manim

manim (community documentation link) is a Python package created by educator Grant Sanderson for building video content (particularly on mathematics) for publication on YouTube. Here is an example of what manim can do. A good sign for betting time and effort on learning the ropes: manim has engendered a lot of community activity around building plugins.

• Install manim from conda-forge
• For rendering equations: Install LaTeX.
• Create Python code and save as myvideo.py

import manim as m
class Scene1(m.Scene):
    def construct(self):
        c = m.Circle(2, color = m.RED, fill_opacity = 0.6)
        self.play(m.DrawBorderThenFill(c), run_time = 1.0)
        title = m.Text("Bumpkin", font_size = 60, slant = "ITALIC").shift(m.UP * 0.3)
        subtitle = m.Text("Dynamics", font_size = 40, slant = "ITALIC").shift(m.DOWN * 0.3)
        self.play(m.Write(title), m.Write(subtitle))
        self.wait(1)
        a = m.Arc(3.0, m.TAU * (1/2), -m.TAU * (3/4), color = m.GREEN, stroke_width = 30)
        self.play(m.Create(a))
        self.wait(3)
        return

Instructive facets of manim syntax are found in this simple example. (Source: this intro video by Mitko Nikov.)

• Use the manim utility to render the Python (cinematography!) file as a video:

python -m manim myvideo.py Scene1

Locate and view the output, in my case at /home/myusername/manim/media/videos/myvideo/1080p60/Scene1.mp4.

manim reference materials

• Intro video on YouTube by Darwin Tech

The ‘learning manim’ narrative

• We saw in the example code that the constant TAU is used for 2*Pi… so what other constants are available? Look here.