HowTo:_Building_Spacescape_with_Microsoft_Visual_Studio_Express_2008

NOTE This is a work in progress

• Download/Install Ogre3d SDK
• Download/Install Qt SDK
• Checkout/CMake Spacescape Source
• Build Spacescape Source
• Troubleshooting

Download/Install Ogre3d SDK

Follow the instructions on http://ogre3d.org to download and install the Ogre3d SDK from a pre-built package or source.

Download/Install Qt SDK

Download and install Qt for Open Source C++ development on Windows (VS2008) from http://qt.nokia.com It's on the Downloads page in the LGPL section under "Qt: Framework Only"

Checkout/CMake Spacescape Source

Checkout Spacescape trunk from SVN to a directory we'll call the source directory.

Use CMake to generate a new Visual Studio Solution in the build directory of your choosing. I find it easiest to add the OGRE_HOME environment variable and point it to the Ogre build directory (the one created by CMake). Also I add a QTDIR environment variable and the value is C:\Qt\4.7.0 (the version I downloaded). I also updated my system PATH to add C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\bin and C:\Qt\4.7.0\bin so that CMake can find vcvars32.bat and qmake.exe

CMake should try to compile the QtSolutions_PropertyBrowser-2.5 for you but if it fails it could be because vcvars32.bat and qmake are not in your PATH. You can manually open a command line window from Visual Studio 2008 from Tools->Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt and navigate to the Spacescape/external/QtSolutions_PropertyBrowser-2.5 folder. Type cmake and then nmake, then copy the dlls to the Spacescape\app\win\release and Spacescape\app\win\debug, and the libs to Spacescape\lib.

NOTE: Spacescape was crashing for me because there was an existing QtSolutions_PropertyBrowser-2.5.dll in my C:\Qt\4.7.0\bin folder so I moved it (and the debug version) so that my program would use the dlls in my Spacescape\win\app\release folder.

If you used POCO for threads when compiling OGRE then update the POCO_INCLUDE_DIR (the include dir for the Foundation headers - mine was c:\poco\Foundation\include), POCO_LIBRARY_DBG (path to PocoFoundationd.lib) and POCO_LIBRARY_REL (path to PocoFoundation.lib) CMAKE values - be sure to select the 'Advanced View' to view those CMAKE variables in cmake-gui then hit Configure (might have to do this a couple times) and Generate to create the solution in the build directory you selected.

Build Spacescape Source

Open the Spacescape solution in your build directory and build debug/release - it should build SpacescapePlugin first and copy all the appropriate .lib and .dll files over to the right Spacescape directories.

The following dlls should be in your source directories Spacescape\app\win\release directory:

• OgreMain.dll
• QtSolutions_PropertyBrowser-2.5.dll
• RenderSystem_GL.dll
• Spacescape_Plugin.dll
• QtCore4.dll
• QtGui4.dll
• PocoFoundation.dll (IF you compiled OGRE with POCO support)

The following dlls should be in your source directories Spacescape\app\win\debug directory:

• OgreMain_d.dll
• QtSolutions_PropertyBrowser-2.5d.dll
• RenderSystem_GL_d.dll
• Spacescape_Plugin_d.dll
• QtCored4.dll
• QtGuid4.dll
• PocoFoundationd.dll (IF you compiled OGRE with POCO support)

Before you run Spacescape, make sure you have the config files in your Spacescape\app\win folder (app.cfg, plugins.cfg, plugins_d.cfg, resources.cfg) and that you have all the right dlls in your release/debug folders.

Troubleshooting

Make sure that Spacescape is using the custom QtSolutions_PropertyBrowser-2.5.dll and not the one that comes with the Qt SDK/framework.

If you have questions you may contact me by using the contact form on my website: http://alexcpeterson.com/contact and any bugs can be submitted to the tracker here on sourceforge.