Building the project

Building on Android

Android build requires Android SDK and NDK installed, see Get started with the NDK. Assembling APK files also requires Gradle. Path to Gradle can be supplied by GRADLE_HOME environment variable if not detected automatically. The build can be configured using a similar command as above:

mkdir build
cmake -B build -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug \
    -D NCINE_BUILD_ANDROID=ON \
    -D NCINE_UNIVERSAL_APK=ON \
    -D NCINE_NDK_ARCHITECTURES="arm64-v8a;armeabi-v7a"

See Platform-specific parameters for Android for more details. Then following commands can be used to build the project and assemble the APK file:

make -j $(nproc) -C build
cd build
gradle assembleDebug

Alternatively, replace assembleDebug with assembleRelease to create release APK file.

Building on Windows

On Windows, Visual Studio can be used. Using already included .sln is not recommended, because it requires manual configuration and doesn't support all features and parameters. Instead the project can be opened as CMake directory directly in Visual Studio, or it can be configured using a similar command as above:

mkdir build
cmake -B build -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -A x64 ^
    -D CMAKE_SYSTEM_PROCESSOR=x64 ^
    -D NCINE_CREATE_CONTENT_SYMLINK=ON

See Platform-specific parameters for Windows for more details. To build it for 32-bit operating system, use Win32 instead of x64. To change version of VS toolset, use -D CMAKE_GENERATOR_TOOLSET=… parameter. By default CMake creates a new Visual Studio .sln solution and project files in "build" directory that can be opened easily afterwards. Building with Clang-CL compiler is also possible specifying -T ClangCL parameter.

Building for Xbox (Universal Windows Platform)

The same commands can be used as for Windows, but two additional parameters must be specified to change the target:

cmake -B build -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -A x64 ^
    -D CMAKE_SYSTEM_PROCESSOR=x64 ^
    -D CMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME=WindowsStore ^
    -D CMAKE_SYSTEM_VERSION="10.0"

Additionaly, a code-signing certificate is required to create an installable .msixbundle package. See Platform-specific parameters for Universal Windows Platform for more details.

Build configuration parameters

By default it tries to find the first available backend for the currently installed libraries. GLFW is usually preferred over SDL2, because it's more lightweight. On the other hand, SDL2 usually has better gamepad support and better support in general. The following parameters can be used to customize the build:

• CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE — Build configuration
  • Possible values: Debug, Release
• CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX (default "/usr/local") — Install prefix on Unix systems
• NCINE_CONTENT_DIR (default "./Content") — Path to the "Content" game data directory
  • Some build targets include "Content" directory directly inside the executable package (e.g., Android)
• NCINE_CREATE_CONTENT_SYMLINK (default OFF) — Create symbolic link to the "Content" game data directory in target directory
  • Ignored on Android, Emscripten, Nintendo Switch and UWP platforms
• NCINE_DOWNLOAD_DEPENDENCIES (default ON) — Download all missing dependencies automatically
• NCINE_EMBED_SHADERS (default ON) — Embed shader files in executable
• NCINE_PREFERRED_BACKEND (default "GLFW") — Preferred backend on desktop
  • Possible values: GLFW, SDL2
  • Ignored on Android and UWP platforms
• NCINE_VERSION_FROM_GIT (default ON) — Set current game version from Git repository automatically
• NCINE_WITH_THREADS (default ON except on Emscripten) — Allow to use multiple threads for better performance
• NCINE_WITH_OPENGLES (default OFF) — Use OpenGL|ES library instead of OpenGL
• NCINE_WITH_ANGLE (default OFF except on UWP) — Enable Google ANGLE library support
• NCINE_WITH_GLEW (default ON) — Use GLEW library
• NCINE_WITH_BACKWARD (default ON except on Android, Emscripten and UWP) — Enable better exception handling
• NCINE_WITH_WEBP deprecated — Enable .webp image file support, requires libwebp library
• NCINE_WITH_AUDIO (default ON) — Enable audio support, requires OpenAL library
• NCINE_WITH_VORBIS (default ON) — Enable .ogg audio file support, requires libvorbis library
• NCINE_WITH_OPENMPT (default ON) — Enable module music audio file support, requires libopenmpt library
  • NCINE_COMPILE_OPENMPT (default OFF) — Download and compile libopenmpt library from source automatically
• NCINE_WITH_ANGELSCRIPT (default OFF) — Enable AngelScript scripting support
  • ANGELSCRIPT_VERSION_TAG allows to specify the version to be downloaded if NCINE_DOWNLOAD_DEPENDENCIES is enabled
• NCINE_WITH_LUA deprecated — Enable Lua scripting support
• NCINE_WITH_IMGUI (default OFF) — Enable integration with Dear ImGui library
  • IMGUI_VERSION_TAG allows to specify the version to be downloaded