General Build Information
Last Updated on March 8, 2021
OS Specific Build Guides
Build Windows - complete instructions for Windows.
Build Linux - additional instructions for Linux.
Build OSX - additional instructions for OS X.
Build Android - additional instructions for Android.
Dependencies
CMake External Project Dependencies
These dependencies need not be installed manually. They are automatically downloaded on the platforms where they are required.
Bullet Physics Engine: 2.83
glm: 0.9.8
Oculus SDK: 1.11 (Windows) / 0.5 (Mac)
OpenVR: 1.11.11 (Windows, Linux)
Polyvox: 0.2.1
QuaZip: 0.7.3
SDL2: 2.0.3
zlib: 1.28 (Win32 only)
nvtt: 2.1.1 (customized)
The above dependencies will be downloaded, built, linked and included automatically by CMake where we require them. The CMakeLists files that handle grabbing each of the following external dependencies can be found in the cmake/externals folder. The resulting downloads, source files and binaries will be placed in the build/ext
folder in each of the subfolders for each external project.
These are not placed in your normal build tree when doing an out of source build so that they do not need to be re-downloaded and re-compiled every time the CMake build folder is cleared. Should you want to force a re-download and re-compile of a specific external, you can simply remove that directory from the appropriate subfolder in build/ext
. Should you want to force a re-download and re-compile of all externals, just remove the build/ext
folder.
CMake
Overte uses CMake to generate build files and project files for your platform.
Qt
CMake will download Qt 5.15.2 using vcpkg.
To override this - i.e., use an installed Qt configuration - you need to set a QT_CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH environment variable pointing to your Qt lib/cmake folder. This can either be entered directly into your shell session before you build or in your shell profile (e.g.: ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc - this depends on your shell and environment). The path it needs to be set to will depend on where and how Qt5 was installed.
For example, under Linux:
export QT_CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/usr/local/Qt5.15.2/gcc_64/lib/cmake
export QT_CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/usr/local/qt/5.15.2/clang_64/lib/cmake/
export QT_CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/usr/local/Cellar/qt5/5.15.2/lib/cmake
export QT_CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/usr/local/opt/qt5/lib/cmake
For example, under Windows:
set QT_CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=C:\Qt\5.15.2\msvc2019_64\lib\cmake
For example, under OSX:
export QT_CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/usr/local/Cellar/qt5/5.15.2/lib/cmake
Note: You only need the following components checked under Qt 5.15.2 (select the "Custom Installation" option): "MSVC 2019 64-bit", "Qt WebEngine", and "Qt Script (Deprecated)".
Note: Installing the sources is optional but recommended if you have room for them (~3GB). You may also want the Qt debug information files (~7GB).
Note: Installing Qt Creator is optional but recommended if you will be editing QML files.
VCPKG
Overte uses vcpkg to download and build dependencies. You do not need to install vcpkg.
Building the dependencies can be lengthy and the resulting files will be stored in your OS temp directory. However, those files can potentially get cleaned up by the OS, so in order to avoid this and having to redo the lengthy build step, you can set an environment variable.
Linux:
export HIFI_VCPKG_BASE=/path/to/directory
Windows:
set HIFI_VCPKG_BASE=/path/to/directory
Where /path/to/directory
is the path to a directory where you wish the build files to get stored.
Generating Build Files
Possible Environment Variables
// The URL to post the dump to.
CMAKE_BACKTRACE_URL
// The identifying tag of the release.
CMAKE_BACKTRACE_TOKEN
// The release version, e.g., 2021.3.2.
RELEASE_NUMBER
// The build commit, e.g., use a Git hash for the most recent commit in the branch - fd6973b.
BUILD_NUMBER
// The type of release.
RELEASE_TYPE=PRODUCTION|PR|DEV
// The Interface will have a custom default home and startup location.
PRELOADED_STARTUP_LOCATION=Location/IP/URL
// The Interface will have a custom default script whitelist, comma separated, no spaces.
// This will also activate the whitelist on Interface's first run.
PRELOADED_SCRIPT_WHITELIST=ListOfEntries
// Code-signing environment variables must be set during runtime of CMake AND globally when the signing takes place.
HF_PFX_FILE=Path to certificate
HF_PFX_PASSPHRASE=Passphrase for certificate
// Determine the build type
PRODUCTION_BUILD=0|1
PR_BUILD=0|1
STABLE_BUILD=0|1
// Determine if to utilize testing or stable directory services URLs
USE_STABLE_GLOBAL_SERVICES=1
BUILD_GLOBAL_SERVICES=STABLE
Generate Files
Create a build directory in the root of your checkout and then run the CMake build from there. This will keep the rest of the directory clean.
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
If CMake gives you the same error message repeatedly after the build fails, try removing CMakeCache.txt
.
Generating a release/debug only vcpkg build
In order to generate a release or debug only vcpkg package, you could use the use the VCPKG_BUILD_TYPE
define in your CMake generate command. Building a release only vcpkg can drastically decrease the total build time.
For release only vcpkg:
cmake .. -DVCPKG_BUILD_TYPE=release
For debug only vcpkg:
cmake .. -DVCPKG_BUILD_TYPE=debug
Variables
Any variables that need to be set for CMake to find dependencies can be set as ENV variables in your shell profile, or passed directly to CMake with a -D
flag appended to the cmake ..
command.
For example, to pass the QT_CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH variable (if not using the vcpkg'ed version) during build file generation:
cmake .. -DQT_CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/usr/local/qt/5.12.3/lib/cmake
Finding Dependencies
The following applies for dependencies we do not grab via CMake ExternalProject (OpenSSL is an example), or for dependencies you have opted not to grab as a CMake ExternalProject (via -DUSE_LOCAL_$NAME=0). The list of dependencies we grab by default as external projects can be found in the CMake External Project Dependencies section.
You can point our CMake find modules to the correct version of dependencies by setting one of the three following variables to the location of the correct version of the dependency.
In the examples below the variable $NAME would be replaced by the name of the dependency in uppercase, and $name would be replaced by the name of the dependency in lowercase (ex: OPENSSL_ROOT_DIR, openssl).
$NAME_ROOT_DIR - pass this variable to Cmake with the -DNAME_ROOT_DIR= flag when running Cmake to generate build files
$NAME_ROOT_DIR - set this variable in your ENV
HIFI_LIB_DIR - set this variable in your ENV to your Overte lib folder, should contain a folder '$name'
Optional Components
Build Options
The following build options can be used when running CMake
BUILD_CLIENT
BUILD_SERVER
BUILD_TESTS
BUILD_TOOLS
CLIENT_ONLY // Will package only the Interface
SERVER_ONLY // Will package only the Server
Optimization build options
OVERTE_OPTIMIZE - This variable defaults to 1 if not set and enables compiler optimization flags on Linux and MacOS. Setting it to 0 will result in unoptimized build.
OVERTE_CPU_ARCHITECTURE - This variable contains architecture specific compiler flags which are used if
OVERTE_OPTIMIZE
is true. If it is not set, it defaults to-march=native -mtune=native
, which helps yield more performance for locally used build, but for packaging it needs to be set to different value for portability, for example-msse3
. SettingOVERTE_CPU_ARCHITECTURE
to empty string will use default compiler settings and yield maximum compatibility.
Developer Build Options
USE_GLES
DISABLE_UI
Devices
You can support external input/output devices such as Leap Motion, MIDI, and more by adding each individual SDK in the visible building path. Refer to the readme file available in each device folder in interface/external/ for the detailed explanation of the requirements to use the device.