Compiling for Android

See also

This page describes how to compile Android export template binaries from source. If you're looking to export your project to Android instead, read Exporting for Android.

Note

In most cases, using the built-in deployer and export templates is good enough. Compiling the Android APK manually is mostly useful for custom builds or custom packages for the deployer.

Also, you still need to follow the steps mentioned in the Exporting for Android tutorial before attempting to build a custom export template.

Requirements

For compiling under Windows, Linux or macOS, the following is required:

  • Python 3.6+.

  • SCons 3.0+ build system.

  • Android SDK (command-line tools are sufficient).

    • Required SDK components will be automatically installed.

    • On Linux,

      do not use an Android SDK provided by your distribution's repositories as it will often be outdated.

  • Gradle (will be downloaded and installed automatically if missing).

  • JDK 11 (either OpenJDK or Oracle JDK).

See also

To get the Godot source code for compiling, see Getting the source.

For a general overview of SCons usage for Godot, see Introduction to the buildsystem.

Setting up the buildsystem

  • Set the environment variable ANDROID_SDK_ROOT to point to the Android SDK. If you downloaded the Android command-line tools, this would be the folder where you extracted the contents of the ZIP archive.

  • Install the necessary SDK components in this folder:

    • Accept the SDK component licenses by running the following command where android_sdk_path is the path to the Android SDK, then answering all the prompts with y:

    cmdline-tools/latest/bin/sdkmanager --sdk_root=<android_sdk_path> --licenses

    • Complete setup by running the following command where android_sdk_path is the path to the Android SDK.

    cmdline-tools/latest/bin/sdkmanager --sdk_root=<android_sdk_path> "platform-tools" "build-tools;30.0.3" "platforms;android-29" "cmdline-tools;latest" "cmake;3.10.2.4988404"

See also

To set the environment variable on Windows, press Windows + R, type "control system", then click on Advanced system settings in the left pane, then click on Environment variables on the window that appears.

See also

To set the environment variable on Linux or macOS, use export ANDROID_SDK_ROOT=/path/to/android-sdk where /path/to/android-sdk points to the root of the SDK directories.

Building the export templates

Godot needs two export templates for Android: the optimized "release" template (android_release.apk) and the debug template (android_debug.apk). As Google will require all APKs to include ARMv8 (64-bit) libraries starting from August 2019, the commands below will build an APK containing both ARMv7 and ARMv8 libraries.

Compiling the standard export templates is done by calling SCons from the Godot root directory with the following arguments:

  • Release template (used when exporting with Debugging Enabled unchecked)

scons platform=android target=template_release arch=armv7
scons platform=android target=template_release arch=arm64v8
cd platform/android/java
# On Windows
.\gradlew generateGodotTemplates
# On Linux and macOS
./gradlew generateGodotTemplates

The resulting APK will be located at bin/android_release.apk.

  • Debug template (used when exporting with Debugging Enabled checked)

scons platform=android target=template_debug arch=armv7
scons platform=android target=template_debug arch=arm64v8
cd platform/android/java
# On Windows
.\gradlew generateGodotTemplates
# On Linux and macOS
./gradlew generateGodotTemplates

The resulting APK will be located at bin/android_debug.apk.

See also

If you want to enable Vulkan validation layers, see Vulkan validation layers on Android.

Adding support for x86 devices

If you also want to include support for x86 and x86-64 devices, run the SCons command a third and fourth time with the arch=x86_32, and arch=x86_64 arguments before building the APK with Gradle. For example, for the release template:

scons platform=android target=template_release arch=armv7
scons platform=android target=template_release arch=arm64v8
scons platform=android target=template_release arch=x86
scons platform=android target=template_release arch=x86_64
cd platform/android/java
# On Windows
.\gradlew generateGodotTemplates
# On Linux and macOS
./gradlew generateGodotTemplates

This will create a fat binary that works on all platforms. The final APK size of exported projects will depend on the platforms you choose to support when exporting; in other words, unused platforms will be removed from the APK.

Cleaning the generated export templates

You can use the following commands to remove the generated export templates:

cd platform/android/java
# On Windows
.\gradlew cleanGodotTemplates
# On Linux and macOS
./gradlew cleanGodotTemplates

Using the export templates

Godot needs release and debug APKs that were compiled against the same version/commit as the editor. If you are using official binaries for the editor, make sure to install the matching export templates, or build your own from the same version.

When exporting your game, Godot opens the APK, changes a few things inside and adds your files.

Installing the templates

The newly-compiled templates (android_debug.apk and android_release.apk) must be copied to Godot's templates folder with their respective names. The templates folder can be located in:

  • Windows: %APPDATA%\Godot\export_templates\<version>\

  • Linux: $HOME/.local/share/godot/export_templates/<version>/

  • macOS: $HOME/Library/Application Support/Godot/export_templates/<version>/

<version> is of the form major.minor[.patch].status using values from version.py in your Godot source repository (e.g. 3.0.5.stable or 3.1.dev). You also need to write this same version string to a version.txt file located next to your export templates.

However, if you are writing your custom modules or custom C++ code, you might instead want to configure your APKs as custom export templates here:

../../../_images/andtemplates.png

You don't even need to copy them, you can just reference the resulting file in the bin\ directory of your Godot source folder, so that the next time you build you will automatically have the custom templates referenced.

Building the Godot editor

Compiling the editor is done by calling SCons from the Godot root directory with the following arguments:

scons platform