Building Open RV on macOS

Open RV 2025 can be built for macOS using the VFX reference platform CY2023 or CY2024, with different versions of Qt and Python.

Select your VFX reference platform by clicking on the appropriate tab. Install instructions follows.

Qt                  : 6.5.3
Python              : 3.11.9
Cmake               : 3.31.X+
Xcode               : See XCode section

All other dependencies are shared across variations.

Summary

Note

Open RV can be built for x86_64 by changing the architecture of the terminal to x86_64 using the following command:

arch -x86_64 $SHELL

It is important to use that x86_64 terminal for all the subsequent steps.

Allow Terminal to update or delete other applications

From macOS System Settings > Privacy & Security > App Management, allow Terminal to update or delete other applications.

Install Xcode

Heads Up: Xcode 26 isn’t supported yet because it needs the fix for QTBUG-137687. This fix is available in Qt 6.5.10, but there isn’t a PySide6 version that matches this Qt version as of now. In the meantime, you can use Xcode 16.4 on the latest macOS Tahoe 26 to build Open RV.

From the App Store, download Xcode 16.4. Make sure that it is the source of the active developer directory.

xcode-select -p should return /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer. If that is not the case, run sudo xcode-select -s /Applications/Xcode.app

Install CMake

Homebrew’s CMake could previously be used to build Open RV on macOS, but now it installs CMake version 4, which is too recent and causes dependency issues. An earlier version of CMake must be installed separately: cmake-3.31.7-macos-universal.dmg.

Add the CMake tool to the PATH using the following command:

sudo "/Applications/CMake.app/Contents/bin/cmake-gui" --install=/usr/local/bin

Install Homebrew

Homebrew is the one-stop shop providing all the build requirements. You can install it by following the instructions on the Homebrew page.

Make sure Homebrew’s binary directory is in your PATH and that brew can be resolved from your terminal.

Install tools and build dependencies

Most of the build requirements can be installed by running the following brew install command:

brew install ninja readline sqlite3 xz zlib tcl-tk@8 autoconf automake libtool python@3.11 yasm clang-format black meson nasm pkg-config glew

Make sure xcode-select -p still returns /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer. If that is not the case, run sudo xcode-select -s /Applications/Xcode.app

Install Qt

Download the Qt version corresponding to your chosen VFX reference platform using the online installer on the Qt page. Qt logs, Android, iOS, and WebAssembly are not required to build Open RV.

Download Qt 6.5.3 using the online installer.
This version should be available in the regular Qt installer without needing archives.
The CI build agents are currently using Qt 6.5.3.

WARNING: If you fetch Qt from another source, make sure it is built with SSL support, contains everything required to build PySide6 (for VFX-CY2024) or PySide2 (for VFX-CY2023), and that the file structure is similar to the official package.

Note: Qt from homebrew is known to not work well with Open RV.

Build Open RV

Before executing any commands

To maximize your chances of successfully building Open RV, you must:

  • Fully update your code base to the latest version (or the version you want to use) with a command like git pull.

  • Fix all conflicts due to updating the code.

  • Revisit all modified files to ensure they aren’t using old code that changed during the update such as when the Visual Studio version changes.

Get Open RV source code

Clone the Open RV repository and change directory into the newly created folder. Typically, the command would be:

Using a password-protected SSH key:

git clone --recursive git@github.com:AcademySoftwareFoundation/OpenRV.git
cd OpenRV

Using the web URL:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/OpenRV.git
cd OpenRV

Load aliases for Open RV

From the Open RV directory:

source rvcmds.sh

The aliases for the release and debug builds have been merged together. To control if the aliases operate on a release or debug build, call “rvdebug” or “rvrelease” from the command prompt.

Install Python dependencies

Note

This section needs to be done only once when a fresh Open RV repository is cloned. The first time rvsetup is executed, it will create a Python virtual environment in the current directory under .venv.

From the Open RV directory, the following command will download and install the Python dependencies.

rvsetup

Configure the project

From the Open RV directory, the following command will configure CMake for the build:

rvcfg

Build Open RV

From the Open RV directory, the following command will build the main executable:

rvbuild

Opening Open RV executable

Once the build is completed, the Open RV application can be found in the Open RV directory under _build/stage/app/RV.app/Contents/MacOS/RV.

9. Setting up debugging in VSCode

For a general understanding on how to debug C++ code in VSCode, please refer to the Microsoft documentation.

To set up the C++ debugger in VSCode for Open RV, use the following steps:

  1. Install the CodeLLDB extension

  2. Configure the debugger
    Create a .vscode folder at the root of the project if it doesn’t already exist. Inside this folder, create a launch.json file to configure the debugger with the following content:

    {
    "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
        {
        "type": "lldb",
        "request": "launch",
        "name": "Debug Open RV (Debug Build)",
        "program": "${workspaceFolder}/_build_debug/stage/app/RV.app/Contents/MacOS/RV",
        "args": [],
        "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}",
        "preLaunchTask": "build"
        }
    ]
}

    NOTE: program should point to the build of the Open RV executable you want to debug. preLaunchTask is only necessary if you decide to follow step 3.

  3. Set up automatic rebuild (Optional)
    If you want to automatically rebuild Open RV before starting the debugger, add a tasks.json file in the .vscode folder created in the previous step:

    {
  "version": "2.0.0",
  "tasks": [
    {
        "label": "build",
        "type": "shell",
        "command": "cmake",
        "args": [
            "--build",
            "_build_debug",
            "--target",
            "main_executable"
        ],
        "group": {
            "kind": "build",
            "isDefault": true
        },
        "presentation": {
            "reveal": "always"
        }
    }
  ]
}