Welcome to Manim’s documentation!¶

These docs are generated from the master branch of the Manim repo. You can contribute by submitting a pull request there.

About¶

Animating technical concepts is traditionally pretty tedious, since it can be difficult to make the animations precise enough to convey them accurately. Manim uses Python to generate animations programmatically, which makes it possible to specify exactly how each one should run.

This project is still very much a work in progress, but I hope that the information here will make it easier for newcomers to get started using Manim.

Installation¶

Instructions on installing Manim

Linux¶

Ubuntu¶

Install system libraries:

# apt install sox ffmpeg libcairo2 libcairo2-dev

Install Latex distribution:

# apt install texlive-full

Install manim via pypi:

# pip3 install manimlib

OR Install manim via the git repository with venv:

$ git clone https://github.com/3b1b/manim
$ cd manim
$ python3 -m venv ./
$ source bin/activate
$ pip3 install -r requirement.txt

To use manim in virtual environment you need to activate the environment with the activate binary by doing source bin/activate, to exit use the deactivate command.

Note

The git repository is updated first before the one on pypi. The git repository also includes project files used to produce 3b1b videos. Some of the old projects might not work as due to api changes.

Note

The required latex packages are dictated by manimlib/tex_template.tex which texlive-full will satisfy. The download size can be quite large. If you wish to install only the packages required to use manim, substitude texlive-full with:

texlive texlive-latex-extra texlive-fonts-extra
texlive-latex-recommended texlive-science texlive-fonts-extra tipa

Mac¶

A stub for mac installation

Windows¶

Install System Libraries¶

Make sure you have Python 3 for Windows installed first:

https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/

Install ffmpeg:

https://ffmpeg.org/download.html#build-windows

Install sox:

http://sox.sourceforge.net/Main/HomePage

Install a latex distribution. On Windows MikTex is commonly used:

https://miktex.org/howto/install-miktex

Path configuration¶

To invoke commandline without supplying path to the binary the PATH environment needs to be configured. Below are template examples, please change the path according to your username and specific python version. Assuming all the softwares are installed with no alteration to the installation paths:

C:\Users\$username\AppData\local\Programs\Python\Python$version\
C:\Users\$username\AppData\local\Programs\Python\Python$version\Scripts\
C:\MikTex\miktex\bin\x64\
C:\ffmpeg\bin\

The path entries should be separated by semicolon.

Installing python packages and manim¶

Make sure you can start pip using pip in your commandline. Then do pip install pyreadline for the readline package.

Grab the pycairo wheel binary pycairo‑1.18.0‑cp37‑cp37m‑win32.whl from https://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#pycairo and install it via pip C:\absolute\path\to\the\whl\file

clone the manim repository if you have git git clone https://github.com/3b1b/manim or download the zip file from the repository page with Clone or download button and unzip it.

Open the commandline within the manim directory with Shift + Right click on an empty space in the folder and select open command window here

Install manim python dependencies with pip install -r requirement.txt

Test the installation¶

Type in python -m manim -h and if nothing went wrong during the installtion process you should see the help text.

Use python -m manim example_scene.py SquareToCircle -pl to render the example scene and the file should play after rendering. The movie file should be in media/videos/example_scenes/480p15

Getting Started¶

Todd Zimmerman put together a very nice tutorial on getting started with manim, but is unfortunately outdated. It’s still useful for understanding how manim is used, but the examples won’t run on the latest version of manim.

Learning by Example¶

You create videos in manim by writing Scene instances. example_scenes.py contains a few simple ones that we can use to learn about manim. For instance, take SquareToCircle.

class SquareToCircle(Scene):
    def construct(self):
        circle = Circle()
        square = Square()
        square.flip(RIGHT)
        square.rotate(-3 * TAU / 8)
        circle.set_fill(PINK, opacity=0.5)

        self.play(ShowCreation(square))
        self.play(Transform(square, circle))
        self.play(FadeOut(square))

construct() specifies what is displayed on the screen when the Scene is rendered to video. You can render a Scene by running extract_scene.py. Run python extract_scene.py -h to see how it’s used.

> python extract_scene.py -h
usage: extract_scene.py [-h] [-p] [-w] [-s] [-l] [-m] [-g] [-f] [-t] [-q] [-a]
                [-o OUTPUT_NAME] [-n START_AT_ANIMATION_NUMBER]
                [-r RESOLUTION] [-c COLOR] [-d OUTPUT_DIRECTORY]
                file [scene_name]

positional arguments:
  file                  path to file holding the python code for the scene
  scene_name            Name of the Scene class you want to see

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -p, --preview
  -w, --write_to_movie
  -s, --show_last_frame
  -l, --low_quality
  -m, --medium_quality
  -g, --save_pngs
  -f, --show_file_in_finder
  -t, --transparent
  -q, --quiet
  -a, --write_all
  -o OUTPUT_NAME, --output_name OUTPUT_NAME
  -n START_AT_ANIMATION_NUMBER, --start_at_animation_number START_AT_ANIMATION_NUMBER
  -r RESOLUTION, --resolution RESOLUTION
  -c COLOR, --color COLOR
  -d OUTPUT_DIRECTORY, --output_directory OUTPUT_DIRECTORY

The most common flags are -p, to automatically play the generated video, -l, to render in lower quality in favor of speed, and -s, to show the last frame of the Scene for faster development. Run python extract_scene.py example_scenes.py SquareToCircle -pl to produce a file called SquareToCircle.mp4 in the media directory that you have configured, and automatically play it.

Let’s step through each line of the Scene. Lines 3 and 4 instantiate a Circle and Square, respectively. Both of these subclass Mobject, the base class for objects in manim. Note that instantiating a Mobject does not add it to the Scene, so you wouldn’t see anything if you were to render the Scene at this point.

circle = Circle()
square = Square()

Lines 5, 6, and 7 apply various modifications to the mobjects before animating them. The call to flip() on line 5 flips the Square across the RIGHT vector. This is equivalent to a refection across the x-axis. Then the call to rotate() on line 6 rotates the Square 3/8ths of a full rotation counterclockwise. Finally, the call to set_fill() on line 7 sets the fill color for the Circle to pink, and its opacity to 0.5.

square.flip(RIGHT)
square.rotate(-3 * TAU / 8)
circle.set_fill(PINK, opacity=0.5)

Line 9 is the first to generate video. ShowCreation, Transform, and FadeOut are Animation instances. Each Animation takes one or more Mobject instances as arguments, which it animates when passed to play(). This is how video is typically created in manim. Mobject instances are automatically added to the Scene when they are animated. You can add a Mobject to the Scene manually by passing it as an argument to add().

self.play(ShowCreation(square))
self.play(Transform(square, circle))
self.play(FadeOut(square))

ShowCreation draws a Mobject to the screen, Transform morphs one Mobject into another, and FadeOut fades a Mobject out of the Scene. Note that only the first argument to Transform is modified, and the second is not added to the Scene. After line 10 is executed square is a Square instance with the shape of a Circle.

Mathematical Objects¶

Everything that appears on screen in a manim video is a Mobject, or Mathematical Object. A Mobject’s appearance is determined by 3 factors:

m.points, an Nx3 numpy.array specifying how to draw m
m’s style attributes, such as m.color, m.stroke_width, and m.fill_opacity
m.submobjects, a list of Mobject instances that are considered part of m