LivingMap

The vanilla map shows the world as it was generated. LivingMap shows the world as you've changed it.

Your bases, roads, fields and the forest you've cut down appear on the map and the minimap, right where they are, and update as you keep building.

🆕 New in 0.19.0: the map knows the ground you moved

Build a dirt causeway across a lake and the map draws it as land, with the game's own coast line around it — not a marker on top of the water. Dig a pond below the water line and it holds water. The map goes by the heights the world was generated with, which no amount of digging changes; now it is handed those heights with your terrain edits added.

New in 0.18.0: a road you can follow through the forest

The map stamps its trees over everything it has already drawn, so a road through the Black Forest was hidden whatever colour you gave it. Now the forest comes off where a road runs - on the minimap, the zoomed-out map and the detailed one alike - and Road width (m) draws a road wider than the single cell it is, so you can follow it at a glance.

Levelled ground is drawn by default now: a terrace, a filled hollow, a causeway. Turn Levelled ground off for a map of only what you painted and built.

Settings also take effect while you watch, instead of waiting for something else to redraw the map.

The three views

The minimap, which you look at most. Living Map paints into the very texture the game's map shader reads, so this view keeps the vanilla look - it just has your base in it.

The big map, zoomed out - the same, over a whole peninsula: roads, fields, the forest you cut down and the one you planted, buildings by material.

The big map, zoomed in - the detailed map. This is the one view Living Map draws itself, through a port of the game's own map shader: buildings with their real shape and roofs, paths and fields with their own textures.

What you'll see

• Your buildings, coloured by material — wood, stone, iron, marble… — and roofs by their kind: thatch, darkwood, turf, slate.
• Roads and fields: hoe paths, paving and farmland.
• Cleared forest: where you've chopped the trees down, the map stops showing forest. Plant a grove and it appears.
• Ground you raised or dug out: a causeway across a lake is drawn as land, with a coast line around it, and a pond you dug below the water line holds water.
• Everything respects the fog of war and sits under your pins and markers, on the big map and the minimap.

The detailed map, close up

• It looks like the vanilla map — the same paper, forest, water and light — just with more detail. Switching to it as you zoom in is seamless.
• Buildings keep their real shape and direction, with textures (planks, masonry, straw…), shaded edges and shadows. Roof slopes catch the sun, so you can see the shape of a roof.
• Paths, paving and fields get their own textures, soft at the edges.
• The light follows the time of day like the rest of the map, and the clouds drift over it.
• The minimap and the zoomed-out map are not changed by it.

Performance. It only works while the big map is open and zoomed in; closed, it costs nothing. Until a part of the map is ready you see the normal map there, so a slower computer shows the detail a little later rather than lagging. The background threads it uses are chosen from your processor, and they stop the moment you close the map.

Memory. The map here is a texture, so it lives on your graphics card: 16 to 256 MB depending on Map sharpness, which by default is picked from what your card reports having - 1 under 3 GB, 2 under 7 GB, 4 above. The mountain layer costs the same again, and only from the moment you build above 70 m. livingmap status in the console prints exactly what is in use.

What it doesn't do

• It doesn't reveal unexplored areas: if you haven't explored it, you won't see it.
• Zoomed out, coastlines, mountains and biome colours stay exactly as in vanilla.

Multiplayer

• Friends without the mod aren't affected, and a dedicated server doesn't need it.
• As the host or in single player you see every building in the world at once.
• On a server hosted by a player with Living Map, the host can hand you its map on every bit of ground you've already explored. New in 0.17.0 and still experimental, so it starts off: the host turns on ShareWithPlayers, you turn on UseHostMap (section 4. Multiplayer).
• On a dedicated server you see what's around the places you've visited; the map remembers them between sessions.

Settings

Everything works out of the box. With ConfigurationManager (F1 in game) the settings are grouped:

• 1. Map layers — turn buildings, paths and fields, cleared and planted forest on or off.
• 2. Close-up detail — the detailed map on or off, how far out it starts (a slider), clouds (smooth / exact / off), building textures.
• 3. Colours — every material, roof kind and kind of ground.

The technical settings are marked advanced and hidden unless you tick "Show advanced settings". Without ConfigurationManager, everything is in BepInEx/config/j1ga.livingmap.cfg.

Compatibility

Tested with Valheim 1.0.16, BepInEx 5.4.23.5 (BepInExPack_Valheim 5.4.2351). Mods that replace or resize the map texture may clash with it.

Bugs and feedback

GitHub Issues: https://github.com/tbsj1ga/LivingMapValheim/issues — please attach BepInEx/LogOutput.log, and for the detailed map a screenshot and the output of the console command livingmap status (F5).

More mods by j1gA

	Mod
	StationSpeed — Faster smelters, kilns, fermenters and crops — consistent even for players without the mod.
	WeaponArts — One key, one active ability per weapon: stagger, taunt, heals, berserk, crits.
	ExtendedBosses — Raid-style boss fights: phases, adds, nests, shields, marks — built from vanilla parts.
	HostOwner — The host takes ownership of stations and bosses near it, so its mods work for everyone.
	HudLayout — Move, resize and restyle your HUD with the mouse: bars, food, hotbar, minimap, even other mods' HUD.
	HealthPulse — Low health warning: the screen edges pulse red like a heartbeat, faster as your health drops.
	ChestReach — Craft, build, refuel and cook from the chests around you — no lag, players without the mod can join.
	SwimGear — Keep your weapons and tools in your hands while swimming — no FPS cost.

Source, full documentation and the changelog: https://github.com/tbsj1ga/LivingMapValheim

Developed with the help of an AI assistant (Claude by Anthropic); the design decisions, verification against the game code and in-game testing are the author's.