Cutter
C++ RifPlugins

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Summary of Cutter's Features

    Easy compilation and building of rif plugins
    Header file Lookup
    Typing Completion
    Lookup of Pixar Documentation

Compiling and Building a Rif Plugin

On linux and MacOSX Cutter creates and executes a makefile that it automatically generates and maintains. On Windows, Cutter creates and runs a ".bat" file that references a Microsoft Visual Studio file named "vcvarsamd64_x86.bat" (VS 14) or "vcvars86_amd64.bat" (earlier versions of VS). With VS 14 the ".bat" file is located here.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\bin\amd64_x86\vcvarsamd64_x86.bat

If the reader has installed either the full commercial licensed version of VS or the free Community version of VS and the ".bat" file cannot be found they should reinstall their version of VS using "custom install" with the following options selected so they have access to so-called "command line tools".

Figure 3

Compiling, linking and building a plugin is activated by the keyboard shortcut alt+e, control+e or apple+e. On OSX and Linux a Process Monitor window will open and report the creation of a plugin. For example, if the plugin presented in the tutorial,
    "RifPlugin: Particles"
is built. On OSX Cutter would report the folloiwng message - figure 1.

Figure 1 - Comfirmation of a successful build on OSX

On Windows the process monitor would report,
    Creating library Particles.lib and object Particles.exp
On Linux and OSX the plugin would be named Particles.so and it's corresponding makefile would be "Makefile.Particles". On Windows the plugin file would be named Particles.dll and it's makefile would be "Build_CutrBBones.bat".

Setting the C++ Path

Windows users must have the MicroSoft Visual Studio (MVS) software installed on their computer. Cutter uses a MVS file named "vcvarsx86_amd64.bat" to perform command line compiling, linking and building of .dll files. Go to the
    Preference Tool->Languages->Cpp tab
to set the path to the .bat file - figure 2.

Figure 2
Setting the path to the "vcvarsx86_amd64.bat" file - Windows users only.

Linux and OSX users do not have to make any changes to the Cutter's Cpp preferences.

Setting the Devkit Path

All users must set the path to the devkit resouces. For example, on OSX it might be,

Figure 3
Setting the path to RPS - all users.

Header file Lookup

When editing a rif plugin source code file a popup menu (right mouse click) can be used to refer to a selected item. For example, to find the declaration of RiPointsV method...

Figure 4

Pixar header files may be conventiently opened by right mouse clicking on their name - figure 5.

Figure 5 - Opening a Header File

Typing Completion

After entering the first 3 characters of a word Cutter will open a typing completion popup menu. The tab key will insert the selected item.

Figure 6

Lookup of Pixar's RifPlugin Documentation

Alt + double clicking on a word will open a browser and reference the rif plugin web page.