Downloading and installing the FBX SDK

To download and install the FBX SDK on WIndows:

1. Go to http://www.autodesk.com/fbx.
2. Navigate to the Downloads page, and follow any instructions.
3. Find the version of FBX SDK 2012.2 for Windows.
4. Download the distribution file for Windows to your computer. The distribution file is a Setup program, i.e., an executable.
5. Execute the Setup program, and follow the instructions.
6. The Setup program will let you specify a destination folder. Specify a folder which is new or empty. We will call this as <yourFBXSDKpath>, your distribution directory for FBX SDK.
7. Read <yourFBXSDKpath>\readme.txt. This Readme file contains detailed information about changes in FBX SDK since the previous version, as well as any last-minute documentation.

Notes:

• The Setup program does not modify the Windows Registry or the Windows Start menu.
• You can have more than one version of the FBX SDK installed on your computer, providing you install each version in a separate folder.

Uninstalling the FBX SDK

To remove the FBX SDK from your computer:

1. Run <yourFBXSDKpath>\uninstall.exe.

Runtime libraries for Windows

Make sure to use the appropriate runtime library depending on your version of Visual Studio, and processor architecture. The following table summarizes the library directory structure depending on your version of the FBX SDK for Windows.

The following table presents the FBX SDK library filenames and their descriptions.

The following table provides a description of the runtime library options. These descriptions can also be found at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/2kzt1wy3.aspx.

Configuring Visual Studio

The instructions in this section are based on Visual Studio 2005. Except where noted, there are no significant differences for Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2010.

To create a new Visual Studio solution that uses FBX SDK:

1. Start Visual Studio.
2. To create a new project, choose New > Project from the File menu:
   
3. In Project Types, choose Visual C++ > Win32.
4. Continue as usual, then click Finish. Your new project and solution will appear.
5. To open the Property Manager tab, choose Property Manager from the View Manager:
6. In the Property Manager, right-click on the project, and choose Properties:
   
7. In the property tree on the left of the Property Pages dialog box, choose Configuration Properties > C/C++ > General.
8. In the properties sheet on the right of that same dialog box, choose Additional Include Directories. The Additional Include Directories dialog box will open (as shown before the previous step).
9. In the list box at the top of the Additional Include Directories dialog box, click the top blank line until you see a control to browse for directories.
10. Use this control to add the full path for the <yourFBXSDKpath>\include directory. By default, the path is: C:\Program_Files\Autodesk\FBX\FbxSdk\2012.2\include\fbxfilessdk\
11. In the tree on the left of the dialog box, choose Code Generation. In the property sheet on the right, choose Runtime Library:
    
12. Use the drop-down list box to choose the type of run-time library that your project will be generating. The list correspond to Visual C++ compiler options: /MD, /MDd, /MT, /MTd, etc. Not all compiler options are available for all versions of Visual Studio (see runtime libraries for Windows).
13. In the Property Pages dialog box, choose Linker > General:
14. Go to Configuration Properties -> Linker:
    
15. Click Additional Library Dependencies, then use the browse control to enter the full path for the <yourFBXSDKpath>\lib folder of the FBX SDK distribution. By default, the full path for the 32-bit Visual Studio 2005 version of the FBX SDK would be: C:\Program_Files\Autodesk\FBX\FbxSdk\2012.2\lib\vs2005\x86
16. Click Input on the left, then choose Additional Dependencies on the right. Use the Additional Dependencies dialog box to add the appropriate FBX SDK library. For a table describing the available FBX SDK library files, see runtime libraries for Windows.
17. In the previous step, if you selected an FBX SDK library that is either for creating /MTd or /MDd runtimes, then you must do the following:

    Click Input on the left, then choose Ignore Specific Library on the right. In the Ignore Specific Library dialog box, enter LIBMCT.

18. Click Input on the left. In the Additional Dependencies field on the right, enter wininet.lib.

Important notes on preprocessor definitions for your projects

If you are using a dynamic library version of the FBX SDK, add "FBXSDK_SHARED" to the preprocessor definitions of your project. To do this in Visual Studio, right-click on your project, select: "Properties" -> "Configuration Properties" -> "C/C++" -> "Preprocessor", and edit the "Preprocessor Definitions" field. In previous releases of the FBX SDK, the dynamic library versions required the "KFBX_DLLINFO" preprocessor definition; this is no longer required as of FBX SDK 2012.0.

As of FBX SDK 2012.0, static libraries are built with _SECURE_SCL=1, which is the default value in Visual Studio projects. If your project used to define _SECURE_SCL=0 to link with previous versions of the FBX SDK, it can now safely be removed from the predefined preprocessor identifiers.