Creating a New Project

Windows

The steps for creating a new project on Windows using Visual Studio are simple:

1. Create a new directory for your project and copy all of the files from G3D10\samples\starter into it.
2. Rename starter.sln to the name of your project. Do not rename main.vcproj.
3. Open the newly-renamed solution (.sln) file in Visual Studio.
4. Within Visual Studio, rename starter to the name of your project.
5. Press F5 to compile and run the program under the debugger.
6. Run a command prompt by typing cmd into the location box of an Explorer window, and run "builddoc" to generate API documentation for your project.
7. If you are using version control:
   1. Make it ignore the following:
      • x64
      • build
      • *.db
      • *.opendb
      • data-files\log.txt
      • data-files\g3d-license.txt
   2. Add the remaining files.
   3. Commit/push.

The project begins in Debug mode. To achieve higher performance, switch to Release mode using the build target dropdown box under the menu bar. Release mode programs can still be run under the debugger, but some of the symbols will not be visible because they have been optimized away.

You can compile without launching the program using the F7 key. Use ctrl+break to break execution for debugging and shift-F5 to kill a program that is running under the debugger.

Be sure to read about the built-in G3D developer tools.

Linux and OS X

Using iCompile

G3D provides an easy-to-use build system for Linux and OS X called iCompile. This is a standalone Python script in the bin directory of the G3D install. iCompile is an expert system that automatically detects your program's structure and builds it appropriately. This is what G3D itself is compiled with on these platforms.

To start a new G3D project, just create an empty directory. Inside of that directory, run icompile with no arguments at the command line. It will prompt you to create a new project. Choose the "G3D Starter". iCompile will then compile this project for you. You can run it with icompile --opt --run and should see the default G3D program.

The most frequently used commands are:

Command	Action -------------—
icompile	Compile the project
icompile --run	Compile and run
icompile --lldb	Compile and run under a debugger
icompile --opt --run	Compile and run an optimized build
icompile --help	Display all command information
icompile --doc	Build documentation for your program using Doxygen

Then, run icompile --doc to generate documentation.

Finally, if you are using version control,

1. Make it ignore the following:
   • temp
   • build
   • data-files\log.txt
   • data-files\g3d-license.txt
2. Add the remaining files.
3. Commit/push.

Other Build Systems

You can use G3D with CMake, Xcode, Makefiles, etc. if you prefer. Copy the contents of G3D10/samples/starter to a new directory and add all of the .cpp files to your build system's project. You may delete the Visual Studio .sln and .vcproj files if you wish.

Link your program to the G3D static library and its static and dynamic dependencies. The clang++ linker options are below:

OS X Linker Options for clang++:

-std=c++1y -stdlib=libc++ -framework AGL -framework CoreVideo -lswscale.3 -lfmod
-framework IOKit -lnfd -lG3D-app -lG3D-gfx -lG3D-base -lassimp -lglfw -lglew -lenet -lfreeimage 
-framework Cocoa -lzip -framework OpenGL -lpthread -lavformat.56 -lz -lavcodec.56
-lavutil.54

Linux linker options for clang++:

-std=c++1y -stdlib=libc++ -lX11 -lGL -lswscale.3 -lfmod
-lnfd -lG3D-app -lG3D-gfx -lG3D-base -lassimp -lglfw -lglew -lenet -lfreeimage -lzip 
-lpthread -lavformat.56 -lz -lavcodec.56 -lavutil.54

When launched, G3D programs expect the working directory to be the data-files subdirectory of your project.

Be sure to read about the built-in G3D developer tools.