Welcome to the 40th issue of the Community Crunch! To those unaware this is a topic which primarily consist of content to share, made by the community, for the community! As well as any little changes I want to make survivors aware about, which happen within our community ;).

Fan Feature

Beavers, Uncuffed & Unleashed by ThickFreedom

Rainbow Road Dino Racetrack by TheLimeInc.

ARK Survival Evolved - Speed Paint: Snow Battle by Metatrox

and the finished product…

ARK: Clash of Giants by SmileB4 Deth

The Stone Claw by Velice

ARK Fan Art by BlackShadeWolf’s BF

Source:

Pebbles Chan the Slayer by Okim!

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=547469119

Neko the Songbird by Okim!

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=533711749

Mother Rosemary by Connisaur

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=634602012

Therapod Armour Sketches by Cptzero

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=634252430

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=636849668

Alpha Direwolf Icon by Robongio

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=633088892

Funny Fish: Megalodon by danleveille

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=634150686

Primal Wolf by Sharkcat

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=636443309

FabulousPretzel’s take on Raptor Saddles

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=636742519

Fanmade Dosser: Ceadeus by Shadlos

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=637188335

Fanmade Dosser: Prognathodon by Shadlos

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=637253551

Fanmade Dossier: Lamia by Shadlos

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=637258438

Fanmade Dossier: Alatreon by Shadlos

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=634582396

Community Contests!

ARKitect

This is an award given to Survivors to celebrate the amazing structures you build. These bases are judged based upon a number of different factors such as their creativity, uniqueness, how fun of a base it is, the difficulty of building it, the functionality it provides and much more!

The ARKitect for Community Crunch 40 is..

hansenGaming!

The Flying Dutchman!

Seriously, this was awesome! One of the best platform bases we've seen! Good job and congratulations!

We'd also like to give an honourable mention to the following Survivors for epic arkitecture work!

DNrednex’s ARKtris Gameboy!

Full album: https://imgur.com/a/WYcT8

TRanger’s Lake Castle!

A lot of seriously fantastic entries this week, it was very difficult to choose! Congratulations to all our winners :). Be sure to check out the other entries in our contest thread below, there’s loads of great videos to see!

ARKArt

This is an award given to survivors who have created beautiful work of art for that week! As always, the artwork is not being judged on the quality of the screenshot or the graphical settings used, but instead what you have managed to draw and produce in game.

The ARKArtist for Community Crunch 40 is…

Okim!

Pebbles Chan the Slayer

Mufoe the Phoenix Rising!

Neko the Songbird!

We'd also like to give an honourable mention to the following Survivor for their ARKArt!

WoodPunk’s Landscape Painting!

Thank you for all the entries this week guys! Congratulations to all our winners and if you’d like to take a look at what all the survivors submitted, you can do so here:

Workshop Spotlight!

Workshopper: evilmrfrank

The Center - http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=614734500

Hey! Thanks for joining us! Could you introduce yourself to the community and let us know about the mods you're working on?

Quote My name is Ben Burkart, aka evilmrfrank and I am currently working on "The Center"!

Welcome Ben! Your map has caused quite a stir in the ARK Community! Tell us more about The Center! What's the story? and what were you inspired by?

Quote When I started this level I knew I wanted to do something extreme for each area so I did a lot of research into areas that I felt were interesting and the first thing I came up with was the Chinese mountain ranges that look like something straight out of avatar. The giant spires brought a huge amount of inspiration for the level both in terms of gameplay and visually so it was the starting foundation for what the level became. I had a few main goals I wanted to accomplish with each and every area, the first was any time I saw anyone streaming or any video at all I wanted the entire level to look and feel so different that anyone that looks at any section of the level would without a doubt know that it was "The Center" simply because it looked and felt much differently than any other maps.

That sounds awesome and very ambitious, I like it! After doing the research and beginning the creative process is there time spent on planning it out in advance, or are you just going with the flow and designing and making the map as you go along?

Quote It was very difficult to do much planning outside of a global plan for each area of the level and a list of rules/features I wanted to implement in each area because I only had a single week to work on each biome if I hoped to finish the level by the contest deadline. So I guess to answer the question in a bit more depth I did quite a lot of planning in advance before I started any of the biomes and especially before starting the map in general. To fulfill the requirement I mentioned before of wanting each area to look very unique from anything in the game I spent a lot of time learning what assets were available to me then going through a ton of ideas and concept art online to find an overall way to mix up a theme to be more interesting to avoid being generic.

When Survivors are playing on The Center, will they be able to experience a lot of different environments and by that I mean is there a wide variety of biomes available for them to explore?

Quote For "The Center" I wanted to implement everything that "The Island" had in terms of gameplay. So with that in mind I created a list of the needed biomes, with a few additional ones This includes massive jungle/spire areas, jungle/ruin filled biomes, Lava/mordor biome, Swamps, Snowy/Alaskan Grasslands biome, Giant tropical Island areas, and of course my favorite "The Center" which was really a combination of things both seen and never seen before in Ark. I spent only one week on each biome, except for the update with The Center which included both the center and the swamp in the same update.

There’s a quite a lot for Survivors to see then! How difficult was it to create something like The Center?

Quote Although I only spent a week creating this center area and the surrounding swamp it should normally take somebody a much much longer amount of time to finish. Pulling off the center area was a huge mix of technical hurdles and difficulties so it wasn't by any means an easy area to pull off but with anything the best thing people can do to try and get something similar is learn the technical side of the engine in terms of performance and shaders and beyond that just practice practice practice!

The Center itself is a pretty unique design, do you take balance into consideration, or are you just aiming for it to look as beautiful as can be?

Quote I look at the layout as an opportunity to create something beautiful so in my opinion if you are laying out your level in terms of gameplay correctly the visuals should fall into place naturally. So to answer the question I had gameplay/balance in mind from the very start. Every single inch of the level was placed/molded by hand with gameplay in mind, from the massive passageways through the spires, to the placement of the resources and the lakes, down to even the points the player starts are located (If you notice, most are placed right at a entryway going into the island more) In terms of the balancing of the overall resources I do plan to return to this at some point soon and add a bit more resources and balance it out a bit more!

I’m sure many of the PvP players are pleased to hear that! Not just a visually stunning map but one that takes balance into consideration too! There are a lot of beautiful objects in The Center, were any created by you, or have you mostly been using content already provided or from the UE4 Marketplace?

Quote A majority of the objects in The Center I did not create. I have done a massive pass on optimizing a lot of the art from the original game and I've also done a considerable amount of custom shader and vfx work as well as modeled out my own waterfalls and some custom meshes for caves and the ground for the top of the center but a majority of it was made by Studio Wildcard. The only piece that wasn't from me or Studio Wildcard was the smoke plumes above the volcanoes, they were created by Epic Games!

And how about the long-term goals for The Center? Is there going to be a "100% completion point" and will you continue working on it post mod-contest? How about plans for additional ARKs in the future? Is there something else you'd like to work on after completing The Center?

Quote I don't have any current plans to do any additional levels for Ark. I can't express how many things I want to do on The Center level to improve it further, things that will keep me busy for a looooong time! I have pretty vast plans for the map long beyond the end of the contest! Although I do plan to have the map completed at a 100% completion point in 3 weeks I hope to continue working on the map to make it better for a long time! Since I was limited to only one week of time per biome there was so much I didn't have the time to do and so many improvements that I would absolutely love to make so even though I'll be releasing the map at 100% complete in 3 weeks time I will have months of work left in terms of improving, balancing, optimizing, etc…

Awesome, cannot wait to see the progression! Speaking of which, is there anything you’re working on which you can tease us about?

Quote Next week I may or may not be creating an entire underworld eco system similar to the book/movies "Journey to the Center of the Earth"

I imagine you’ve spent a lot of time sifting through the DK to get The Center to where it currently is, how are you finding the process so far? How are you finding working with the ARK Dev kit and do you have any prior modding experience?

Quote I've been modding using Unreal Engine since 2001 starting with the original Unreal Tournament. I've probably made anywhere from 75-100+ levels from initial planning to full release in that time for well over a dozen different games. Overall creating levels for Ark has been a ton of fun and since it's using Unreal Engine 4 the process is pretty straightforward and easy!

Wow, you’ve been around for quite a while! Big fan of the UT series here ;). Do you have any tips for upcoming modders on what they can do when working with UE4 and ARK itself?

Quote Don't be afraid to go outside of your comfort zone, thats where the real fun begins! Also don't expect modding to come easy, if you like hard work then I can assure you the pay off when you have completed something is well worth it! When it comes to game development and modding your work will only be as good as the amount of time and effort you're willing to put into it!

Good advice! Is there anything you’d like to end with before wrapping this up?

Quote I am very thankful for everyone's support through the development of this map. If you guys have any feedback, likes, or dislikes please post them on the maps workshop page! I am working hard to make this map the best I can and I take all feedback very seriously!

Thanks a lot for taking the time to do this and good luck with the rest of the map! Can’t wait to see how it grows and for those of you who want to see a great trailer of The Center, Ben has created one showing it’s progression at 75% completion!

That’s it for this week’s Crunch guys! As always if you’ve got anything to share please get in touch and be sure to follow us on Twitter at @survivetheark - Facebook at www.facebook.com/survivetheark and Reddit at www.reddit.com/r/playark

Thanks everyone!

All the best,

Wildcard Jat and the ARK Survival Evolved Team