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Building CEGUI         Since the Ogre 1.7 version, CEGUI is not an Ogre dependency anymore using its own basic interface for its samples

General

Since the Ogre 1.7 version, {LEX()}CEGUI{LEX} is not an Ogre dependency anymore and was replaced with a very simple UI overlay used for the demos. Users now have to compile the CEGUI against Ogre by themselves. This guide was made to help accomplish this.

For versions 0.8.X and higher, as well as repository versions of CEGUI, we recommend you to use CEGUI wiki version of this site as this guide here is currently outdated!

If you want to use old versions of CEGUI and Ogre together, you can grab the latest precompiled dependencies from the Ogre download section and the CEGUI download section.
However it is recommended to use the latest official CEGUI version, together with a fitting Ogre version. Using the latest CEGUI release (0.8.2) together with Ogre is pretty straight-forward as CMake is being used there to replace premake. All you need to do is to fill out the CMake fields specifying the Ogre header and libs (as well as maybe also OIS if wanted) and generate your projects and building it.


The part below here refers to an older version of CEGUI (0.7) and is outdated for versions 0.8.X and higher

Here are all the links you will need:

  • For the source code it's recommended to get the latest stable branch from SVN (link leads to CEGUI 0.7 version which is the latest version right now). You can also just download it packed from here

Note: If the branch version's source code seems to be unstable or not working at all, you can try the latest stable snapshot which will most definitely be stable and working.

  • Additionally to the source code you will need dependencies suiting your compiler. Download them for your CEGUI version and unpack the "dependencies" folder into your CEGUI main folder, so that it will co-exist next to the folders "bin", "cegui","datafiles" etc.

  • Otherwise, if you find the info here unsufficient, you might wanna check this link on how to obtain libray source for CEGUI in the CEGUI wiki. Or you can just use the source code from any release package, which you can find in the CEGUI download section (link above).


Step-by-step guide

  1. Get the appropriate CEGUI version from the CEGUI download page or get the very latest CEGUI version from the SVN repository (see links and info above).
  2. Get the latest Ogre version. If you are compiling it yourself, you will need to build it first to get Ogre's .lib and .dll files ready for CEGUI.
  3. In your CEGUI folder there should be a folder called "projects" with a subfolder called "premake". It is recommended to use the custom premake version of CEGUI. Otherwise you can get version 3.6 or 3.7 of premake. Once you have premake extract the premake.exe file into the said folder.
  4. Open config.lua in the premake folder and edit the Ogre and OIS paths accordingly, so that they will point to the dependency files. In my case for example the 2 lines look like this (having the OGRE and CEGUI main folders on the same level):
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    OGRE_PATHS = { "../OGRE", "include/OGRE", "lib" } OIS_PATHS = { "../OGRE", "include/OIS", "lib" }

    Info Note: Remember to use forward slashes here! Just copying the paths from the Windows explorer will give you backward slashes. Replace them!
    Next, set all Renderers you do not need to "false", in this case we will only need OGRE_RENDERER. You can also set all samples to false, except maybe SAMPLES_OGRE if you want to compile those.
    Important: Since Ogre 1.7 the "boost" library is a new dependency of OGRE. If you are unsure if your Ogre version needs boost, you might want to check if there is a boost folder in your Ogre main folder. In case your Ogre version makes use of boost, you will additionally add boost to the extra paths of CEGUIOgreRenderer, in my case it looks like this:
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    CEGUI_EXTRA_PATHS = { { "../OGRE/boost_1_42", "", "lib", "CEGUIOgreRenderer" } }

    Info Note: Make sure the path to your boost folder uses the version number that matches your setup!
  5. Next, we create our Visual Studio Projects - Execute build_vs2008.bat to create a Visual Studio 2008 project or execute any other .bat file for your respective compiler version. (The next step will also explain how to proceed with other compilers.)
  6. This should create CEGUI.sln in the premake folder; open it.
    Info Note: If you are working Visual Studio 2010, use it to open the generated 2008 project. You will be asked if you want to convert it to a 2010 project, which should work without producing any errors.
    Info Note: If you're using MinGW, you can try the experimental CEGUI version; if that doesn't work (and you're using the Code::Blocks IDE), you might be able to import the Visual Studio solution (File > Import project > MS Visual Studio solution...).
  7. If you have the Ogre lib files separated into Debug and Release folders, you will have to change the path in the Linker settings of the project so they will point to the lib/Debug or lib/Release folder for each configuration respectively.
  8. Also, if you have the Ogre include files separated into OGRE and OIS folders, you will have to change the path in the C++ settings of the project so they will point to the include/OGRE
  9. Build the CEGUIOgreRenderer in Debug and Release mode. You must also build the CEGUIBase, CEGUIExpatParser and CEGUIFalagardWRBase projects to get their .dlls.
  10. Now that you have built the .dll files and .lib files for CEGUI by yourself, you only have to change the linker settings of your project so that the needed .lib files and their folder paths are included there. Also you might want to include the dll's into a folder where your executable application will find them (for example just the folder your executable starts from). Finally remember to set the CEGUI include directory (for example "..\..\CEGUI\cegui\include\cegui") inside your C++ project settings.



If everything worked out, you now have CEGUI up and running!

Questions

For any suggestions and questions send a PM to me (Ident) or just ask in the forums and someone else will help you for sure...
In case you need help building Ogre, I'd recommend reading for example this short guide.


Alias: Building_CEGUI