
Posts: 124

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

Love it! Great tool and already has a lot of features. Looking forward to using it more.

A couple things I noticed:

https://i.imgur.com/Dv82ATO.png
* For the import image dialog: While it becomes obvious through use, it might be more clear if "Image:" read "Source Image" or "Input Image", and "Tileset:" read "Output Tileset:".


* Have you considered an export Map to PNG in addition to the Import feature? (Or maybe I missed it in the UI?) It would make it easier to move back and forth between between the tile editor and graphics editor.

* Also minor glitch in clone rectangle tool (maybe not considered a bug?): If the destination area overlaps the bottom of the source area, it will clone from already copied destination tiles instead of the pre-copy source tiles.

Last edited by bbbbbr (2019-11-14 16:52:58)

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#15 2019-11-14 23:10:54

Rangi
Member
Registered: 2019-11-02
Posts: 19
Website

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

bbbbbr wrote:

Love it! Great tool and already has a lot of features. Looking forward to using it more.

A couple things I noticed:

* For the import image dialog: While it becomes obvious through use, it might be more clear if "Image:" read "Source Image" or "Input Image", and "Tileset:" read "Output Tileset:".

* Have you considered an export Map to PNG in addition to the Import feature? (Or maybe I missed it in the UI?) It would make it easier to move back and forth between between the tile editor and graphics editor.

* Also minor glitch in clone rectangle tool (maybe not considered a bug?): If the destination area overlaps the bottom of the source area, it will clone from already copied destination tiles instead of the pre-copy source tiles.

Thanks for the feedback!

I can relabel those, yeah. Edit:

https://i.imgur.com/sUPqdF3.png

Print (Ctrl+P) goes to a PNG, not a printer.

There's no pre-copy buffer, so yeah, that happens. I'm okay with it, at least for now.

Also, since "clone rectangle tool" isn't out yet, I'm still concerned if it has bugs or not. Has it crashed for you at all, or corrupted files?

Last edited by Rangi (2019-11-14 23:29:02)


My projects:
Tilemap Studio: GB+GBC+GBA+NDS+SNES tilemap editor
Polished Map: Pokémon map+tileset editor
• Pokémon Polished Crystal and Red★/Blue★

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#16 2019-11-15 08:02:29

Rangi
Member
Registered: 2019-11-02
Posts: 19
Website

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

Rangi wrote:

There's no pre-copy buffer, so yeah, that happens. I'm okay with it, at least for now.

Never mind! By using the last undo history state as the source, you can draw within the selected area without issues. Please test it out if you're compiling the latest code. smile

https://i.imgur.com/iVeyjaB.png


My projects:
Tilemap Studio: GB+GBC+GBA+NDS+SNES tilemap editor
Polished Map: Pokémon map+tileset editor
• Pokémon Polished Crystal and Red★/Blue★

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#17 2019-11-15 12:27:50

bbbbbr
Member
Registered: 2019-03-04
Posts: 124

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

Thanks for the updates!

Yes, compiling from source on Linux (the instructions for that worked perfect)

The clone appears to be working (for the first overlapping copy, which seems reasonable). Have not seen any crashes or corruption with the clone tool using plain tiles. The right/left mouse button usage for it feels intuitive and efficient.

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#18 2019-11-15 19:01:54

Rangi
Member
Registered: 2019-11-02
Posts: 19
Website

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

bbbbbr wrote:

Thanks for the updates!

Yes, compiling from source on Linux (the instructions for that worked perfect)

The clone appears to be working (for the first overlapping copy, which seems reasonable). Have not seen any crashes or corruption with the clone tool using plain tiles. The right/left mouse button usage for it feels intuitive and efficient.

Good to know. smile

I just remembered where I saw your username before; you made those GIMP tilemap plugins. I got the idea to right-click a tile and highlight its occurrences from Tilemap Helper, so thank you!


My projects:
Tilemap Studio: GB+GBC+GBA+NDS+SNES tilemap editor
Polished Map: Pokémon map+tileset editor
• Pokémon Polished Crystal and Red★/Blue★

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#19 2019-11-17 16:49:44

Rangi
Member
Registered: 2019-11-02
Posts: 19
Website

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

Version 3.0.0 is out! It now has 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.

https://i.imgur.com/9UfFhBI.png

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


My projects:
Tilemap Studio: GB+GBC+GBA+NDS+SNES tilemap editor
Polished Map: Pokémon map+tileset editor
• Pokémon Polished Crystal and Red★/Blue★

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#20 2019-11-24 13:36:04

Rangi
Member
Registered: 2019-11-02
Posts: 19
Website

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

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 other GBA tilemap programs 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:

https://i.imgur.com/X6OX6Xe.png

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: https://github.com/Rangi42/tilemap-stud … tag/v3.1.0


My projects:
Tilemap Studio: GB+GBC+GBA+NDS+SNES tilemap editor
Polished Map: Pokémon map+tileset editor
• Pokémon Polished Crystal and Red★/Blue★

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#21 2020-06-02 18:34:00

Rangi
Member
Registered: 2019-11-02
Posts: 19
Website

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

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.

https://i.imgur.com/3eko3oR.png

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, and outputting JASC palette files with DOS line endings.


My projects:
Tilemap Studio: GB+GBC+GBA+NDS+SNES tilemap editor
Polished Map: Pokémon map+tileset editor
• Pokémon Polished Crystal and Red★/Blue★

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#22 2020-06-03 08:05:07

toxa
Member
Registered: 2020-02-13
Posts: 305

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

wow! needed that feature! thank you!

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#23 2020-06-03 10:29:35

Rangi
Member
Registered: 2019-11-02
Posts: 19
Website

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

toxa wrote:

wow! needed that feature! thank you!

Please let me know if there are any other missing features!


My projects:
Tilemap Studio: GB+GBC+GBA+NDS+SNES tilemap editor
Polished Map: Pokémon map+tileset editor
• Pokémon Polished Crystal and Red★/Blue★

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#24 2020-07-04 15:49:43

Matt
New member
From: State of Goiás, Brazil.
Registered: 2020-07-03
Posts: 4

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

Windows REALLY doesn't trust this app, but I after I finally got rid of all the security-related prompts I was able to check it out and it as absolutely amazing!!!

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#25 2020-07-08 13:46:31

Rangi
Member
Registered: 2019-11-02
Posts: 19
Website

Re: Tilemap Studio 4.0.1: a tilemap editor+creator for Nintendo handhelds

Matt wrote:

Windows REALLY doesn't trust this app, but I after I finally got rid of all the security-related prompts I was able to check it out and it as absolutely amazing!!!

Yeah, some versions of Windows Defender detect Tilemap Studio 3.2.0 as "Trojan:Win32/Wacatac.C!ml". It's a false positive due to machine learning heuristics (hence the "!ml"). You can check the VirusTotal results for tilemapstudio.exe.

If anyone's still concerned, you can always build it locally from the source code.


My projects:
Tilemap Studio: GB+GBC+GBA+NDS+SNES tilemap editor
Polished Map: Pokémon map+tileset editor
• Pokémon Polished Crystal and Red★/Blue★

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