Custom textures for dinos not working in game (first mod)

hey guys, im new to this so sorry if there’s some super dumb easy solution to this…

I have been requested to remake some of the dino textures in Ark Survival with a couple added details (ex: change the eye). the funny thing is: The textures only work in the ARK Dev Kit. all the textures and maps apply perfectly to the mesh just like i would expect them to, but when i transfer the files over to the actual ARK: Survival Game, then the textures end up looking scattered with noise applied to it (like it went through some encryption) or just black alltogether. what am i doing wrong? are the textures re-arranged in the current version? i cant immagine why it would work on the dev kit, but not the game. could this be one of those things that can be solved by deleting a folder, because before this, i was able to get these textures working by deleting the “Content Streamers” folder.