How do I resolve errors when building OGRE3D from source in Visual Studio 2015

Question

How am I to resolve the following errors, having built both OGRE and its only mandatory dependency (FreeType solutions) in CMake from source. FreeType compiles successfully in visual studio 2015, but when I try to compile OGRE it spits out the following errors. Any help you can offer will be greatly appreciated.

Severity    Code    Description Project File    Line
Warning C4251   'Ogre::DeflateStream::mCompressedStream': class 'Ogre::SharedPtr<Ogre::DataStream>' needs to have dll-interface to be used by     clients of class 'Ogre::DeflateStream'    OgreMain    C:\Users\User\Desktop\ogre_src_v1-8-  1\OgreMain\include\OgreDeflate.h  58
Warning C4251   'Ogre::DeflateStream::mReadCache': class 'Ogre::StaticCache<2048>' needs to have dll-interface to be used by clients of  class 'Ogre::DeflateStream'    OgreMain    C:\Users\User\Desktop\ogre_src_v1-8-1\OgreMain\include\OgreDeflate.h    65
Warning C4251   'Ogre::DeflateStream::mTempFileName': class 'std::basic_string<char,std::char_traits<char>,std::allocator<char>>' needs to have dll-interface to be used by clients of class 'Ogre::DeflateStream'  OgreMain    C:\Users\User\Desktop\ogre_src_v1-8-1\OgreMain\include\OgreDeflate.h    60
Warning C4251   'Ogre::DeflateStream::mTmpWriteStream': class 'Ogre::SharedPtr<Ogre::DataStream>' needs to have dll-interface to be used by clients of class 'Ogre::DeflateStream'  OgreMain    C:\Users\User\Desktop\ogre_src_v1-8-1\OgreMain\include\OgreDeflate.h    59
Error   C1083   Cannot open include file: 'zlib.h': No such file or directory   OgreMain    C:\Users\User\Desktop\ogre_src_v1-8-1\OgreMain\src\OgreDeflate.cpp  32
Error   LNK1181 cannot open input file '..\..\lib\Release\OgreMain.lib' OgrePaging  C:\Users\User\Desktop\OGRE2\Components\Paging\LINK  1
Error   LNK1181 cannot open input file '..\..\lib\Release\OgreMain.lib' Plugin_PCZSceneManager  C:\Users\User\Desktop\OGRE2\PlugIns\PCZSceneManager\LINK    1
Error   LNK1181 cannot open input file '..\..\lib\Release\OgreMain.lib' OgreMeshUpgrader    C:\Users\User\Desktop\OGRE2\Tools\MeshUpgrader\LINK 1
Error   LNK1181 cannot open input file '..\..\lib\Release\OgreMain.lib' OgreRTShaderSystem  C:\Users\User\Desktop\OGRE2\Components\RTShaderSystem\LINK  1
Error   LNK1181 cannot open input file '..\..\lib\Release\OgreMain.lib' OgreXMLConverter    C:\Users\User\Desktop\OGRE2\Tools\XMLConverter\LINK 1
Error   LNK1181 cannot open input file '..\..\lib\Release\OgreMain.lib' Plugin_BSPSceneManager  C:\Users\User\Desktop\OGRE2\PlugIns\BSPSceneManager\LINK    1
Error   LNK1181 cannot open input file '..\..\lib\Release\OgreMain.lib' Plugin_OctreeSceneManager   C:\Users\User\Desktop\OGRE2\PlugIns\OctreeSceneManager\LINK 1
Error   LNK1181 cannot open input file '..\..\lib\Release\OgreMain.lib' Plugin_ParticleFX   C:\Users\User\Desktop\OGRE2\PlugIns\ParticleFX\LINK 1
Error   LNK1181 cannot open input file '..\..\lib\Release\OgreMain.lib' RenderSystem_GL C:\Users\User\Desktop\OGRE2\RenderSystems\GL\LINK   1
Error   LNK1181 cannot open input file '..\..\lib\Release\OgrePaging.lib'   OgreTerrain C:\Users\User\Desktop\OGRE2\Components\Terrain\LINK 1
Error   LNK1181 cannot open input file '..\..\lib\Release\Plugin_PCZSceneManager.lib'   Plugin_OctreeZone   C:\Users\User\Desktop\OGRE2\PlugIns\OctreeZone\LINK 1

Answer 1

There are more dependencies than only FreeType. There is an official, dedicated repository that contains everything relevant, including zlib:

https://bitbucket.org/cabalistic/ogredeps

Clone / download that and make sure that OgreMain can see it, e.g. by putting it into a folder named "Dependencies" inside the root of your Ogre source folder. Then it should get picked up by the regular CMake scripts.

Answer 2

Your OgreMain project isn't finding the file zlib.h. You need to make sure that you have the dependencies include directory included in OgreMain's include path so that it can locate the zlib.h file.