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A couple questions from a beginner

Modding ARK: Survival Evolved Support
#1

Hello there. I’m EmperorGricer. Those who keep up with the Survivors Wildlife Appendix on the Steam forums might know me as the biggest palaeonerd on said thread.

Anyway, being such a nerd, I decided I wanted to make a mod with accurate dinos. (Or I guess you jcould call them ARKurate, heh.) But I have 0 modding experience, so, in short, I have next to no idea what I am doing. I tried looking up tutorials, but very few of them provide any of information I need. So I decided to come here to ask some questions.

1: How do I set up to start making the mod? (Do I need to make a copy of all the folders I’ll be editing, or just edit the information in the default folders? Do I put the modded files in the “Mods” folder or keep them separate?)

2: How do I reduce the camerashake caused by the footsteps of the bigger animals without removing it completely.

3: Is it possible to apply the animations on one creature to another one? (For example, give the Rex the same running animation as the Gigant.)

4: How do I change how much the stats of dinos scale per level?

5: Does anyone know all of the keywords I can enter into the search bar of the dino blueprints to find and adjust their relevant stats?

That’s all the questions I can think of for now. If I get any more, I’ll be sure to ask here again.

#2

Bump, I really need some of these questions answered before I start developing this mod.

Also, I have a new question, given that the mod I’m planning to make requires me to modify the dinos currently in the game, how should I go about doing this? Do I copy dino’s folder to the Mymod folder or do I just edit it in it’s PrimalEarth folder? I figured I would have to make copies, however, the copy still references the animations of the dino’s folder within PrimalEarth.

#3

I’m fairly new to this, but I think I can help. Here’s my process for a new mod:

  1. In PrimalEarth, locate Base_Primal_GameData_BP and drag it to your mod folder AS A CHILD
  2. Do the same for TestGameMode
  3. I don’t know if you have to, but I always keep TestLevel in there. I never actually use it (explained later)
  4. In GameData, switch the Default Game Mode to your child blueprint.
  5. To test, I go to File > New Level > Default. It’s a small platform, but for seeing if it works, it’s very effective.
  6. Left click the platform and on the right, under “Details”, switch “Collision Presets” to “Ground”
  7. Under World Settings (Window > World Settings to enable it), change Primal Game Data to your child blueprint
  8. Click play and you should be good to start modding

It took me a while to get this down, but I’ve no issues with it now. My first way of testing whether or not you have your test platform “modded” is to go into your GameData and go to Engrams, then make the hatchet first and the campfire second. Compile, save, play. When you spawn, just go to engrams and make sure it’s in the order you set it to.

I unfortunately can’t help with anything else, but hopefully today you can get started and get digging around.