On Windows and macOS, please ensure that you have the very latest version of CMake installed; older versions may work, but if not, please upgrade to the latest available version of CMake before requesting help.

On systems that package CMake themselves (e.g. Linux distributions), we most likely support the provided version of CMake as long as the system itself is supported.

CMake will also require that you already have your system's developer tools installed.

The quickest way to build and install Panda with CMake is to install any third-party dependencies and then run:

mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build . --config Standard --parallel 4
[sudo] cmake --build . --config Standard --target install

Note that, if you are targeting 64-bit on Windows, it is necessary to supply the -A x64 option when first invoking cmake (as cmake -A x64 ..).

CMake itself does not build Panda; rather, it generates project files for an existing IDE or build tool. To select a build tool, pass the -G option when first invoking CMake, (cmake -G Ninja .. is highly recommended on Linux). Some of these (Xcode, Visual Studio) support targeting multiple configurations (the --config Standard, above, selects the Standard configuration in those cases). Other build tools (Ninja, Makefiles, ...) do not support multiple configurations, and the --config option is ignored. To change the configuration in these cases (from Standard, the default), it is necessary to change the CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE variable as explained below.

The configurations are:

To configure CMake, it is recommended to use cmake-gui (cmake-gui .), or ccmake (ccmake .), however it is also possible to configure it entirely through CMake's command-line interface; see man cmake for more details.

In general, the config variable for a particular third party library is:

	HAVE_<LIBRARY>=YES/NO   # Example: USE_JPEG

Panda subpackage building is handled by:

	BUILD_<SUBPACKAGE>=YES/NO   # Example: BUILD_DTOOL, BUILD_PANDA

Other configuration settings use their historical names (same names as in-source):

	# Examples
	PANDA_DISTRIBUTOR="MyDistributor"
	LINMATH_ALIGN=YES

	# ... etc ...

For example, makepanda.py --distributor X becomes cmake -DPANDA_DISTRIBUTOR=X

All found third-party libraries are enabled by default, and makepanda-style tools packages are searched in the same path as makepanda (however this may be overridden with the THIRDPARTY_DIRECTORY option).

Most config settings are set to a sensible default for a typical PC/desktop Panda3D distribution. Third-party libraries and other settings can be enabled or disabled through configuration with the cmake GUI or CLI.