How to Build Aztec2

Introduction

This document outlines some important information required to build Aztec. The build process isn't the easiest in the world, as a number of 3rd party libraries are used. We will be trying very hard to minimize the pain in the future by supplying ready to go libraries, but for the moment, downloading them is the only option.

For building on Microsoft Windows, Aztec requires MS Visual C version 6 or later, with at least Service Pack 5 installed. Aztec makes use of some template functionality that wasn't fully implemented in earlier versions of Visual C.

For building on GNU/Linux, Aztec requires at least GCC 3.2. Earlier versions are untested, not guaranteed to work and may generate unstable code. The Intel C++ Compiler for GNU/Linux is not activily supported at this time, but may be in the future.

Other platforms, including BSD, are not supported at this time.

Step 1: Choose your Preferred Platform

Currently you can build Aztec2 on either Microsoft Windows and/or GNU/Linux.

  • Microsoft Windows
  • GNU/Linux
  • Step 2: Installation of the Required Linux Libraries

    STLPort : download This library is needed for all of Aztec. The STL library included with MSVC6 does not allow std::map and other structures to be used between DLL's and this was becoming an issue. Moving to STLPort was not an easy decision, but it makes development for Aztec much easier. See the installation instructions that come with STLPort for information on how to build and use STLPort.

    lib3ds 1.2.0 : download Two environment variables are needed for this library to work together with Aztec.

  • LIB3DS_INCLUDEDIR = <your location>\lib3ds-1.2.0
  • LIB3DS_LIBDIR = <your location>\lib3ds-1.2.0\msvc
  • DevIL 1.6.1 : download Two environment variables are needed for this library to work together with Aztec.

  • DEVIL_INCLUDEDIR = <your location>\DevIL-SDK-1.6.1\INCLUDE
  • DEVIL_LIBDIR = <your location>\DevIL-SDK-1.6.1\LIB
  • JavaScript 1.5rc4a : download : FTP Two environment variables are needed for this library to work together with Aztec.

  • JAVASCRIPT_INCLUDEDIR
    needs to be set to the directory that contains the 'debug' and 'release' directories. Example: <your location>\js-1.5rc4a\js\src
  • JAVASCRIPT_LIBDIR
    needs to be set to the directory containing all the headers for this library. Example: = <your location>\js-1.5rc4a\js\src
  • Particle API 1.21 : download This adds particle system support to Aztec and it is needed by the StdPrimitives library. In order for this to work on Windows, two environement variables are needed.

  • PARTICLE_INCLUDEDIR
  • This needs to point to the directory containing the headers for the Particle API.
  • PARTICLE_LIBDIR
  • This needs to point to the directory containing the 'debug' and 'release' directories created by the Particles API project.

    NOTE: This library is currently not needed for Aztec2.

    WTL 7.0 This is needed for the AztecGUIPlugin project. It is just a small bunch of header files for the latest ATL/WTL library from Microsoft. After you have downloaded it, extract the files somewhere and set up your MS Dev environment to search into the WTL7 include directory when compiling.

    NOTE: This library is currently not needed for Aztec2.

    flex 2.5.4 : download Set an environment variable called FLEX that points to the ececutable file flex.exe.
    For example: FLEX=C:\Program Files\GNU\flex\flex.exe

    FreeType 2.1.4 : download You need to download FreeType and compile it. However, you first need to change the run-time library it uses. Aztec uses the Multithreaded DLL, whereas the FreeType build only gives configurations for the static Single and Multithreaded libraries. We have supplied a project file to achieve this. It's located in $cvsroot/software/freetype/builds/win32/visualc/freetype.dsp.

    After this, you need to set the environment variable FREETYPE_DIR to point to the directory where the objs and include directories live.

    The Actual Software

    Step 3: Aqcuiring the Aztec Source Code

    TBD: Talk about getting the source from CVS, which modules (explain content of main directories in $cvsroot) are needed, etc.

    Step 4: make coffee

    The next step is to actually build Aztec. After acquiring the source, load the workspace aztec/source/Aztec2.dsw" into Visual C. This workspace should contain all the projects needed to build Aztec. The dependencies between the projects have already been setup. Click the Rebuild All option and with a bit of luck, it should all build ok. In the mean time, go make some coffee, as the build will take a while to complete, depending on the speed of your system.

    TBD: Perhaps some information about well known errors/warnings that could happen and how to easily solve them? (ie. linker errors from missing libs would be a good one)


    Copyright © 2001-2003 The Aztec Team