How to build CARLA on Linux

Note

CARLA requires Ubuntu 16.04 or later.

Install the build tools and dependencies

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/test
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential clang-5.0 lld-5.0 g++-7 ninja-build python python-pip python-dev libpng16-dev libtiff5-dev libjpeg-dev tzdata sed curl wget unzip autoconf libtool
pip install --user setuptools nose2

Note that some dependencies require CMake 3.9 or later installed in your machine, you can retrieve the latest version from the CMake download page.

To avoid compatibility issues between Unreal Engine and the CARLA dependencies, the best configuration is to compile everything with the same compiler version and C++ runtime library. We use clang 5.0 and LLVM's libc++. We recommend to change your default clang version to compile Unreal Engine and the CARLA dependencies

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/clang++ clang++ /usr/lib/llvm-5.0/bin/clang++ 101
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/clang clang /usr/lib/llvm-5.0/bin/clang 101

Build Unreal Engine

Note

Unreal Engine repositories are set to private. In order to gain access you need to add your GitHub username when you sign up at www.unrealengine.com.

Download and compile Unreal Engine 4.19. Here we will assume you install it at `~/UnrealEngine_4.19", but you can install it anywhere, just replace the path where necessary.

git clone --depth=1 -b 4.19 https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine.git ~/UnrealEngine_4.19
cd ~/UnrealEngine_4.19
./Setup.sh && ./GenerateProjectFiles.sh && make

Check Unreal's documentation "Building On Linux" if any of the steps above fail.

Build CARLA

Clone or download the project from our GitHub repository

git clone https://github.com/carla-simulator/carla

Note that the master branch contains the latest fixes and features, for the latest stable code may be best to switch to the stable branch.

Now you need to download the assets package, to do so we provide a handy script that downloads and extracts the latest version (note that the package is >10GB, this step might take some time depending on your connection)

./Update.sh

For CARLA to find your Unreal Engine's installation folder you need to set the following environment variable

export UE4_ROOT=~/UnrealEngine_4.19

You can also add this variable to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.profile.

Now that the environment is set up, you can run make to run different commands

make launch   # Compiles CARLA and launches Unreal Engine's Editor.
make package  # Compiles CARLA and creates a packaged version for distribution.
make help     # Print all available commands.

Updating CARLA

Every new release of CARLA we release a new package with the latest changes in the CARLA assets. To download the latest version and recompile CARLA, run

make clean
git pull
./Update.sh
make launch