Ragnarok - Day 21

Today comes along with another push to get things more completed.  I added in all the lighting today and OMG does it bring this baby to life!  Nighttime has always been my fav time to view bases.  During the day the stone work often blends into itself and you lose definition but at night you get shadow and mood.

Because of the corrections I had to make on the landing plats yesterday I had to add a few extra foundations in which was disappointing.  But I put down glass foundations and I will make them transparent so they won't be visible in the end.

I was on the top level (taming pen) while it was raining.  I thought I would share this transition to warp drive ;)

I put a few of these pods in yesterday but didn't mention them in the last blog as there was no real progress.  I pulled up most of what was there as it was mostly just to test what size I wanted to make it.  As you can see I did a ring of underwater pods (I know they aren't called this but that is what I call them) and then built 12 walls down from them.  I did this in 5 locations and completed a ring of ceilings around the bottom on which to attach XL walls.  I have the 5 regular wall drops as the XL walls have a tendency not to snap at the top to existing structures and this adds a level of safety against accidental demo.  I built into the center with ceilings as far as I could go and then used a few more pods to create foundation support to complete the rest of the bottom of the pen.  This is the second time I've constructed a pen like this so I knew what problems to look out for this time and it went up rather quickly.

This is the above water look.  The last one of these I built with the plan to store rafts in the top but as I have no Leeds on my SP I don't need to protect them so much.

I added a tek gen to the bottom of the pen and added some lighting which I'm loving :)

I've since removed the sides of some of the pods and made it look like the stone extends outwards to join onto the sloped pods.  I'm having issues with the slopes.  I can walk through them just fine but the bottom of the pod for some reason still has the floor image in place.  Not sure whats going on here as I've used them like this before without this prob.  I also added an entrance down to the left for a basic dock area for my rafts when I build them.

Under the base I have filled in all the foundations and built a castle structure.  A castle within a castle you could say ;)  

Some basic stables in the background.  The entrance to the water pen and docks are contained within the inner castle.

I've also added a side entrance so that the under base area is accessible from the outside.  This isn't the best angle for it but as I'm not done under here I'll be sure to post a better one at some point.

 

The base from underwater looks a bit like a spaceship on a landing platform.  Then again a few of my bases have had a spaceship/spacestation vibe about them lol.

From the sea pen ramp you get a nice shot of the underside of the scrolled wall.  I've also added lighting under the scroll now :)

Directly under the taming pen I've added a basic bedroom and kitchenette for quick trips in and out.

And under the bedroom is the greenhouse :)  I've kept it really simple.  I may add or adjust things as I go along but for now it will do just fine :)

Ragnarok - Day 20

Well day 20 comes with a great shot of a completed shell.  After two video crashes and minor roll backs I completed the scroll work and modelled all the glass (twice if I was counting).  After looking at it for a little while I decided to go ahead and add the rampart effect to the landing platforms as well.  I'm glad I did as it looks fantastic!

How epic does that look!  I really wish I could do my own vids, it is really feeling awesome to move in and around it.  Unlike with the storage base this one I have loved from the very start!  

This is a good shot of a completed scroll work support.  Each support has a full spiral at the bottom, a 3/4 spiral for the top level and just half spirals for the supporting levels.  I could have done a full spiral on each section but I felt it was going to look far too busy.  This side on shot with the shaping of the slope sections makes them look much thinner.  As you move around and the shadows appear they change shape a fair...... ummm.  Well I just noticed a mistake lol.  That sloped section in the middle is wrong.  I've snapped the sloped tri's to the wrong bit <insert sigh here>  I corrected a bunch of mistakes I noticed today.  I had screwed up the positioning of two of the landing plats when I copied the first and instead of correcting the second two I altered the first.  So now there will be no glass ramp that I mentioned yesterday.  That was removed and a subtle alteration made it superfluous.

Ok so here is a 2 min correction of the mistake :)  I'm speeding up on making these now.  Something to note if your using tri roof's to make a larger area you need to start at the bottom.  For some reason they are happy to snap upwards to your hearts desire but they won't snap downwards the same way.  I tried to get nice flush looking snaps on this build but in all honesty its impossible.  I've ended up with some weird gaps in places that I can't fathom how they occurred.  I can only guess that I've made a couple of snaps off ramps and that ramps are perhaps a tad shorter than they should be.  I've had to just 'let it go' (don't start singing, no really don't).  Ceiling space gaps I understand pretty well.  No matter how hard I try I always seem to get one or two of them on projects like this where I have made raised structures.  There are ways to eliminate them but they do sometimes still sneak in when I'm not paying enough attention.  It takes a little more work as you need to snap walls to the bottom of ceilings before snapping the one above and making sure it snaps to the wall and not the ceiling.  Then you can remove the wall from the bottom and know that your heights shouldn't change as you go upwards.  But like I said mistakes happen especially when your half asleep.  The ones  I corrected this morning were minor but took a bit of time to do.  I've got a crazy amount of building hours in this game but even with all my experience I still screw up minor details :)  You just have to take a deep breath and learn not to stress about it.  I'm just glad to be able to build this with fly and ghost as it saved a stack of time getting some of the angles worked out.  I am more than capable of building from scaffolding or dino back but while in SP I'm going to utilize all I can.

For those of you out there learning to build (in S+) I suggest carrying on you 1 wall and 4+ ramps for scaffolding.  When you need to adjust something in a funny place just drop a wall place a ramp against it and then extend upwards from it.  I know plenty of people starting out (myself included) that would get frustrated if something up in the air needed changing.  These days I would just throw the scaffolding up in a few secs and be done with it.  There's no point dragging it out, just get stuck in and fix the problem.  With any luck it will remind you to not do it again lol.  OR remind you that Ark often likes to play musical snap points.  OMG I've had some horrible games of musical snap points!  If you are doing a lot of overlaying of tiles the snap system tries to give you an epileptic fit flashing between them all.  In this case I weigh my options and normally remove the most easily replaceable tile from around it.  The more you build the faster you will solve issues like this.  But they won't go away if your pushing the limits of what they will do.  Not a week goes by without someone saying to me they wish they could come up with ideas like I do.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, all the techniques I use are simple.  Its just a matter of trying something new with them.  If you don't want a square base don't build one.  Start simple, and have a go at making a tower in the round (hex).  Then try make a self supporting ramp.  Try combine the two so you have a tower at the top of a self supporting ramp.  Just start piecing together the things you have tried until something interesting happens.  Once you have a basic understanding of how these things go together you may have an idea for how you could make something interesting.  And it probably won't work lol.  But try it anyway!  Work out why it doesn't work and see if you can work around the problem as you may discover a more interesting idea.  I have huge ideas sometimes that end up looking rather Meh.  The rolling outer wall on this base for eg.  I envisioned something that looked epic from a distance but with the whole wall rolling, from the outside you don't see the spiral effect just the outer curve lol.  You can't win them all so don't stress when you don't.

Ragnarok - Day 19

After having a day off I hit Ark with a vengeance.  I was enjoying the newer build so much that I focused on that rather than finishing the storage base (which I WILL get back to lol).

It took me sooo long to sort out how to do the supporting structure this time.  As the plan was to have internal access to the upper levels I had to do a lot of mucking around to make it all work.  I've added 3 landing pads that came out bigger than I had orig planned but I've made those hollow so that I have build/storage space should I ever need it.  I'm yet to make access to the under the base which is a massive space.  

As you can see the scroll work isn't quite complete.  The lowest level on the left hasn't been done but the rest should only need sloped walls to finish the process.  I had to move a main column after I had it mostly completed after finding I was too far into the center of the base and the scrolls would overlap something wicked.  Where it is now they overlap ever so slightly.

You can see the top level from here has a sloped center.  I made this my taming pen.  I mean why not?  I always build it separate so this time I thought screw it lets make it a feature. I've snapped doorframes all the way around and snapped them to the walls below.  This allowed me to snap railings to the ceilings and overlay them without breaking the doorframes.  I then turned the rails into half walls and thus created the ramparts.  I've considered doing it around the landing plats as well but at this point I'm not going to.   

As you can see here there is a spiral stair up the column but instead of making it internal all the way up I tried something different.  You have to use the scroll itself as a ramp which I really like.  It feels more functional this way and that's always good :)

This is looking really interesting.  I had orig planned to have the scrolls and supports to go upwards to add another central level but the more I thought about it the more overkill it seemed.  I have the storage base so I don't need a massive amount of space and I've already created a lot of extra space.  I had thought of making some smaller landing plats to use for a quetz cage, quetz carrier and wyvrn.  But I realized I can just use the scrolls in that capacity.  The lower section of the upper platform under the taming pen will be a greenhouse and bedroom most likely.

This pic shows the slight overlap that I was talking about.  I built the scrolls in such a way that I could overlay some extra tiles to connect them all together so they all support the platform.  

From the top of the kitchen complex the finished support and platform look decently sturdy.  I didn't want the platform to look to flimsy.  The central upper platform is the only one that has just a single ceiling around it but as I gated the outside  I placed half walls within them so it gives an illusion of being thicker.

This is a great shot of the supporting structures.  I can't wait to get this particular build completed.  There is a bunch of sloped walls to place,  some piping (which I may do at the same time as the storage base) and a bunch of glass modelling.  You can see some glass panels up the right side of this pic.  I had the internal access lead to the landing plat then you will travel across a clear glass ramp back to the next section of stairs for the upper level. 

I have plenty of space for vanity building on this one but I plan to get it completed in all other senses before I add any.  I feel like I'm almost at the point I was when I left the server so I will be able to get some actual game play in.  Had I been online I would have had a few distractions no doubt and gone on a few missions.  I miss going on foot missions with L360 and Haidies.  We would take awesome longnecks and just tear everything up.  L360 was a great shot with compound bow too but I can never seem to hit things with them lol.  

Ragnarok - Day 18

Well today I did heaps and then not so much.  I got a fair bit of work done and then had a video crash.  The rollback save removed most of what I had gotten done.  I checked and it was the only new save so I'm not sure what happened there.  I've begun to saveworld manually as I go now :/  It was a tad frustrating to say the least.  So I decided instead of repeating myself I would start on another project.  This has always been my method, if something gets annoying or frustrating walk away from it and work on something else for a while.

I have a spot located where I plan to build my water pen and there is a nice piece of land next to it so I have started constructing a new base there.  The base I have been working on to date has always been planned as a storage base.  Its there to put all my extra dino's (as well as a few vanity projects).  Well I've started on an actual base this time.  I had a idea for a base design that looked fantastic in my head.  The effect I was going for hasn't completely translated so far but it still looks good.

This is the foundation work.  It will prob all be filled in at some point but I wanted to get the outer wall up ASAP so I could start on the idea I had and make it safer to work in.

This is the first section of wall completed.  As you can see the bottom is sloped and the top has the spiral curve.  It did have more of a spiral but I removed it as you won't be able to see it anyway.  I ended up having to tame a couple of Dilo's to cover me while I built as there seems to be a fair few Dilo's on this beach and they were getting annoying while I was doing the foundation work.  I didn't want to have to keep jumping on the wyvern.  Once the walls were up I set them on aggro inside the base and they died to a trike lol.

I managed to get the spiral done all the way around the outerwall.  I've left a gap here for where the entrance will be.  The walls everything are connected to are 2x large walls.  I am thinking of removing a few and adding glass panels so that on the inside you can look in on the spiral. 

The inside of the spiral looks pretty awesome.  Once its got some lighting and darkness falls it should have a great atmosphere about it.

Here is another great example of how I do my initial foundation work.  I actually built this twice.  First time I built it too far in land and it went up the hill which  I didn't want.  I started with 6 tri in the middle and had made it out to fit the 4 squares seperated by 1 tri.  Then it was a dozen square out from that center.  On moving it I removed all but the line of square pointing towards the ocean.  I knew I was doing 12 foundations outwards to start with so I just took that close to the water and then in the center I didn't even bother filling it in.  I made the 'circle' of foundations in the center then all the square runs went out 12.  On the outside edge I ran the tri to join them all then chucked up the walls.  I did a section of the ceiling to see how much foundations I needed to at least get support and it turned out to be very little as you can see.  I couldn't do the center tho so I just added a few tri sticking into the middle which added enough to complete that middle section.  That will be removed anyway as that will be my storage which will be mounted in the floor.  This is a tried and true method I have used across a number of builds.  I have the storage, kitchen and crafting as my central building on the main floor as they are the most important things I use.  

I plan to assemble this base using the scroll work I used on the storage base.  This time however I will be building with that specifically in mind so I hope to have it turn out a lot better.  It also won't be nearly as tall as the storage base which was required as the cliff was so high.  I'm thinking that I won't have seperated scrolls this time but use a glass structure between them and make it more of an enclosed tower structure.  At least thats the plan at this very moment.  Give it a couple of days and that may be completely different lol.

This structure went up really quickly.  This is a great example of what I keep telling people.  If you get your foundations sorted right from the get go, then the rest of your build will be far easier to complete.  I'm not sure you noticed but I swapped the tri and square outside the orig foundations I laid.  I had to add extra to support the overhanging spiral so I swapped the large sides to square.  This was a tactical choice.  I love working in the tri but it can be a pain when it comes to making the slopes and it takes a LOT more tri to fill a space in compared to square.  By swapping it made it so that the tri slopes of the spiral were on the shortest sides of the other wall thus much less effort :)  Remember when your doing bigger builds to take the time to think things out to try reduce what effort is involved.  And build big.  It is my opinion you should build bigger than you think you need rather than trying to expand an existing structure and having to mess with the foundations again.  Expansion does lead to some interesting designs I must admit but if you already have the extra foundation size all sorted then it will be easier if you do decide to.  I've built big enough times I have a good idea of how big I a space I will need.  

Ragnarok - Day 17

Well after a few days of getting stuff all done I managed to get a few things sorted today.  Two of the inverted towers have had a decent amount of furnishings applied now.  One has been setup as a critter storage and cafe.  The other as my personal quarters.

I am yet to find anything that looks like a cash register which would make this look a little better.  As simple as it is I am happy with the look.  I've removed some of the outer walls and added a balcony indented into the tower.

The outside I think looks especially good although looking at it now I realise I have neglected to add outside lighting.  I'll have to remember to remedy that when I next sit down to build.

This is the level above the Cafe which is even more simplistic.  This is merely for critter storage.  Any shoulder mounts will get stored in this room.  It is merely a functional room and requires nothing more at this point.  Although I may add additional bits as the need arises.  There is one further level at the bottom of this tower which has not been filled out yet.

This is the top level of my private tower.  It will store equipment as needed as well as provide a communal meeting place (although on SP I'll mostly be communing with myself lol).

The second level of my tower is my kitchen dining area.  I had planned to use the method I have done in the past of snapping metal storage to make counters but you can't place anything on them so I wouldn't be able to dress it.  Its unfortunate but thats Ark for you :)

This is my bedroom level.  I've placed one of the Adv Raft circular plots in the middle and will grow something to add to the feel of the room.  Plants are the one thing I'm a little disappointed in with Ark.  It would be nice to have a small selection of potted plants.  Just using models that are already in the game even.  I think you could really flesh out a build and add that final touch that I feel is missing.

This is the other side of the bedroom.  The size of the towers has proved to be perfect.  There is plenty of space for building within them. 

This is the lowest level of my private tower.  A shower and toilet on once side and barrels for storing liquors and other drinks ;)  

The club has had its entrance added now.  I've added a bouncer and roped off queue for entry.  

The club has also had a few more 'people' added as well as one of the figure heads from the Adv Rafts mods which is crazy big!  I've not seen these used before I would be interested to see a ship with one on it.

I think I neglected to post a screenshot from behind the bar.  There are more rooms out the back of the club but are mostly just rooms with beds.  Some with chains hanging from ceiling for any purpose you may need ;)  Thanks Adv raft mod for that little gem rofl

The hatchery has had incubators places all the way around it so with any luck eggs can be hatched anywhere on this level.  One side has tek troughs placed ready for some breeding.  

The upper level of the hatchery has been adjusted to allow roof access and has the teleporter.  I've also added a stack of fridges and grills in case I need to cook up some meat for better spoil timers (I added this before remembering that the tek troughs were added lol).  The expanded size with the sloped underside is rather pleasant looking.  I looked at it with just an over hanging floor but it looked silly and I opted to pad it out some more.

I'm glad to have gotten a decent amount of work done on things today.  The last few days I feel like I've been merely treading water and had had very little progress.  I am hoping to get this build completed soon.  I still need to add a water pen somewhere to complete the base.  As soon as I find a location (I've not started looking yet) I should be able to complete a water pen in a single sitting using the method  I tried on my last build.  I'm not sure if I'm going to do the water pen as square or in the round yet.  I will have a play around when it comes to building it.  

Ragnarok - Day 16

The final pieces of the strip club have been put into place with S+ Gardeners as my dancers lol.  I hereby name the club "Gardeners, Gardeners, Gardeners"

It turned out rather good I think :)  I've also started on the next vanity room although there won't be much more added to it yet.

Its a nice simple boxing ring.  I had the idea when I was going through the Adv Raft mod parts and found the rope railings.  Theres not a huge amount more I can do with this but I'm not too worried.  I could do shower rooms but I've done that before.  I will add a couple of basic changing rooms but it is going to remain simple.

Ragnarok - Day 15

Go into a vanity project last night.  To be honest it took a lot longer than I had thought it would.  The time was mostly spent getting the back rooms to look as far from perfect as I could.  I wanted a space behind the scenes that looked like it had been thrown together where the front space was clean and tidy like you would expect.

This is the main space.  I'm sure the adults out there can work out what this space might be used for.  I won't bother capping the back rooms as they are small and you will get no perspective.  If you've worked out what you are looking at then you will know its not complete yet.  There is actually no entrance to this build just yet.  I will figure out its entrance properly once I get it completed.  I still have a bit of space under here to add a few more small things.  I'm hoping for at least 2 more rooms at least but one of the next rooms will be a fair size so I'm not even sure it will fit yet lol.  I would have pushed to get this completed before bed but I had to be up early for work.  We are getting some advertising done for work so have to be there for a short while this morn for a photo shoot.  I'm not a huge fan of having my photo taken so I'm not very enthusiastic about it ;)

I should get home about the time I normally have my alarm set to.  With any luck I should be able to get a little bit more done on this before I have to go back to work to actually work.  Kitting this space out shouldn't take long at all.  Most of it was covered last night so its just a matter of a few finishing touches.  I was going to try make some 'speakers' out of port holes from the adv rafts mod.  I have no idea what they actually look like tho, it won't let me place them on anything I have in the area.  Not really sure what the deal is with them.  I'm sure there is a specific wall type or object they are meant to be attached to just nothing I've used so far.

Ragnarok - Day 14

Greetings programs,  I had a day away from Ark yesterday (lol yeah it does happen from time to time) so I wanted to try get a decent amount done today.  I had planned to do my next lot of vanity projects but never quite got there.

As you can see I redesigned the lowest section of the scroll work.  I wasn't happy with how it was looking so I tried something different and split the scroll into two halves.  One side of the scrolls is still nice and shapely and rather gorgeous the other side is squarish from where it was 'cut'.  I'm pretty damn happy with how it looks.  The base is finally looking to be worthy of being one of mine ;)  

 

On my original server build I was planning to build a hatchery that used a lattice base but the crash happened before that occured.  I have since used the idea as a rather stylish wall (I'm not sure I've posted a pic of that).  Well the orig idea is now a thing.  I've got the experience of building this design before so it went up rather quickly.  I love the look of this style and just had to include it somewhere in my build.  

I finally revisited the front entrance of my base and tidied it all up.  Its been bugging me for a while but I've needed time to contemplate what I should do with it.  Turned out to be some rather minor additions to tie things in properly.  Sometimes I'll leave something I'm not happy with for a while and let it bug the hell out of me.  I'll eventually come up with a better idea for it and fix it.  

I installed lights within the glass sides which provide just enough light.  I wanted it to be light enough but not crazy bright.  This side of the base is meant to look fortress like so I need a dark moody/gloomy feel.  

While I was working out the front I also finished my front gate.  I could have used a gate (its almost the size of a behe) but I used tek forcefield walls so I could reduce the size of it a tad.  The one thing I don't like about the gates is sometimes you want to hide the gateway and just show the gate itself but it can be a pain to place it in a good spot and hide it all cleanly.  I decided to try torches all the way up the inside of the gate.

Here is an outside shot of both the gate and the front entrance.  I've put torches alone the cliff edge but it seems some of them didn't light up for this shot (lol of course they didn't).  Its weird every time I look at the front of the building I can see a sphynxish  like shape but that may just be me (not so easy to see what I'm on about on this shot).

This is what took up most of my day/night.  Can you tell?  No?  Yeah its not that obvious.  I went through and remodelled all the glass and adjusted transparency.  All the building windows on this side have now had  a tint applied so they look more like glass than missing panels.  I've also continued the one-way glass all the way around the outside.  Both of the upper levels got its glass sorted.  I do plan to adjust them a tad more as it looks a little strange on the inside at the moment.  I'm going to apply a tint to the inner of the outer one-way glass walls.  Which is apparently a thing now!  You can tint one way glass!

I even remembered to finish doing the glass panel work thats in the floor.  Some of it is actually under the balconies and inside the rooms.  I'm pretty sure other than adjusting the outer tints that the glass has all been sorted now.  I'm going to have a look under the hatchery and see if I can scrape some rooms together for a few vanity builds.  I have a few ideas already in mind but I'm not sure I have the space I need for the biggest of them.  I will rough out what space I have and assess from there.  I think the majority of the structure is now completed.  There are a few rooms to be assigned a duty so I may get some vanity builds in them.  I have built a Harry Potter room under my ramp on the right hand side.  I think this will be purposed as a bedroom for a very specific person.  I may be getting a visitor before long ;)  I had a message from them the other day but nothing has been set into stone.  Hence why they shall remain nameless ;)  As with all things something may come up, such is life!