How to compile my Mac After Effects plugins for M1?

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
December 7, 2022
3 replies
1714 views

Hi gang;

I am not a Mac user and as such, my knowledge is limited. What I do know is that it's WAY more finicky than PC's. As an example, I have a client that can't use one of my plugins on his new M1 Mac running Montery 12.4. I assume, unlike PCs, the plugin needs to be recompiled somehow to be compatible with the M1.

I compiled my Mac plugin on an older laptop running an older OS about a year or two ago. I can't recall off the top of my head which one. But what are the steps? Do I need to first update my Mac OS to the latest the laptop will accept? Then recompile my plugin? Is there any specific setting I need to use for M1 compatibility? What if my laptop cannot be upgraded to the latest Mac OS? Do I need to use a particular SDK version?

This is the error message my client sent me:

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

-Richard

SDK

This topic has been closed for replies.

James Whiffin

Legend

Generally you want to compile against the lowest SDK you can so that it has maximum compatibility with the most amount of systems. I believe you can compile a universal binary for mac going back to 11.3 for the apple silicon, and way back to 10.x for the intel version. Any new-ish version of macOS / Xcode should be able to do this.

Richard RosenmanAuthor

Inspiring

Hi James!

Thanks for your reply. Well, I'm still using the CS6 SDK so I guess I've got that part covered but I still don't know how exactly I'm supposed to compile for the Mac M1 native support.

Is this something that I do in Xcode specifically? Like a specific setting? Any clues on what / where? jamesastro

posted a link in his answer to add universal binary support, and this seems to be what you're referring to. Is that step what I need to do?

Is there anything I need to add to the C++ plugin project?

Also, if I compile for native M1 does that mean my plugins won't be compatible on non-M1 Macs?

Any specifics would be welcome from everyone on how to do this.

Thanks,

-Richard