Ogre uses CMake as its build system on all supported platforms. This guide will explain to you how to use CMake to build Ogre from source.
- What is CMake?
CMake is a cross-platform build system - or perhaps more accurately a build configurator. It is a program which, from a set of CMake scripts, creates a native build system for your platform that allows you to build Ogre. The build process is configurable via CMake. Ogre provides several options which you can use to customise your build.
- Getting CMake
CMake is available from http://www.cmake.org (Resources -> Downloads). You can get its sources, but there are precompiled binaries for all platforms. Furthermore, if you are on a Linux system, chances are high that your distributor offers a package for CMake. You need a CMake version >= 2.6. For Ubuntu, type the following in a console to install CMake:
sudo apt-get install cmake-gui
- Getting dependencies
Ogre requires the freetype library, but there are other dependencies we strongly recommend you to use unless you know what you are doing. You can get source or binary packages for each from their respective websites listed below. We also offer precompiled dependencies or bundled source packages for certain platforms, please refer to our download page: http://www.ogre3d.org/download/source Linux distributions usually offer packages for each dependency. On Ubuntu Karmic, the following command will install all of the dependencies:
sudo apt-get install libfreetype6-dev libboost-date-time-dev \
libboost-thread-dev nvidia-cg-toolkit libfreeimage-dev \
zlib1g-dev libzzip-dev libsdl2-dev libcppunit-dev doxygen \
libxt-dev libxaw7-dev libxxf86vm-dev libxrandr-dev
If you cannot obtain prebuilt binaries of a dependency for your platform, please refer to the list below and get a source package from the website, then build it according to its documentation.
Required dependencies:
- freetype: http://www.freetype.org
Recommended dependencies:
- Boost: http://www.boost.org (+)
- Cg: http://developer.nvidia.com/object/cg_toolkit.html
- DirectX SDK: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/directx/
- zlib: http://www.zlib.net
- zziplib: http://zziplib.sourceforge.net
Optional dependencies:
- FreeImage: http://freeimage.sourceforge.net
- CppUnit: http://cppunit.sourceforge.net
- Doxygen: http://doxygen.org
- SDL: https://www.libsdl.org/
- POCO: http://pocoproject.org (+)
- TBB: http://www.threadingbuildingblocks.org (+)
(+) Boost is used to build threaded versions of Ogre. Only the boost-thread and boost-date-time libraries are required. For Visual C++ you can find binary installers at http://www.boostpro.com. Alternatively, you can use either POCO or TBB instead of Boost to enable thread support in Ogre.
- Preparing the build environment
You should now create a build directory for Ogre somewhere outside Ogre's sources. This is the directory where CMake will create the build system for your chosen platform and compiler, and this is also where the Ogre libraries will be compiled. This way, the Ogre source dir stays clean, and you can have multiple build directories all working from the same Ogre source. If you are on Windows, you should now gather all the compiled dependencies in a common directory called 'Dependencies'. Inside this directory you should have the subdirectories bin, lib and include where you place .dll, .lib and header files of the dependencies, respectively. (If you are using one of our precompiled binary packages, then this layout will already have been created for you.) This 'Dependencies' dir can then be placed either inside the Ogre source directory or inside your chosen build directory. You can also put it somewhere else, but you will then need to tell CMake the location as described below.
- Running CMake
Now start the program cmake-gui by either typing the name in a console
or selecting it from the start menu. In the field 'Where is the source
code' enter the path to the Ogre source directory (the directory which
contains this file). In the field 'Where to build the binaries' enter
the path to the build directory you created in step 4.
Hit 'Configure'. A dialog will appear asking you to select a generator.
Choose the appropriate one for your platform and compiler. On Unix, you
most likely want to use 'Unix Makefiles'; for Visual Studio select the
appropriate version and platform (Win32 | Win64); on Apple use Xcode.
Click 'Finish'. CMake will now gather some information about your
build environment and try to locate the dependencies (+). It will then show
a list of build options. You can adjust the settings to your liking; for
example unchecking any of the OGRE_BUILD_XXX options will disable that
particular component from being built. Once you are satisfied, hit
'Configure' again and then click on 'Generate'. CMake will then create
the build system for you.
(+) If you receive errors about dependencies not being found, even though
you have successfully installed or compiled them in step 3, then you may
need to tell CMake where to look. On Unix platforms CMake should usually
be able to pick up all the dependencies if they are installed in standard
locations. If you followed the advice of step 4 and put all dependencies
in a common directory, then you can specify that directory in the
variable OGRE_DEPENDENCIES_DIR. Otherwise, you can specify the directory
for each dependency individually. Click on 'Add entry' to add a new CMake
variable, then select 'PATH' as the type. The name of the variable is
XXX_HOME, where XXX is to be replaced by the dependency package, e. g.
ZLIB_HOME, ZZIP_HOME or FREETYPE_HOME. For the value, specify the directory
where the dependency can be found and click Ok. Once you are done, hit
'Configure' again.
- Building Ogre
Go to your chosen build directory. CMake has generated a build system for you which you will now use to build Ogre. If you are using Visual Studio, you should find the file OGRE.sln. Open it and compile the target 'BUILD_ALL'. Similarly you will find an Xcode project to build Ogre on MacOS. If you are using a Makefile generator, then instead open a console and cd to your build directory, then call the appropriate make program. E. g. on Linux type
make
to start the build process. If you have doxygen installed and CMake picked it up, then there will be an additional build target called doc which you can optionally build. This will freshly generate the API documentation for Ogre's classes from the header files. In Visual Studio, just select and build the target 'OgreDoc', on Linux type:
make OgreDoc
- Installing Ogre
Once the build is complete, you can optionally have the build system copy the built libraries and headers to a clean location. This location will strongly resemble the layout of our prebuilt Ogre SDKs. We recommend you do this step as it will make it easier to use Ogre in your projects. In Visual Studio, just select and build the target 'INSTALL'. This will create the folder 'sdk' inside your build directory and copy all the required libraries there. For Makefile based generators, type:
make install (or sudo make install, if root privileges are required)
On Linux Ogre will by default be installed to /usr/local. You can change the install location by changing the variable CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX in CMake.
- Building Ogre on Mac OS X for iOS OS
To build Ogre for iOS, you need to specify the ios cross toolchain to cmake as
cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=CMake/toolchain/ios.toolchain.xcode.cmake -G Xcode .
Unfortunately, you will now have to do a few manual steps to make the generated build system work properly.
A Xcode project has now been generated in the build directory, so to start the Ogre build, open OGRE.xcodeproj and build as usual. To run samples on your device you will need to have a valid iOS Developer certificate installed. For each sample, double click on target in the Groups & Files list. Ensure that a valid identity is selected in the Code Signing Identity drop menu. Also, because we can't tell CMake what Xcode project format you want, you will have to change it yourself. Open the Project Menu, choose Edit Project Settings. Click on the General tab in the settings window. Change Project Format to Xcode 3.1-compatible. And another thing. You will need to manually set the Bundle Identifier property of the Info.plist file to match the App ID of the chosen code signing identity. This can be done from the Target Properties panel. It must match the bundle identifier of a valid developer certificate if you are building for devices. See the following PDF for information under Generating an App ID: http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Xcode/Conceptual/iphone_development/index.html
- Building Ogre as Windows Store or Windows Phone application
You need Windows 8.0 or later, Windows 10 is recommended.
You need Visual Studio 2012 or later, Visual Studio 2015 is recommended as it is bundled with Universal 10.0.240.0, WinStore 8.0/8.1 and WinPhone 8.0/8.1 SDKs.
Download and install CMake 3.4 or later.
Patched dependencies must be used, compiled with appropriate WINAPI_FAMILY. Cg is not supported, and only headers from OIS are needed. You can use https://bitbucket.org/eugene_gff/ogre-dependencies-winrt - has VS2012 and VS2013 projects for Win32, WinRT (can be reused for WinPhone) Compile dependencies for all configurations that you plan to use before running CMake. Dependencies for Win32 and for WinRT must be located in separate folders, Win32 version can be built from OgreDependencies.VS201x.sln, WinRT from OgreDependencies.VS201x.WinRT.sln
Run CMake, specify source and binaries folders, than "Configure", select "Visual Studio 14 2015" generator and "Specify options for cross-compiling" option, specify Operating System = "WindowsStore" or "WindowsPhone", Version = "8.0", "8.1" or for UAP Operating System = "WindowsStore", Version = "10.0.10240.0", "10.0.10586.0" then "Finish", specify WinRT dependencies folder for OGRE_DEPENDENCIES_DIR, "Configure", should be no more errors, then press "Generate". If you want build time to be shorter - set OGRE_UNITY_BUILD to on.
Select SampleBrowser as the start up project and run.
Note 1: The code and generated CMake solution should be on local NTFS drive, and can't be on a network drive, including VMWare shared folders - or you will get a errors when you will try to compile/link/run resulting exe.
Note 2: Ogre uses d3dcompiler_xx.dll to compile shaders, and WinStore and WinPhone 8.1 projects can use it without restriction as it is part of OS. But WinStore and WinPhone 8.0 applications should load already compiled shaders from cache, as d3dcompiler_xx.dll is available to them only during development. Therefore to avoid necessity to deploy d3dcompiler_xx.dll during development (additional configurations with d3dcompiler_xx.dll) and generation of such cache - use version 8.1 of these platforms.
Note 3: Running WinPhone emulator in OS running under VMware: We were able to run the emulation and debug without an issue by using two steps: (a) Under the settings of the VM > CPU, make sure you have the option to pass-through the Intel VT-x/EPT feature, (b) Edit the config file .vmx and add the parameter: hypervisor.cpuid.v0 = "FALSE" All versions of Visual Studio 2012 have a window refresh issue when running in VMware and the window is maximized, the solution is just to change the size of the Visual Studio window to be less the the screen width and height.
- Building Ogre on Ubuntu for Android
To build Ogre for Android, you need to specify the ios cross toolchain to cmake as
cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=CMake/toolchain/android.toolchain.cmake -DANDROID_NDK=path/to/android-ndk .
this will build the core Ogre libraries. Also if your PATH contains the ndk-build and android executables it will generate the SampleBrowser APK.
To manually build the SampleBrowser, navigate your command prompt to the SampleBrowserNDK subfolder in your OGRE build folder and run:
ndk-build .
this will build the native library. Then run
ant debug install
to generate the APK and install it on your device.
- Buinding Ogre for HTML5 (Emscripten)
Install the Emscripten SDK and make sure that the environment variables are correctly set.
Run cmake in cross compile mode using emscripten as following:
cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=$EMSCRIPTEN/cmake/Modules/Platform/Emscripten.cmake .
in cmkae GUI change CMAKE_AR to emcc. Then run make.
this will not build the full SampleBrowser, but just a minimal Sample. The resulting EmscriptenSample.html will be placed in ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/bin/.
To prevent any cross-origin issues, start a local webserver as python3 -m http.server 8000 and visit localhost:8000.