Complete tutorial for making a custom prison with custom free period music, tileset (blocks) and ground.
Introduction
I checked if there was a guide on how to customize your prison much more than before, but I didn’t find anything, so I thought I must be the first to show this method in public. No need to replace any files, just drag and drop them. It’s very easy, and you can create a completely new customized prison in which each block depends on you! I hope I encouraged you to read this guide. In 10 minutes, if you read it, you’ll be making textures for your prison and considering what music to use! Good luck!
Step 1: Files
YourPrisonName.cmap
- You must have your prison ready for this method to work, beacuse we will use exported prison file with .cmap extension.
- First, you need a file containg your prison (e.g. myprison.cmap) You can find it in “Documents/The Escapists/Custom Maps”
- Then, you will need a text editor (e.g. System notepad or Notepad++)
- Open your file with a text editor and search for “[Info]” section
- Here you can see your prison config. We are interested in 3 lines:
Line Use
Tileset=# Tells the game which tileset to use
Floor=# Tells the game which ground texture to use
Music=# Tells the game which music to use
The ‘#’ value is individual for each prison and depends on what have you chosen, when you were creating your prison. Remember those lines, beacuse we will need them later.
- Now, when you found the file and understand what each line means, we can start creating our textures and music! Go on to next section!
Step 2: Tileset
tile_cus_yourname.gif
- Go to your TheEscapists folder localization (e.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\The Escapists\) NOT IN THE DOCUMENTS FOLDER. If you can’t find it, go to your games library, rightclick The Escapists > Properties > Files and here you will see a button that will open your files localization
- Go to Data folder, then to images > custom. This is the folder with grounds (which we will talk about later) and tilesets.
- Copy any tileset (e.g tiles_cus_perks.gif) and change its name to tiles_cus_#.gif. Replace # with a custom name. DON’T DELETE ORIGINAL TILESET!
- Now it’s time for you to edit the file using the graphic editor and make your custom tiles.
- Save the file when you’re done.
If you want to know how to create custom free period music and ground texture, go on to the next step. Else, go to last step “Implementation”
Step 3: Free period music
YourMusic.ogg
- Go to your TheEscapists folder localization (e.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\The Escapists\) NOT IN THE DOCUMENTS FOLDER. If you can’t find it, go to your games library, rightclick The Escapists > Properties > Files and here you will see a button that will open your files localization
- Go to Music folder. This is the folder with music files.
- Adding custom music is much easier than creating a tileset. Just drop a music file there (MUST BE IN .ogg FORMAT) (e.g. testprison.ogg)
Additionally you can change other in-game music by simply replacing the original one (e.g. rollcall.ogg), but remember to backup it first!
If you want to know how to create custom ground texture, go on to the next step. Else, go to last step “Implementation”
Step 4: Ground texture
ground_cus_YourName.gif
- Go to your TheEscapists folder localization (e.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\The Escapists\) NOT IN THE DOCUMENTS FOLDER. If you can’t find it, go to your games library, rightclick The Escapists > Properties > Files and here you will see a button that will open your files localization
- Go to Data folder, then to images > custom. This is the folder with grounds and tilesets.
- Copy any ground texture file (e.g ground_cus_black.gif) and change its name to ground_cus_#.gif. Replace # with a custom name. DON’T DELETE ORIGINAL TEXTURE!
- My example ground texture: ground_cus_deepgreen.gif
- Now it’s time for you to edit the file using the graphic editor and make your custom ground.
- Save the file when you’re done.
Finally, go to the last step “Implementation”
Step 5: Implementation
Whatever you choose, ground texture, music, or tileset, YOU HAVE TO READ FIRST STEP. If you’re already done with it and you have got your files (example.ogg – for music, ground_cus_example.gif – for ground texture, tiles_cus_example.gif – for tileset) you can now finally add them to your prison. Follow this guide:
- Open your prison.cmap file. (YourDocuments/The Escapists/Custom Maps) with text editor
- Find those 3 lines mentioned in Step 1
- Change the values:
Tileset=# – Set # to tileset name (not the full file name, if your tileset file is named tiles_cus_name.gif set # to name)
Floor=# – Set # to ground texture name (not the full file name, if your ground texture file is named ground_cus_name.gif set # to name)
Music=# – Set # to ground texture name (not the full file name, if your music file is named name.ogg set # to name)
REMEMBER!
You can make as many textures, music files and tilesets as you want!
If you set these 3 values in prison file to your custom addons, remember, that those files HAVE TO BE in their specific location! Otherwise, the prison will not be loaded, or it will be loaded incorrectly!
If you publish a map on the workshop and you want people to use your tileset, ground or music, you should attach those files (e.g. add link in description) and installation instruction (e.g. this guide)
Thanks for reading this guide, I hope you enjoyed! Good luck making your custom prisons! This guide was written by ✬xjs0n✬
