lovr/COMPILING.md

Compiling LÖVR

You might want to compile LÖVR from source so you can use LÖVR on other operating systems or create a custom build. Below is a guide for setting up all the dependencies and compiling the code on various operating systems.

Dependencies

• Lua or LuaJIT
• GLFW (3.2+)
• OpenGL (3.3, ES3, or WebGL 2)
• assimp
• OpenVR (1.0.9, for lovr.headset)
• PhysicsFS
• OpenAL (1.17+ recommended for HRTF support)
• FreeType
• msdfgen
• ODE (for lovr.physics)
• Emscripten (optional, for compiling for web)

The lovr-deps repository contains all dependencies as git submodules. The build script expects this repository to exist under lovr/deps:

cd lovr
git clone --recursive https://github.com/bjornbytes/lovr-deps deps

Windows (CMake)

From the lovr folder, run these commands to create a build folder and compile the project using CMake:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build .

The executable will then exist at /path/to/lovr/build/Debug/lovr.exe. A LÖVR project (a folder containing a main.lua script) can then be dropped onto lovr.exe to run it, or it can be run via the command line as lovr.exe path/to/project.

Unix (CMake)

Install the dependencies using your package manager of choice:

brew install assimp glfw3 luajit physfs freetype openal-soft ode

Next, build using CMake, as above:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build .

The lovr executable should exist in lovr/build now. It's recommended to set up an alias or symlink so that this executable exists on your path. Once that's done, you can run a game like this:

lovr /path/to/myGame

WebVR

First, install the Emscripten SDK. Make sure you're running this branch of Emscripten.

Unix:

mkdir build
cd build
emcmake cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
emmake make -j2

Windows (from a Visual Studio Command Prompt, make sure the Emscripten SDK is on PATH):

mkdir build
cd build
emcmake cmake -G "NMake Makefiles" ..
emmake nmake

The above commands will output lovr.html, lovr.js, and lovr.js.mem. To package a game, run:

python /path/to/emscripten/tools/file_packager.py game.data --preload /path/to/game@/ --js-output=game.js

Which will output game.js and game.data. The lovr.html file will need to be modified to include game.js in a script tag.

Troubleshooting

• If you get "CMake no CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER found" on Windows, then install Visual Studio and create a blank C++ project, which will prompt you to install the compilers and tools necessary to compile LÖVR.