Build Changes

New preprocessor definition

You must set the WIN64 preprocessor definition in your project configuration settings.

Build configurations

The official build configuration has changed in 3ds Max 2014. In 3ds Max 2013, the official MSBuild configuration property was DebugUnicode, HybridUnicode, and RelaseUnicode. In 3ds Max 2014, the Unicode part is removed and the official build configurations are Debug, Hybrid, and Release.

Directories and property sheets

In this release, many build settings were migrated to property sheets. This reduced duplication of build properties in Visual Studio project files, but also resulted in slight changes to the SDK folder structure. Now, the assemblies, libraries, and plug-ins are located in the following directories:

• <maxsdk>\assemblies\x64\Release
• <maxsdk>\lib\x64\Release
• <maxsdk>\plugin\x64\Release

These build locations are specified as MSBuild properties in a property sheet that is located at: .\maxsdk\ProjectSettings\propertySheets\3dsmax.general.project.settings.props.

See the following example:

… <!-- The directory where the SDK resides -->
<MaxSdkDir>$([System.IO.Path]::GetFullPath('$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)..\..\'))</MaxSdkDir>
<!-- The directory where the SDK how to example projects are built -->
<MaxSdkPlugin>$(MaxSdkDir)\plugin\$(MaxPlatform)\$(MaxConfiguration)\</MaxSdkPlugin>
<!-- The directory in the SDK where managed plug-in assemblies are copied -->
<MaxSdkAssemblies>$(MaxSdkDir)\assemblies\$(MaxPlatform)\$(MaxConfiguration)\</MaxSdkAssemblies>
<!-- The include directory for header files in the public SDK -->
<MaxSdkInc>$(MaxSdkDir)\include</MaxSdkInc>
…
<!-- The public Max SDK library directory -->
<MaxSdkLib>$(MaxSdkDir)lib\$(Platform)\$(Configuration)\</MaxSdkLib>
…

These build properties can be used to simplify the maintenance of your project files.