Changelog:
13 July 2010:
- Recommend CMake version 2.8.0
6th January 2010
- Building the latest 1.7 dependencies package.
- It’s now a generic Building Ogre with Visual Studio guide, since there’s no longer a compelling reason to build from trunk.

This is my “hold-your-hand” guide to building the latest Ogre with Visual Studio C++, trunk or stable.

13 July 2010: If anyone could test this guide for Visual Studio 2010 and let me know if it works or not, I would appreciate it. I don’t have access to a Windows machine right now.

Prerequisites

• Download and install the latest DirectX9 SDK: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/directx
• Download and install CMake. It is recommended that you install version 2.8.0, later versions are known to have problems with Ogre: http://www.cmake.org/files/v2.8/
• Download the latest dependencies package: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ogre/files/ (since this post was last updated, that would be: ogre-dependencies-vc++ -> 1.7 -> OgreDependencies_MSVC_20100501.zip)
• [TRUNK] Checkout ogre from SVN: https://ogre.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/ogre/trunk/
• [1.7 STABLE] Checkout ogre from SVN: https://svn.ogre3d.org/svnroot/ogre/branches/v1-7 OR download a source package from: http://www.ogre3d.org/download/source

Building Ogre

1. You need to build the dependencies. Extract the Dependencies folder from the zip into the root directory (/trunk/Dependencies/). Go to Dependencies/src and open OgreDependencies.VS20xx.sln. Right click the solution and click Build Solution, which will build every project. Do this for both Release and Debug.
2. Open CMake. “Where is the source code” should point to the root directory, and “Where to build the binaries” should point to a sub folder in the root directory. For example, you can create a folder named VCBuild.
3. Click Configure. Choose the compiler you are building for.
4. A list of options in red will appear. Configure it how you choose. I disable BUILD_PLUGIN_BSP and BUILD_RENDERSYSTEM_D3D10 since they are unnecessary for me.
5. [OPTIONAL] If you have boost built and require threading, set the BOOST_ROOT value to the root of your boost directory (e.g. “C:/boost_1_39″). Subsequent boost variables should automatically be populated. (If this is an environment variable, it should automatically detect it.) Don’t forget to set CONFIG_THREADS to 1 or 2 depending on your requirements.
6. Click configure once again.
7. The options should turn grey. Click OK.
8. Open OGRE.sln in your build directory.
9. Right click the ALL_BUILD project and click Build. Do this for both Release and Debug.
10. Right click the INSTALL project and click Build. Do this for both Release and Debug.
11. You’re done! Make sure you direct any projects using Ogre to the generated sdk folder in your build directory.

FAQ

What happened to CEGUI?
From 1.7, CEGUI is no longer part of Ogre. You should now treat it as a separate library. For instructions, refer to Building CEGUI.

What do I do next?
If you’ve not familiar with setting up an Ogre application, see my Ogre and Visual Studio Beginners FAQ and follow the walkthrough.

Let me know if you have problems with any of the steps, suggestions etc.

In this so-called new age of web design, there appears to be an underlying trend in “Web 2.0″ websites. Something about it makes me cringe, because wherever you look, especially in websites showcasing portfolios or whatever, the language style is exactly the same. Informal speak, as if you’re talking to the visitor as a friend, I guess. To me, it’s pure cheese.

HELLO. MY NAME IS BOB SMITH. I MAKE GOOD WEBSITES, AND STUFF.

You know what I’m talking about. The HUGE TEXT THEY USE TO SHOUT AT THE USER ON THE HOMEPAGE. Okay, so why? Well, you could argue it draws in the user’s attention, and that it instantly tells the user what the website is about. Fair enough. But I get bored when browsing CSS design showcases, only to find almost all of them follow this trend. Admittedly, even I fall victim to this nonsense. I get a feeling design showcases discriminate websites that don’t. Perhaps it’s just another internet phase.

My 5 minute browsing results:

http://paiko.de/
http://www.baeck.no/
http://www.sergionoviello.com/
http://nathan-sanders.com/
http://www.shannonmoeller.com/
http://www.jamisonbanham.com/
http://www.jasonreedwebdesign.com/
http://sprawsm.com/
http://www.postmachina.com/

I could go on… Forever.

For the most part, we haven’t had much to show or talk about since the last post. We’ve been hard at work writing code since our change of plans with TidalEngine, which I’ll explain below. That said, there’s been plenty of interesting stuff going on recently, so here’s a roundup of what we’ve been up to since.

TidalEngine
TidalEngine is being developed alongside Project Utopia. We decided to transform it into a generic game engine that can be reused for other projects. It was a tough move, and has reduced development speed drastically. But hopefully the hard work will pay off.

We designed it to be extensible, using a modular and add-on architecture. It is multi-tiered depending on what you need. At the bottom level is the utilities – math, events, templates etc. which can be used for pretty much any application. Next is the core engine which abstracts graphics input, GUI, physics etc. Standalone it can be used to create a wide range of offline games. It uses a plugin system, allowing dependencies to be hot-swapped. For example, we have an OpenAL and FMOD plugin – either can be loaded at runtime. At the highest level is networking. This is where all the online operations will be handled.

Mobile Gaming
For a long time we have been carefully planning our pursuit of mobile development. Recently we started to put these plans into practice. We bought a brand new 24″ iMac especially for iPhone development. It will be a steep learning curve, as we’re PC junkies, but this is where most of our attention will be focused for the next few months. We plan on developing multiple titles, each increasingly challenging and complex. That’s about all we can say for now; we also put up a new page.

Websites
We have a number of clients in discussions for possible websites, and a couple more which we’re beavering away at. I’m pleased with the positive response we’ve received until now, so fingers crossed! We’re actively trying to expand our portfolio, so if you have a project in mind let us know!

TidalWare.com
Since my last blog post, I also took the opportunity to redesign our own website. It looked fine already, but until I’m 110% happy, I’m not happy. So back to the drawing board it was, and I came up with something even more minimalistic, and a better menu system to squeeze in our increasing number of pages.

Shortly after, I submitted it to CSS Design Yorkshire, and what do you know, it got featured! :D (There’s quite a few, so just search for ‘tidalware’ or ‘June 08, 2009′)

Conclusion
As you can tell, we’re always busy! If you want day-to-day updates of what we’re up to, be sure to follow us on Twitter. In the meantime I will try my best to blog more often. We removed the news page, so now every TidalWare news tidbit will be posted here.

Game Republic is an organisation which develops, funds and promotes the Yorkshire games industry. They have recently launched a brand new website which contains news, blogs, events and more. For those of you involved in the games industry living in the Yorkshire region, or simply have an interest in game development, we recommend you sign up and take advantage of the many opportunities on offer.

Visit: http://www.gamerepublic.org/

Well, it’s been quite a while since my last post. Let me jump straight into saying that I have added two new teaser screenshots of our new game codenamed ‘Project Utopia’ on the homepage. I simply couldn’t resist. :) I’ve been working on the game only since June, pretty much by myself while concurrently steaming away at Project Velocity. As explained in the description on our website, it’s a huge undertaking. Developing a MMORPG is pretty much the most difficult piece of software engineering. Crazy? Probably. Achievable? Definitely.

We have huge plans for PU (I’m thinking I shouldn’t use that acronym). It has required many dozens of plans and documents to explain its direction. Unfortunately I’m not going to reveal too much at this moment, but maybe a little more than you already know. There’s one thing I’d like to clear up, however. It is NOT a pretty fantasy/medieval turn-based RPG. I could count all the grass blades in my sight and the amount of games in such genre will still outnumber them. Project Utopia will be a futuristic game with nothing more than what is scientifically possible. You won’t be playing humans, either.

That’s enough for now. ;) I’ll reveal more as time progresses. Not to alienate your hopes (NPI), but Project Utopia is still in very early stages. The screenshots may look nice, but graphics are only a tiny fraction of the battle. Also, progress will be extremely slow unless we can find more people. Even then, I’m not working on it full time. What will see the project to its finish is our sheer amount of determination.

On a different note, I’d like to remind everyone about the next Game Republic event. It will be held in Leeds on the 12th of January, the subject being “The future of AI”. Unless my plans get screwed somehow, I will be attending the event. So if you’re into that kind of stuff and live in Yorkshire, I recommend you pop along and check it out. More details to follow.

This extremely useful tool allows you to search masses of open source code. It’s nothing new, but I only stumbled upon it the other week and have been using it ever since.

http://www.google.com/codesearch

One of the many cases I find it handy is when I’d like to know how a function is used. For example, search “wxtoolbar(” including quotes to instantly find out how to add a toolbar with wxWidgets. It saves wading through documentation (or lack of it) to learn how to perform simple tasks. You can also enter a string of text describing what you are looking for. Or, if you’re familiar with regular expressions, you can find some very specific code examples.

It’s a must for programmers looking to improve productivity.