Hey ladies & gents,
I’ve been doing some serious digging into the UE4 forums and decided to compile a thread of really just overall useful info pertaining to UE4 overall specifically for the Ark Modding sub-forums to make new modders lives easier! These do not pertain directly to the Dev Kit necessarily, but you can learn a massive amount from these regardless.
This will initially just start off with mostly beginner level & intermediate level stuff. These are pretty loosely categorized, so don’t hesitate to check out a video in Beginner if you are an Advanced skill level, and visa verse, you might be surprised at what you find.
None of these tutorials/videos or content are made by myself, I am just simply digging through the forums for nifty tutorials, documentation, etc to bookmark for reading later, so do not thank me for anything more than doing the leg work to gather & compile it here
This is a work in progress, please feel free to send anything my way you think should be added to this that would help others!
I made this with the intentions of having an all in one type thread that has everything a beginner/intermediate level modder would need to get started, without the hassle of having to dig through the forums.
PLEASE NOTE THAT NOT ALL OF THIS IS SPECIFICALLY FOR THE DEV KIT & NOT ALL OF THIS WILL APPLY TO HOW THE DEV KIT DOES THINGS.
If they don’t mention Ark, it’s not SPECIFIC to the Dev Kit.
In addition to that, I take no responsibility for you messing up your Dev Kit if you attempt some of this in it, and things go south.
I hope this encourages some people who may have previously felt overwhelmed by the Dev Kit & UE4
“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” –Michael Jordan
NOTE: Will be adding more regularly as I find more and as the community submits!
Beginner
Another tutorial from on Textures for Heightmaps
Fruity wrote up a nice little tutorial on how to paint in foliage on your own map!
wrote up a guide on how to remap supply crates in detailed steps!
's 2nd tutorial on importing FBX blender files! PS: Sorry for accidentally removing this! Thought I had double posted the same link, so I removed it when updating it. My apologies! >.<
https://forums.unrealengine.com/show...atic-Meshes)
Uzumi posted a really great breakdown of map making in the ADK
An official FPS/TDS tutorial from scratch by Unreal! This covers A-Z with UE for the most part! GREAT PLACE FOR NEW MODDERS WHO WANT TO DO REALLY INTRICATE THINGS!!
ComplexMinded recently posted a great how to with troubleshooting advice for editing items with custom inventories!
's breakdown on how to mass edit using the Property Matrix! This is GREAT for anyone whom wants to dive into a mod that changes quite a bit of core functionality, and it gets you the results you want!
This in my opinion is probably one of the better starting points for new modders & any whom is new to UE4. It really breaks down the classes, their roles, and workflow quite well & simply.
A wonderful playlist of Ark mapping/modding tutorials by Brick!
made a great tutorial on how to export fbx blender files into the Dev Kit!
's tutorial on importing/exporting tutorial with Maya!
Salcarr’s modding playlist for Ark!
Quick Start Guide for Map Makers:
Overall UE4 Video Tutorials, ranging from beginner to advanced!
A wonderful tutorial on using Worldmachine with UE4 to make maps!
An awesome step by step on how to add new dino variants in the Dev Kit by JasonFJ!
A nice example blueprint for blueprinting the server sided authorities for an item to spawn an NPC in. Can give you an idea of how server sided authorities have to be blueprinted. Credit goes all to Drake
Intermediate
wrote up a guide on howto get your map working with GPS
K4r3l01 blueprinted out a nice example for logging instigator attacks
Cwm breaks down how references work in some situations, explains how sometimes references can involve quite a bit of remapping, etc!
From the ground up making CoD Zombies in UE4. This can be used to gain a ton of insight into certain processes and how they work in the Dev Kit. This tutorial series is all done in Visual Scripting Blueprinting, so again no C++ needed :). This covers such a wide range of features of UE4 & the workflow that I would recommend this to everyone. The series is in the process of being recorded fyi.
Tutorials on UE4’s new Substance plugin. I don’t know if/when this will ever be supported in the Dev Kit’s version, but either way, one could use this in retail UE4 to make textures/materials & then transfer it over to the Dev Kit theoretically.
Another shootertutorial dot com tutorial! This one is for adding FPP and TPP mesh’s to a new character!
Advanced
This is a great website that starts from the ground up on a FPS in UE4 and covers it in video tutorial form. Everything is done via Visual Scripting, and ZERO C++ is used.
This can range from Beginner to Advanced. It covers a wide range of topics and tasks that we commonly use in the Dev Kit.
General Useful Links
Ditsov is rallying the community to contribute their findings to the Ark Wiki! There is already quite a ton of stuff documented, so have at it, but please try to pay it forward and contribute something that isn’t already there if you can
Free software tools & resource list. Has 3D Modeling Software, Digital Audio Workstations (DAW for short), Texturing Software, Free Materials, Free Textures, etc etc listed. Very very useful
Super Thread with link’s to documentation (mostly documentation) & a good deal of video tutorials on pretty much everything UE4
FBX Import issue forum thread. Very useful info on how to correctly & incorrectly import FBX (Autodesk format) files.
FBX Import Problems? Look Here! - Asset Creation - Epic Developer Community Forums!
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& more to be added
Enjoy & I hope you find this at least a little bit helpful,