BetterContinents

🗺️ Better Continents

"The Allfather did not carve the Tenth Realm in a single stroke. With hammer and chisel, the jagged peaks were raised, deep fjords torn open, and ancient oceans poured into the abyss. Take up the chisel, Viking, and shape the continents to your will."

Better Continents is a total procedural and bitmap overhaul of Valheim's world generation. It gives world builders, server administrators, and cartographers complete control over terrain generation—allowing you to replace or augment vanilla landmasses with custom heightmaps, bespoke biome layouts, precision spawn placements, and intricate multi-layered noise.

Whether you want to import a real-world map of Earth, recreate Middle-earth, sculpt realistic mountain ranges, or carve an unforgiving archipelago for a hardcore survival campaign, Better Continents makes it possible.

⬆️ Updating from 0.9.x? Worlds you already have keep generating as they did under 0.9.4; only worlds made with 0.10 get the new behaviour. What changes and what does not.

📜 Contents

• ⬆️ Upgrading from 0.9: existing worlds and new worlds
• Which version is my world?
• Mixing versions
• Your BetterContinents.cfg
• ⚔️ Core Features
• 🏔️ Precision Heightmap Layers
• 🌿 Handcrafted Biome Layouts
• 🌸 Paint Alt Biomes
• 🌲 Custom Forest Coverage
• 📍 Absolute Location & Spawn Control
• 🌊 Global Ocean & Continent Scaling
• 📏 Worlds of Any Size
• ⚡ Multi-Layer FastNoiseLite Procedural Engine
• 🎨 In-Game World Architect UI
• 💾 World File Sharing & Presets
• 📤 Export a World to Maps
• 📥 Make a World From an Export
• 🧭 Map Mods & No-Map Worlds
• 👯 Vegetation Twin Guard
• 🗜️ Maps in Memory & Compact Maps
• 📦 Recommended Companion Mods
• 🍗 Installation & Setup
• 🛠️ How World Generation Works
• 🗺️ Image Map Specifications
• 📡 Sharing Maps With Players
• ⚙️ Configuration & Console Commands
• 🛠️ Debug Mode & Zone Regeneration
• 📤 World Export and Import HUD
• 📡 Settings Transfer Rate
• 📚 Documentation & Guides
• 📜 Credits & History
• ⚖️ License

🔗 Looking for seamless travel across your custom continents? Check out TortalPortal on Hexium!

⬆️ Upgrading from 0.9: existing worlds and new worlds

An existing world keeps generating its terrain, biomes and locations as it did under 0.9.4, though not through a separate "0.9.4 mode": every world stores a settings version in its BetterContinents file, 0.10 reads it, and each new-world behaviour in the table below switches on only for version 12, which is what 0.10 gives a world it creates. A world made by 0.9.x is version 11, so it follows the 0.9.4 rules and is saved as 0.9.4 saved it. A few changes reach every world, old or new, and are marked "Applies too": memory use, water depth, the edge of the world, zone regeneration after bc changes and the config do not change what a world's settings generate, and the vegetation twin guard changes only the vegetation of zones that are not generated yet.

In the table, a "world made with 0.10" is a version 12 world. Not every world made in 0.10 is one: a world made from a preset of version 11 or older (the four presets that ship with the mod are version 7 files, and presets saved by 0.9.x are version 11), from an export of a world resized under 0.9.x or made under Expand World Size at another size, or with Override version 11 is version 11, and so belongs in the 0.9.x column (see Which version is my world?).

| Behaviour | World made with 0.9.x (version 11) | World made with 0.10 (version 12) |

| --- | --- | --- |

| Terrain and maps | | |

| What the maps span | 21,000 m, whatever World Size says | 2 × (World Size + Edge Size), the land dropping away over Edge Size; 21,000 m at the default 10000 / 500 |

| Heightmap Alpha (off by default) | On: the heightmap is read as 8-bit grey and the alpha is not used. Off: 16-bit grey | On: 16-bit grey with a 16-bit alpha, blended with the game's own terrain (opaque = the heightmap, transparent = the game's terrain). Off: 16-bit grey |

| Biomes and Expand World Da