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Overlay Environment Setup (Windows)

-- Introduction --

The goal of this guide is to set up everything you need to compile custom Zelda actor overlay files on Windows.

-- msys2 --

Go to msys2.org and download and install msys2. If you're running 64-bit Windows, download the version labeled msys2-x86_64. As you navigate the installer, make sure it gets installed in the directory C:\msys64 (must be lowercase), and leave everything else at the default setting.

Depending on whether you installed 64-bit or 32-bit msys2, now download the appropriate msys2.reg below and allow the registry editor to run it:
If everything worked, you should be able to right-click on your desktop and click Open MSYS2 here. Do that. It should open a (command line) msys2 window. Keep it open for the following steps.

Final note: If you installed the 32-bit version of msys2, substitute msys64 with msys32 throughout the tutorial. mips64, however, should remain mips64.

-- n64 --

If you are unfamiliar with how the command line, you basically type commands and press the return/enter key on your keyboard to execute them. You're also able to copy and paste, but be careful to copy and paste only one line at a time. When you're prompted with a Y/N prompt, type Y before pressing the return key to say "yes", or N for "no".

First, type pacman -S --disable-download-timeout git gcc unzip and press the return key. Type Y for yes and press the return key to install.

Now do all of the following, one line at a time:

cd C:

git clone https://github.com/glankk/n64.git

cd n64

./install_deps

./configure --prefix=/opt/n64

make install-toolchain

It's going to take some time for it to do its thing. An hour or two, give or take.

Once that's complete, type make install-sys

-- z64ovl --

The last thing to do before closing this window is to copy and paste the following:

cd C:/msys64 && wget https://github.com/z64me/z64ovl/archive/master.zip && unzip -o master.zip && rm master.zip && mkdir opt/n64/mips64/include/z64ovl || mv -f z64ovl-master/* opt/n64/mips64/include/z64ovl

Any time you want to update z64ovl, copy and paste that into MSYS2.

-- nOVL --

Next, download novl.zip by ZZT32 (here), and extract novl.exe into C:\msys64\opt\n64\bin

-- etc/profile --

Finally, go to C:\msys64\etc and open the file named profile in Notepad++ (if you don't already have it, get it here). Scroll to the bottom of the file and add the following on a new line:

export PATH="$PATH:C:\msys64\opt\n64\bin"

Save your edit, and you should be good to go.

-- Closing --

To test if your installation works, follow the guide Custom Actor Overlay Workflow.