Cinder

Windows Setup

Cinder on Windows is designed to use Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, and works with both the commercial version and the freely available Express editions. If you don't already have it installed, you can download Visual C++ Express here.


If you are you using an Express edition of Visual C++ and you have never installed the Platform SDK, you'll want to do that too - just download and run the installer here.


You'll need the DirectX SDK - Download the August 2009 version here. You'll also need to tell Visual Studio how to find the DirectX header files. Select Tools | Options from the menu bar and find VC++ Directories in the Projects and Solutions group. Choose Include Files from the Show directories for dropdown list and click the New Folder icon. Enter $(DXSDK_DIR)\include and click OK.


DirectX include path

Lastly, you'll need to grab the QuickTime SDK 7.3 from Apple which requires you to have a free ADC login. Cinder expects QuickTime to exist in the same directory it does, as QuickTimeSDK-7.3. Be sure to install it accordingly when prompted by the installer. Your directories should look about like this:

folders

If you are using one of our packaged releases, you should be all set. However if you are building from our Github repository skip down to the advanced section.


Let's try opening and building one of the samples. From Windows Explorer, navigate to the cinder\samples\QuickTime\vc9 folder and double-click quickTimeSample.sln.


Under the Debug menu select Start Debugging and click Yes when prompted to build the project. The QuickTime sample will launch and present you with an Open dialog. Select a QuickTime movie on your hard drive, and you should see something about like this:

QuickTime sample

Especially as we continue to develop the documentation, the samples are the best way to get started learning Cinder. Don't be afraid to modify them and experiment. And if you haven't read Robert Hodgin's Hello, Cinder tutorial, you should go do that first.

Advanced - Building Cinder

If you are building Cinder from the source, available on our Github repository, you have just a couple of additional steps remaining. As an aside, if you are brand new to Cinder, you maybe happier just using one of our packaged releases.


You'll want to grab the latest Boost, currently version 1.42, which you can download here. After dearchiving it, you'll want to take the resulting directory and put it directly into your Cinder directory, and name it boost.


Everything look good? Let's try to build Cinder then. Open up the Visual Studio solution in cinder\vc9\cinder.sln. Under the Build menu select Batch Build, and click the checkboxes corresponding to both the Debug and Release build configurations, and then hit the Build button.

Batch Build

This will take a second, but once everything succeeds, there should exist the files cinder.lib and cinder_d.lib at the path cinder\libs