This guide covers the process of compiling the NeL engine using Visual Studio 2019 or later on Windows. The steps below will help you set up the environment, clone the repository, and build the project.

Download and extract the 3rd party external libraries package.

• Source: (Optional) https://cdn.ryzom.dev/core/2022q2_external_v143_x64_src.7z (1.29 GiB)
  • Extract to C:\2022q2_external_v143_x64_src
• Binaries and Debug Symbols: https://cdn.ryzom.dev/core/2022q2_external_v143_x64.7z (1.31 GiB)
  • Extract to C:\2022q2_external_v143_x64

Make sure to have the following tools and SDKs installed on your system.

• Git: https://www.sourcetreeapp.com/ or https://community.chocolatey.org/packages/git
• Visual Studio 2022: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/
  • Workloads: Desktop development with C++
    • Individual components:
      • Windows 11 SDK (latest)
      • C++ MFC for latest v143 build tools (x86 & x64)
      • C++ ATL for latest v143 build tools (x86 & x64)
• Microsoft DirectX SDK (June 2010): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=6812
• CMake: https://cmake.org/ or https://community.chocolatey.org/packages/cmake

Open a command line terminal, and browse to a directory where you want to build your project. Clone the Ryzom Core repository from GitHub into a ryzomcore subdirectory.

git clone https://github.com/ryzom/ryzomcore.git

Create a build directory under the ryzomcore repository folder and navigate to it.

cd ryzomcore
mkdir build
cd build

Run CMake with the tools, samples, and Assimp set to ON, and MFC, Qt, Ryzom, NeLNS, and Snowballs set to OFF. Replace the paths in the CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH option with the appropriate paths for your system.

cmake -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -DWITH_NEL_TOOLS=ON -DWITH_NEL_SAMPLES=ON -DWITH_ASSIMP=ON -DWITH_NEL_TESTS=OFF -DWITH_MFC=OFF -DWITH_QT=OFF -DWITH_RYZOM=OFF -DWITH_NELNS=OFF -DWITH_SNOWBALLS=OFF -DWITH_EXTERNAL=OFF -DWITH_STATIC_LIBXML2=OFF -DWITH_STATIC_CURL=OFF -DWITH_LUA51=OFF -DWITH_LUA52=ON "-DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=C:\2022q2_external_v143_x64\zlib;C:\2022q2_external_v143_x64\openssl;C:\2022q2_external_v143_x64\curl;C:\2022q2_external_v143_x64\libjpeg;C:\2022q2_external_v143_x64\libpng;C:\2022q2_external_v143_x64\libxml2;C:\2022q2_external_v143_x64\freetype;C:\2022q2_external_v143_x64\squish;C:\2022q2_external_v143_x64\ogg;C:\2022q2_external_v143_x64\vorbis;C:\2022q2_external_v143_x64\ffmpeg;C:\2022q2_external_v143_x64\openal-soft;C:\2022q2_external_v143_x64\lua;C:\2022q2_external_v143_x64\luabind;C:\2022q2_external_v143_x64\ffmpeg;C:\2022q2_external_v143_x64\mariadb-connector-c;C:\2022q2_external_v143_x64\assimp;C:\2022q2_external_v143_x64\qt5;C:\2022q2_external_v143_x64\boost" ..

Open the RyzomCore.sln file in the build folder. Switch to the Debug build target, and hit the Build Solution button to build your project. This might take a while!

• Set up a new personal project and write a main game loop to create a Hello World sample application