Getting Started
To get started with the nCine you first have to download it.
The straightforward way is to download a binary distribution, so you don't have to compile the framework and its dependencies by yourself.
The nCine-artifacts repository hosts all the artifacts generated by GitHub Actions.
GitHub Actions is the continuous integration pipeline of GitHub, it will automatically compile the nCine at each commit and save a binary distribution in the repository.
The nCine-artifacts repository contains different branches, one per each combination of platform and compiler.
Let's say we are on Windows, the correct branch would then be nCine-master-windows-vs2022.
This branch contains four files: two of them are the Lua-specific versions (nCineLua- prefix), and the other two are targeted at C++ development (nCine- prefix).
Each version comes as a .exe and a .zip file.
The first one is an installer, use it if you want to install the framework in the system.
The second one is a portable archive that you can decompress wherever you want.
Let's download the portable .zip archive, it is a more flexible solution and will make the process easier.
After the download is completed, you can extract the archive contents wherever you like.
If you are on macOS, the branches will be nCine-master-macos13-appleclang and nCine-master-macos15-appleclang.
The macOS 13 branch will only work on Intel machines, while the the macOS 15 one will only work on AppleSilicon machines. Choose according to your platform, as universal binaries are not currently supported.
Both hosts a .dmg file that you can download and mount. Inside you will find and nCine application bundle that you can copy in the Application directory (for a system-wide installation) or wherever you want (for a portable experience).
Depending on the macOS version, some security warning dialogs will pop up when you try to run the nCine application bundle.
To prevent this from happening, open a terminal window and type one of the following commands.
- If the image is not mounted:
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ~/Downloads/nCine*.dmg
- If the application bundle has been already extracted and installed somewhere, for example in the Applications folder:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/nCine.app
Now that you have nCine on your machine, it is time to start using it.
You can script your games in Lua, or create native games using C++ with Visual Studio 2022, Visual Studio Code, Qt Creator, or CLion.
Please refer to the Doxygen (C++) or the LDoc (Lua) documentation for more information about the nCine API.