blender/doc/build_systems/cmake.txt

    Blender CMake build system
    ============================

    Contents
    ---------------

    1. Introduction
    2. Obtaining CMake
    3. Building Blender
    4. Generic Setup
    5. Configuring the build after SVN updates

    1. Introduction
    ---------------

    This document describes general usage of the new CMake scripts. The
    inner workings will be described in blender-cmake-dev.txt (TODO).

    2. Obtaining CMake
    ------------------

    CMake for can either be downloaded using your favorite package manager 
    or is also available from the CMake website at http://www.cmake.org 
    The website also contains some documentation on CMake usage but I found
    the man page alone pretty helpful. 

    3. Building Blender
    -------------------

    Building Blender requires obtaining a compiler, library dependencies,
    and correct setup depending on the system. For details on how to set
    up a build on various operating systems, see the wiki documentation:

    http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Doc/Building_Blender

    4. Generic Setup
    ----------------

    CMake allows one to generate the build project files and binary objects
    outside the source tree which can be pretty handy in working and experimenting
    with different Blender configurations (Audio/NoAudio, GameEngine/NoGameEngine etc.)
    while maintaining a clean source tree. It also makes it possible to generate files
    for different build systems on the same source tree. This also has benefits for 
    general SVN management for the developer as patches and submit logs are much cleaner.

    Create a directory outside the blender source tree where you would like to build
    Blender (from now on called $BLENDERBUILD). On the commandline you can then run
    the cmake command to generate your initial build files. First just run 'cmake' which
    will inform you what the available generators are. Thn you can run 
    'cmake -G generator $BLENDERSOURCE' to generate the build files. Here is an example 
    of all this for Xcode:

        % mkdir $BLENDERBUILD
        % cd $BLENDERBUILD
        % cmake

        ...
        ...
        --version [file]            = Show program name/version banner and exit.

        Generators

        The following generators are available on this platform:
          KDevelop3                   = Generates KDevelop 3 project files.
          Unix Makefiles              = Generates standard UNIX makefiles.
          Xcode                       = Generate XCode project files.



        % cmake -G Xcode $BLENDERSOURCE
        ...
        ...
        -- Configuring blender
        -- Configuring blenderplayer
        -- Configuring done
        -- Generating done
        -- Build files have been written to: $BLENDERBUILD 

    This will generate the build files with default values. Specific features can
    be enabled or disabled by running the ccmake "GUI" from $BLENDERBUILD as follows:

        % ccmake $BLENDERSOURCE

    A number of options appear which can be changed depending on your needs and
    available dependencies (e.g. setting WITH_OPENEXR to OFF will disable support
    for OpenEXR). It will also allow you to override default and detected paths 
    (e.g. Python directories) and compile and link flags. When you are satisfied
    used ccmake to re-configure the build files and exit.

    It is also possible to use the commandline of 'cmake' to override certain
    of these settings. 

    5. Configuring the build after SVN updates
    ------------------------------------------

    The $BLENDERBUILD directory maintains a file called CMakeCache.txt which 
    remembers the initial run's settings for subsequent generation runs. After
    SVN updates that contain changes to the build system, rebuilding Blender will
    automatically invoke CMake to regenerate the CMakeCache.txt and other files
    as needed.

    /Jacques Beaurain (jbinto)