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Building VCMI for macOS

Requirements

  1. C++ toolchain, either of:
  2. CMake: brew install --cask cmake or get from https://cmake.org/download/
  3. Optional:

Obtaining source code

Clone https://github.com/vcmi/vcmi with submodules. Example for command line:

1
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/vcmi/vcmi.git

Obtaining dependencies

There're 2 ways to get dependencies automatically.

We use this to produce builds on CI.

Please find detailed instructions here. Note that the link points to the state of the current branch, for the latest release check the same document in the master branch.

On the step where you need to replace PROFILE, choose:

  • if you're on an Intel Mac: macos-intel
  • if you're on an Apple Silicon Mac: macos-arm

Homebrew

  1. Install Homebrew
  2. Install dependencies: brew install boost minizip sdl2 sdl2_image sdl2_mixer sdl2_ttf tbb
  3. If you want to watch in-game videos, also install FFmpeg: brew install ffmpeg (you can also use an earlier FFmpeg version)
  4. Install Qt dependency in either of the ways (note that you can skip this if you're not going to build Launcher and Map editor):

Preparing build environment

This applies only to Xcode-based toolchain. If xcrun -f clang prints errors, then use either of the following ways:

  • select an Xcode instance from Xcode application - Preferences - Locations - Command Line Tools
  • use xcode-select utility to set Xcode or Xcode Command Line Tools path, example: sudo xcode-select -s /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools
  • set DEVELOPER_DIR environment variable pointing to Xcode or Xcode Command Line Tools path, example: export DEVELOPER_DIR=/Applications/Xcode.app

Configuring project for building

Note that if you wish to use Qt Creator or CLion IDE, you should skip this step and configure respective variables inside the IDE. Or you could create a CMake preset to avoid manual configuration.

The following walkthrough lists only the bare minimum of required CMake options.

  1. In Terminal cd to the source code directory
  2. Start assembling CMake invocation: type cmake -S . -B BUILD_DIR where BUILD_DIR can be any path, don't press Return
  3. Decide which CMake generator you want to use:
    • Xcode IDE (if you have installed it): pass -G Xcode
    • Ninja (if you have installed it): pass -G Ninja
    • Makefiles: no extra option needed or pass -G 'Unix Makefiles'
  4. If you picked Makefiles or Ninja, pick desired build type - either of Debug / RelWithDebInfo / Release / MinSizeRel - and pass it in CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE option, example: -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug. If you use don't pass this option, RelWithDebInfo will be used.
  5. Next step depends on the dependency manager you have picked:
    • Conan: pass --toolchain conan-generated/conan_toolchain.cmake (or via CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE variable) where conan-generated must be replaced with your directory choice
    • Homebrew: if you installed Qt 5 or from the Online Installer, you need to pass -D "CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=" variable. See below what you can insert after = (but before the closing quote), multiple values must be separated with ; (semicolon):
      • if you installed Qt 5 from Homebrew, insert $(brew --prefix qt@5)
      • if you installed Qt from Online Installer, insert your path to Qt directory, example: /Users/kambala/dev/Qt-libs/5.15.2/Clang64
  6. Now press Return

Building project

You must also install game files to be able to run the built version, see Installation on macOS.

From Xcode IDE

Open VCMI.xcodeproj from the build directory, select vcmiclient scheme and hit Run (Cmd+R). To build Launcher, select vcmilauncher scheme instead.

From command line

cmake --build <path to build directory>

  • If using Makefiles generator, you'd want to utilize all your CPU cores by appending -- -j$(sysctl -n hw.ncpu) to the above
  • If using Xcode generator, you can also choose which configuration to build by appending --config <configuration name> to the above, example: --config Debug

Running VCMI

You can run binaries from your IDE or directly from the bin directory:

  • BUILD_DIR/bin/vcmilauncher
  • BUILD_DIR/bin/vcmiclient
  • BUILD_DIR/bin/vcmiserver
  • BUILD_DIR/bin/vcmimapeditor