Build
This article describes how you can build the engine yourself, which enables you to extend the engine with custom functionality.
Platform Builds
Build Types
PLASMA sets up three build configuration types:
Debug
Dev
Shipping
While developing your game you should either use a Debug or a Dev build.
The Debug build is best when you want to use a C++ debugger to investigate problems. It includes the necessary debug symbols and has many optimizations disabled, which makes it much easier to step through the code. Debug builds are significantly slower than the other build types.
The Dev build has most of the optimizations enabled, yet still includes debug symbols. The Dev build is 3x to 10x faster than a Debug build in most cases and is very close to the speed of a Shipping build. Stepping through the C++ code with a debugger is possible, though it often behaves erratic due to the optimizations (inlining and such). For most developers the Dev build should be the main configuration to use.
The Shipping build has all optimizations enabled. It does not include debug symbols anymore and it also has all the developer features disabled. That means things like plInspector won't work here. Similarly, features like allocation tracking (for detecting memory leaks) and profiling features are disabled as well.