3DS Max Plugin Wizard with Visual Studio 2017

I'm trying to set up the 3DS max Plugin wizard with my Visual Studio 2017. Ofc i followed all the needed instructions, i set up the new absolute path directory, i made all files to be written on and not read only.

I can see the create a 3ds max plugin project in my visual studio, but when i click create projects, it just doesnt do anything and pops up back again to create a project.

I's there anyone out there who knows a possible solve? Is the 3ds max SDK not compatible with the 2017 version?

Solution

With 3ds Max 2019 and Visual Studio Community 2017, these steps worked for me:

From folder <maxsdk>\howto\3dsmaxPluginWizard, open 3dsmaxPluginWizard.vsz in a text editor
Change line starting with Wizard= to Wizard=VsWizard.VsWizardEngine.15.0. This might be the step you were missing.
Change line starting with Param="ABSOLUTE_PATH = to give the full absolute path of the folder <maxsdk>\howto\3dsmaxPluginWizard
Copy 3dsmaxPluginWizard.ico, 3dsmaxPluginWizard.ico and 3dsmaxPluginWizard.vsz to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\Common7\IDE\VC\vcprojects
Platform Toolset: After creating the project, make sure to change the setting Configuration Properties->General->Platform Toolset to Visual Studio 2015 (v140) at least for 3ds Max 2018 and 3ds Max 2019. The required Visual Studio versions for each 3ds Max version are listed on the help page here. To prevent this problem in the future, you could update the template by adding the following to \maxsdk\howto\3dsmaxPluginWizard\Templates\1033\root.vcxproj_template and replace v140 with the appropriate value as shown on the help page:
```
 <PropertyGroup Label="Configuration" >
  <PlatformToolset>v140</PlatformToolset>
 </PropertyGroup>
```
That's it! In Visual Studio 2017 select File->New->Project..., then (1) select the 3ds Max Plugin Wizard, enter a Name, Location and Solution name, click OK, then (2) for Plugin Type select any other, I've tested that Utility is working, then (3) for Plugin Details be sure to enter a plugin category and plugin description, which can be any text, then (4) for Plugin Details set paths for root folder and where you want the plugin to live and the install root folder. Project should be created and work fine. It's possible there are bugs with certain plugin types though.

Possible errors:

When creating a project, if you receive an error popup like Unable to read the project file with Name cannot begin with the '3' character, try again and fill all fields in the Project Details page of the wizard with the read absolute paths, like C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2018 SDK\maxsdk and 'C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2018'.
When building, if you receive an error like The imported project "somepath\3dsmax.general.project.settings.props" was not found, open the .vcxproj file in a text editor and fix the value enclosed in <MaxSDK> and </MaxSDK>. It should be the maxsdk location with subfolders for include, lib, samples, etc.
When building, if you receive an error like LINK : fatal error LNK1104: cannot open file 'bmm.lib' then make sure you are building in Release mode. Unless you have a 3ds Max Debug Build provided by the Autodesk Developer Network (ADN), then you will only have Release libraries available under maxsdk\lib\x64.