@d-healey
Finally I (think I) successfully built HISE from Source.
There is a small but important note:
I downloaded the Windows SDK,
and I've found out that is the newest version,
which for some reason HISE Exporter didn't like or something,
so it needed exactly the 10.0.16229.0 Windows SDK Version,
and I could get that only by opening the Visual Studio 2017 installer again,
and I had to click the "Modify" button,
and I had to check the "Windows 10 SDK (10.0.16299.0) for Desktop C++ [x86 and x64]" checkbox
Now that I have HISE working,
I already successfully Exported a 64-bit Windows VSTi with it,
but now I just don't know what settings I messed up in HISE,
because I loaded the exported VSTi successfully into my DAW,
and the plugin is asking for samples,
the exported plugin asks:
"Please click below to install the samples from the downloaded archive or point to the location where you've already installed the samples."
and there are 2 buttons:
1.) "Install Samples"
2.) "Choose Sample Folder"
(My HISE project's name (so my exported VSTi plugin's name) is "Hp-2018-10-20-g".)
When I click on the "Install Samples" button,
I get a message with this Title:
"Choose the Sample Archive"
And the message itself is this:
"Please select Hp-2018-10-20-g Resources 1.0.0.hr1 file that you've downloaded"
Then I click the "OK" button,
and it wants me to find an ".hr1" file,
but I don't know where it is,
or what should I set differently in HISE before I re-try exporting again.
I would like to tell HISE to NOT MAKE any sample folder outside the exported plugin,
just EMBED the sounds in the exported plugin itself.
The "Embed Audio"-thing was turned ON.
I seemingly I successfully installed the samples for the exported VSTi (the exported VSTi wanted me to do this),
but now I have another message from the exported VSTi,
it says:
"The sample directory could not be located. Click below to choose the sample folder."
I'm stuck at this point again,
because after I give it the directory with the Windows "file-manager-browser"-thing,
I have the same message that I got first time:
"Please click below to install the samples from the downloaded archive or point to the location where you've already installed the samples."
and the same 2 buttons
I did it one more time,
but this time I got an "Ignore" button too,
so I tried that out,
and now any time when I load this exported VSTi, I don't get any sound of it,
I get the plugin, but there is no sound,
and now I don't get the messages and the buttons,
so I can't choose sample locations too.
So I will re-build this VSTi,
but what should I do differently?
What should I do differently for have the samples embedded inside the VSTi's .dll file (or how it works I don't know)?
Can I set this up without any sample folder, but using only embeded sounds inside the VSTi dll file itself somehow?
Sorry for the long read, and thanks for your patience,
I'm just trying to figure this out,
but it's a little bit hard for me,
I'm not a programmer or developer,
I'm just interested to experiment with HISE,
so if I can understand it better,
I might make some simple sample libraries for myself first, I guess, I who knows the future..