I’ve been struggling to get even the simplest mod working using the ADK. I’m going to describe what I’ve done as clearly as possible, so I apologize for the lengthy post.
Here are the setup steps I took:
I installed the unreal launcher and the ADK. I am not using the Steam version of the ADK.
I copied all the latest binaries, resources, and pre-compiled assets from the sticky link in the modding forum (for version 254.7)
In the editor, I created a new folder under mods: GnilbertMod
I copied all the files from the GenericMod folder into the GnilbertMod folder
I renamed those files (in my folder) and saved everything.
I edited the “World Details” of my level:
Overrode the PrimalGame_BP to use the one in my folder
Left the "force load map" blank
Left the game mode as is (I'm not changing the game mode)
I copied (didn’t create a child) of the Dodo blueprint, Dino entry, and Fertilized Egg
I renamed all the files with GiantDodo instead of Dodo
I edited the various “Tag” properties across all three files to be “GiantDodo”
I overrode the “Scale” of the GiantDodo_Character_BP to (3,3,3)
I changed the parameters for my GiantDodo so that he wasn’t “player mountable”
I connected the new fertilized egg to my GiantDodo’s BP
I updated the egg to spawn a GiantDodo
I added the new GiantDodo entry into the AdditionalDinoEntry section of my PrimalGame_BP_GnilMod
I added a new spawn entry for my GiantDodo in The Island’s beach spawner under the Additional spawn section of PrimalGame_BP_GnilMod, mimicking the settings from other spawners
Here’s how I tested it within the ADK:
I loaded the TestMap
I set its WorldDetails to use my PrimalGame_BP_GnilMod
I dragged the GiantDodo into the editor (where he appeared)
I pressed “Play,” and frolicked with my Giant Dodo.
Here’s how I tried to test it within Ark:
I went to the “Cook” menu
I entered the path to my local game’s Mod folder (D:\SteamLibrary\SteamApps\common\ARK\ShooterGame\Content\Mods)
I typed in a name and description for my mod
I pressed “Cook Mod” (I have also tried all of this using “cook island extension”)
It finished with a few hundred warnings, but no errors.
I entered Ark (I did not exit the ADK, because it takes forever to load in)
My mod’s name was in the list of available mods.
I had/have no other mods selected, so I moved my mod into the “Active Mods” section
I launched the game in single player mode (I have also tried all these steps with non-dedicated server)
Here’s where something went wrong:
When I hit ESC and bring up the menu, I don’t see my mod anywhere (with other mods, I usually see their name and description)
I summoned a turtle and regular dodo using the console commands (to make sure I was using the right command)
I tried to summon my GiantDodo using the same format (I think it was “summon GiantDodo_Character_BP_C”), but nothing happened
I used the console command “destroywilddinos” and waited for the dinos to repopulate
I used the console command “getallstate” to check various dinos, and they all had a few spawns.
[COLOR="#FF0000"]I used the console command “getallstate” with my new dino’s BP, and I didn’t see any spawns[COLOR]
Hopefully I’ve just missed some simple step. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Here are other details worth noting:
I have used this mod folder name in earlier failed attempts.
I have baked this mod file before, but I deleted it from the mods directory before each new attempt
I am able to successfully run other mods I’ve downloaded from the Steam Workshop (all of which have been disabled)
I also tried an even simpler version of this where I just setup a new mod and tried to override one of the colors (overrode color 1 from blue to a hot pink), but it also had no effect.
Nothing has crashed or given any errors that I can see - it seems to fail silently.
When you use the Test Mod Output Directory it will output your mod to 2 separate folders. The mod info files will be in a numbered folder while your compiled files will be in a folder with the same name as your mod. You could try moving all the files into the numbered folder with the info files. Sometimes it puts extra files in the named folder as well which aren’t in the mod when you upload it to steam.
You could also remove the folders created by that Test Mod Output Directory and instead try uploading your mod to steam and setting it to hidden or friends only and then go find it on steam and subscribe. Then it would hopefully appear in the game properly and hopefully work properly if something else wasn’t wrong.
I tried this (both with and without the extra files it generated). In both cases, the mod was selectable in the UI, but caused a crash when I tried to start the game (somewhere near the end of the normal load time). The original exception looked like it was a “File not found” issue.
I’ve given this a try, but my patience hasn’t lasted through an entire cooking process yet. I run on Windows, and I’m creating the mod for my own personal use. The Windows version of the mod seems to bake in about 30-45* minutes, but the Linux cook process ran for over 3 hours before I had to kill it. In both cases, the vast majority of the time, my machine was running at 99% CPU utilization by multiple threads compiling shaders.
There are two weird things with that: First: my home computer is beefy enough to run “big data” sized, non-GPU machine learning algorithms in considerably less time than that. Secondly, the mod is tiny, and includes absolutely no custom shaders - which means that no shaders will be bundled with the final output. Why are they being recompiled at all?
Oh - when I use the “Test mod output” folder, no shaders compile, a linux version isn’t built, and it only takes about 10 minutes.
It could be that you have either somehow modified extra things to get compiled, or maybe you didn’t get a copy of the 19 gig shader cache file and it might have to compile shaders which can take ages and tends to melt my CPU. It’s kind of odd especially with such simple mods which should compile quickly, but nope, that’s just not how it works. The dev kit is horribly slow, crashes constantly and makes me very sad. With a fairly simple mod the cooking process takes me maybe about 25 mins or so altogether, not on a SSD either and on a somewhat older computer (AMD FX-8150 CPU with 8GB RAM).
I normally don’t specify the Test mod output folder and instead upload to 2 separate mods on steam, one for friends only for testing and one live which I had to make public since this was the only way I could figure out how to get the mod to work on my server these days since it won’t seem to get past the two-factor auth process. To switch between them I switch the ItemSeamId in my Mods.db file which for me is located at H:\Epic Games\ARKDevKit\Projects\ShooterGame\Saved\Mods.db. The cook mod window has to be closed when modifying this file or it won’t save the changes.
Another thing to note is that it seems like the Linux server I have uses the windows mod distribution.
RESOLVED: I actually resolved this a day or so later, but I just realized I should probably post what I learned in the process.
How I resolved it: I deleted my entire mod and manually deleted all of the files from the dev kit and reinstalled it. Why I think it helped: Somewhere along the way, I decided to be “clever” and use a rig to map between one of the original dinos and my custom dino (to simplify animation remapping). The problem is that the rig ends up referencing a class that doesn’t get baked into your mod. I think that was what actually caused the crash. And even when I thought I’d deleted the offending classes, there must have been some hidden references to that file still lingering, because when I recreated everything without using the rig idea, it worked fine - once I also learned:
Using “Test Mod Output Directory”: The trick here is that you have to manually move some files before it’ll work. The default output creates 3 things: A folder named [FONT=Courier New]123456789, a file named [FONT=Courier New]123456789.mod, and another folder that has your mod name (in my case, this was a folder named [FONT=Courier New]GnilbertMod). You have to copy everything from the named folder into the [FONT=Courier New]123456789 folder (and then I delete the named folder). Make sure the folder/mod file are in your [FONT=Courier New]…\SteamApps\common\ARK\ShooterGame\Content\Mods folder. After that, it’ll work. It’s worth noting that copying the file and folder to the [FONT=Courier New]…\Mods folder on another computer allows them to join your (non-dedicated) server using the mod - all without having to go through Steam or (more importantly) compile all those extra shaders you don’t need.