Engine Customization Workflow
The game engine in Cocos Creator has two parts: JavaScript engine with ECS (entity-component system) and C++ (custom version of Cocos2d-x). They are both open sourced on GitHub:
- Creator-JS engine: https://github.com/cocos-creator/engine
- Cocos2d-x-lite engine：https://github.com/cocos-creator/cocos2d-x-lite
If you want to customize engine, we recommend that you follow the fork workflow thru GitHub. Please read GitHub help: Fork A Repo to learn the details.
Customize JavaScript Engine
If your concern is only Web based games, or what you want to change in the engine is not native API related (for example UI and animation components), you just need to follow the workflow here:
Get JavaScript Engine Repository
First, you need to clone the engine repository or fork the repo. You have to make sure the repo is
at the corresponding branch. For example to customize engine for Cocos Creator v1.1.2 you'd need
to checkout v1.1 branch; for Cocos Creator v1.2.1 you'd need to checkout v1.2 branch.
Once cloning is completed, go to the repo's folder in command-line shell.
Install NPM Dependencies
npm and gulp are core components for engine building. These need to be installed. Example:
npm install -g gulp
npm install
Change and Build
Now you can do whatever you want to the engine, once you finished:
# build engine
gulp build
This will generated a compiled engine to bin folder.
Use customized engine in Cocos Creator
Goto Preferences panel and click Native Develop Tab. And follow the guide to set the path to your customized JavaScript engine.
Customized Cocos2d-x C++ Engine
If you need to change stuff of rendering or native API related function. Besides updating JavaScript engine (so that your change can work with component system) you'll need to synchronize your change to the customized cocos2d-x-lite engine of Cocos Creator. Please make sure you get the cocos2d-x-lite engine repo from the link on top of this article, it's not the same as the stand alone cocos2d-x repo (http://github.com/cocos2d/cocos2d-x)!
Same as JavaScript engine, you need to make sure cocos2d-x-lite repo is on correct branch. For Cocos Creator v1.2.0 please checkout v1.2 branch.
Initialize
Once cloned, enter the Cocos2d-x-lite engine folder and run:
# Install NPM dependencies
npm install
# download binary dependencies, you'll need python working first
python download-deps.py
# update submodule repos, you'll need git
git submodule update --init
Used customized cocos2d-x-lite engine in Cocos Creator
Goto Preferences panel and click Native Develop Tab. And follow the guide to set the path to your customized cocos2d-x-lite engine.
Build from Source
Next, you can start working on updating code for Cocos2d-x-lite. If you want to use source code in your
built project you can just choose default template in Build panel and compile from the source, no
extra command line work needed.
Build binary library and simulator
If you want to use a binary template to build and compile native project (it's much faster since C++
code are already compiled), you'll need to run these commands:
# use cocos console to generate prebuilt binary libs
gulp gen-libs
To generate simulator to preview your changes:
# use cocos console to generate simulator
gulp gen-simulator
gulp update-simulator-config
JSB Workflow (JavaScript Binding)
If your changes involves JavaScript and C++ changes at the same time. You should read this article: