Rive Native

Rive Native is a new runtime that enables you to display and interact with Rive graphics in your Flutter app, powered by the Rive Renderer.

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Rive Native vs Rive

rive_native does not replace the current Rive Flutter runtime (rive). Instead, we are working on integrating rive_native into the rive package. You can use rive_native independently if desired, and the API will remain largely consistent between rive_native and rive. However, the rive package may expose additional APIs or functionality in the future.

We encourage you to start using rive_native today and share your feedback with us.

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Key Differences Between rive_native and rive

• C++ Runtime Integration:
  rive_native is built on Rive’s C++ runtime via FFI, replacing the Dart implementation. This ensures a consistent experience across platforms and the Rive Editor, while unlocking performance improvements and new features exclusive to the C++ runtime, such as:

  • Responsive Layouts
  • Scrolling
  • N-Slicing
  • Feathering

• Rive Renderer Support:
  rive_native introduces the Rive Renderer to Flutter. While you can still use the Flutter-based renderer (Dart/Impeller), the Rive Renderer is recommended for performance-critical use cases. Some features, like Feathering, are only supported with the Rive Renderer. For more details, see our Feature Support page.

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Getting Started

rive_native is not yet publicly available on GitHub but will be soon. For now, you can pull the source code and example by running:

dart pub unpack rive_native # Unpack the package source code and example app
cd rive_native/example      # Navigate to the example folder
flutter create .            # Create the platform folders
flutter pub get             # Fetch dependencies
flutter run                 # Run the example app

A higher-level declarative API is under development to simplify working with Rive graphics in Flutter.

For an example implementation, see the rive_player.dart file in rive_native/example/rive_player.dart.

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Platform Support

Note: Android support is currently limited to arm and arm64 architectures.

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Feature Support

The following runtime features are supported by rive_native:

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Troubleshooting

The required native libraries should be automatically downloaded during the build step (flutter run or flutter build). If you encounter issues, try the following:

1. Run flutter clean
2. Run flutter pub get
3. Run flutter run

Alternatively, you can manually run the rive_native setup script. In the root of your Flutter app, execute:

dart run rive_native:setup --verbose --clean --platform macos

This will clean the rive_native setup and download the platform-specific libraries specified with the --platform flag. Refer to the Platform Support section above for details.

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Building rive_native

By default, prebuilt native libraries are downloaded and used. If you prefer to build the libraries yourself, use the --build flag with the setup script:

flutter clean # Important
dart run rive_native:setup --verbose --clean --build --platform macos

Note: Building the libraries requires specific tooling on your machine. Additional documentation will be provided soon.

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Testing

Shared libraries are included in the download/build process. If you encounter issues using rive_native in your tests, please reach out to us for assistance.