First we are going to install Visual Studio and set it up. We can download the installer from here https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/free-developer-offers/ and we want the community version.
Once the installer has downloaded run it and choose the workloads tab and choose C++ as shown below
Next scroll down and select the Games development section and select this
Now we can add some extra elements to make life easier. First we will add git as shown
Once these have all been selected we can do an install, this is about 9Gb so will take some time.
When developing for windows we need to ensure we use the correct platform architecture and build target. This means everything we do should be build for x64 (or x64_86) and if we are building for Debug we need to ensure all libraries are also built for Debug, if for Release everything must be built for Release.
To make things easier to build all the tools I generate a batch file to run the correct setup scripts from the Visual Studio install then run powershell.
First we will create an empty file on the desktop called dev.bat this can be done by right clicking on the desktop and create new Text Document. Open this file in a text editor (VSCode) and add the following.
call "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvars64.bat"
powershell.exe /NoLogo
Once this is saved it should be able to be double clicked and run which should result in a window like this
We should now be able to execute all the commands we need to build NGL
git --version
> git version 2.38.1.windows.1
cmake --version
> cmake version 3.24202208181-MSVC_2
CMake suite maintained and supported by Kitware (kitware.com/cmake).
cl
Microsoft (R) C/C++ Optimizing Compiler Version 19.34.31937 for x64
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
usage: cl [ option... ] filename... [ /link linkoption... ]
We now need to install vcpkg following the instructions here https://vcpkg.io/en/getting-started.html
git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg.git
cd vcpkg
bootstrap-vcpkg.bat
Now we can install all the requirements for NGL, note the first install will always download extra tools that vcpkg needs so can take some time.
.\vcpkg.exe install gtest:x64-windows
.\vcpkg.exe install glm:x64-windows
.\vcpkg.exe install glfw3:x64-windows
.\vcpkg.exe install gl3w:x64-windows
.\vcpkg.exe install rapidjson:x64-windows
.\vcpkg.exe install rapidxml:x64-windows
.\vcpkg.exe install fmt:x64-windows
.\vcpkg.exe install freetype:x64-windows
If you wish to build using OpenImageIO rather than the build in simple image loaders you will also need to install OpenImageIO, this can take time and can be problematic so I don't usually use this.
.\vcpkg.exe install openimageio:x64-windows
We can now download NGL and install it I suggest setting up git to work via ssh by following the instructions here https://docs.github.com/en/authentication/connecting-to-github-with-ssh
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/NCCA/NGL $HOME\NGLBuild
cd NGLBuild
mkdir build
We need to set some paths before building so cmake can find vcpkg install location
cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE="$HOME/vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake" -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:PATH="$HOME/NGL" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ..
cmake --build .
As we have selected the target Debug the library and NGLTests.exe will be placed in the new folder called Debug we can change to this folder and run the tests.
cd Debug
./NGLTests.exe
No we need to install NGL to the correct folder, this is done in the build folder as follows
cmake --build . --target install
This should now copy all of the files we need to build the demos into $HOME/NGL and should look like this.
ls ~/NGL
Directory: C:\Users\jpmac\NGL
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
d----- 14/12/2022 16:18 include
d----- 14/12/2022 16:18 lib
-a---- 14/12/2022 15:56 2547 NGLConfig.cmake
Most of the NGL Demos use Qt, we can use either Qt 5.15.x (which is the vfx-reference platform version) or Qt 6.x which is newer and may not be usable for all platforms. We can get the Qt installer from here https://www.qt.io/download-open-source you will need an account for the forums but this can be useful.
Qt can get quite large, and we don't need to install all components, so we can choose custom install.
For this install I have selected the following, choosing only the latest Visual Studio version for X64 and not of the other platforms.
We should now be able to download an NGL demo and test.
git clone https://github.com/NCCA/SimpleNGL
cd SimpleNGL
mkdir build
cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE="$HOME/vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake" -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="$HOME/NGL" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="C:\Qt\5.15.2\msvc2019_64" ..
cmake --build .
You will notice in the above command line there is a path to the Qt version, you must ensure this is correct for your system / version of Qt.
Under windows there is an issue with the target to copy the shaders and other resource files to the target folder. We need to do this manually once we have built the program as follows
cd Debug
cp -r ../shaders ./
$env:Path += ";C:\Qt\5.15.2\msvc2019_64\bin"
./SimpleNGL.exe
In the above command line you will notice we have set the path to point to the bin directory of Qt, this is so the program can find the Qt libraries. As with other path you must ensure this is correct for your system.
To make life easier we can add the CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_PATH and CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH to the system environment. As well as the other variable for Qt.
Press the Windows Key and search for environment which will show an edit environment option.
Click on the Edit button
and add a new variable
In this case we have added CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE and selected the correct file using the Browse File button. On my machine it is C:\Users\jpmac\vcpkg\scripts\buildsystems\vcpkg.cmake
Next we can add the CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH in the same way but choose the directory option to add the installed $HOME/NGL folder. Next we need to add another item to the list. It is easiest to just add ;C:\ to the current element and press enter.
Open up the Variable again and you will now see a list. Select C:\ and then choose directory to find the location of Qt, on my machine this is C:\Qt\5.15.2\msvc2019_64\
Finally we need to edit the existing Path environment variable to add the Qt path. On my machine this is C:\Qt\5.15.2\msvc2019_64\bin
Once these are save you should be able to re-open the developer shell and build NGL demos without specifying the -D flags. So in the build folder we can now do
cd build
rm -r -force *
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ..
cmake --build .
cd Debug
cp -r ../shaders ./
./SimpleNGL
If you system has Ninja installed on it you can use this to build your projects by passing the -G Ninja command line to the initial build. This has the advantage of building in the current directory and not the Debug one so all the files are found in the correct place.
Your environment should now work and all the other NGL demos should also work.
If you wish to use certain libraries such as SDL2 or Bullet Physics you will also need to install these with vcpkg but most of the hard work has now been done.
The most important issue in all of this is to ensure that your paths are correct. Each system is different so ensure you are pointing to the correct thing.