hey guys im very sorry for such minor issues and what may seem silly questions but i am totaly new to this stuff and as such some of the info in the guid is a little conffusing for me .
Anyway i have managed to do everything upto downloading the zip file for the dev kit but i am not 100% sure as to where i need to unzip the contents of the file to .
is a simple case of just unzipping them to desktop and running it from there or do they need to go to a specific location in steam to work with the devkit i downloaded through steam ?
again very sorry for the noobish questions but we all have to start somewhere.
thankyou in advance
Hey, inside your .zip, you have a folder called ‘Engine’, you have to unzip this in the same place where the ark dev kit is (eg: C:\Program Files\Steam\Steamapp\ArkDevKit\ ← here you should have also a ‘Engine’ Folder’, put the content of zip here so it will override it)
If you are ever unsure of where your files to a game or tool inside steam are located. You can right click on that game/tool in steam and go to properties. From there go to the Local Files tab and then click on “Browse Local Files…” to open an explorer window to it.
In short:
Right Click ARK Dev Kit inside steam → Properties → Local Files → Browse Local Files…
great got it guys ty . all installed and ready to go 
problem is i have no idea what so ever what im doing lol . my plan is to design maps for this game just need to figure out where to start make a very basic small island to start with just to get the hang of things then hopefully expand and learn . any tips on how and where to start would be great . first things i need to know are how to build up my terrain and then add foilage rocks ect ect . reading the guids apparently there something called Procedural Foliage.
i need to turn on but when i go through my options its not there . is this option not available in the ark dev kit ?
Ah the new Procedural Foliage is a feature added in UE 4.8 and isn’t in ARK yet – however, the existing “static” Foliage system is currently used within ARK, along with a system called “Ground Clutter” that lets you draw meshes at close-range procedurally on different terrain layers.
Cheers,
Drake
One of the biggest tips I could suggest with terrain is to make sure you configure their settings correctly. If i remember correctly, the developers official map starts out with section sizes of 127 x 127 with sections per component set to 2 x 2. This will be incredibly important when you start scaling up your island(s), as settings that are any lower will start to become difficult to manage as the number of components (The squares that build up your terrain) start to add up. I didn’t check that myself, I ended up having to re-scale all my terrain which ultimately caused a lot of assets to become slightly out of place (Confound those floating flowers!).
As for the static foliage system mentioned, I’d assume that would be the Instanced Meshes (Or I hope so! Could potentially be many wasted hours). You can find documentation on it here: Foliage Tool | Unreal Engine Documentation Its a beautiful system that allows you to assign properties to an object (Including whether or not they are gatherable resources) and then paint them into your world. Seems confusing initially but becomes incredibly fun when you do figure it out. (I was messing about with the scale factor and ended up with a gatherable World Tree on my island - http://puu.sh/iPK4M/46bbcc184f.jpg Watching that thing fall was wonderful).
Best thing I would suggest for now is just to load up a new map and just mess about with the features. When you are comfortable, start working on your main level. Last thing you want to do is to mess about with settings and then find out that something broke whilst doing so. It is a pain if that happens.
thanks for all the info guys . its alot to take in when u have never done anything like this before. the layers you all talk about make no sense to me yet lol . do u need a layer for each different level of your island ie do i do my first layer as the ground and then alter the terrain with the tool that rises the land etc and then later do i add another layer and rise it slightly and place water on that layer to create my sea’s rivers lakes etc in previous layer that are still lower than my new layer?
jesus i sound such a noob i know it .
I believe the layers the developers are referring to are to do with how you paint terrain. When painting a landscape, I believe you add layers to it when you paint different textures on it. When painting, the visibility of the texture you are adding to the terrain will change the layers. For instance, using the ground clutter they mentioned, it automatically adds grass, rocks and other objects (You can add which ones you want) automatically to your terrain based on what texture is on the terrain underneath. I can show you in the images below
Without Ground Clutter: http://puu.sh/iLYLz/4a903f0125.jpg
With Ground Clutter: http://puu.sh/iLYK2/3f0d73c4b6.jpg
You’ll see from those that different objects are added to the terrain automatically, depending on the texture. I believe the layers are referring to those textures.
