9 ms·

Manim – 3Blue1Brown's animation engine for explanatory math videos

669 points by amingilani 8y ago

outlace 8y ago
Why did he give away his secret sauce? Edit: yes I know this tool isn’t his secret sauce, I was being facetious. His excellent explanations are his secret sauce. I just wanted to know why he open sourced this after so long of saying it was made for his personal use and wasn’t designed for widespread use.
- gsich 8y ago
  Because the renderer alone won't help you.
- yathern 8y ago
  Because the "secret sauce" isn't a tool to make animations. The secret sauce is being able to explain complex concepts in simple terms, while encouraging curiosity and maintaining math as an approachable topic, for those who may be otherwise intimidated - and additionally coming up with ideas for animations that will help explain those concepts. All the while, maintaining a high level of quality and regularly releasing content, such that you become a "brand". It's a lot harder to replicate that secret sauce, than it is to replicate some animation engine.
  - maimeowmeow 8y ago
    In addition, theres proabably not a wide audience for math videos, and this is a good advertisement for his channel. Likely would have been useful when I was in undergrad, but most math terms are gibberish after not using them at all for work.
  - csours 8y ago
    To expand: Of all of the math teachers I've had, only one tried to explain things in an understandable way the 3b1b does. Most math teachers just follow a curriculum and hope repetition drills facts into the students head. 3b1b makes the relationships between systems clear.
  - roenxi 8y ago
    Mathematicians are all experts at symbol manipulation and tend to communicate that way. 3b1b uses geometric analogues that are far more useful than definitions and symbols for learners. Math teachers are usually stuck using symbols to communicate because not many mathematicians have 3b1b's skill at animating and so can't use the high-bandwidth visual medium like he does. A blackboard can't compete with a 3b1b video; and it isn't just because he thinks clearly, it is because an animation can get more bits of information through in a short period of time and works better with a students short term memory. His custom animation tool is more important than it seems - he can explain more clearly because of a slight-of-hand where he has a much wider communication channel to get his message across. That being said, the barrier to entry is still high. I suspect any topic he hasn't already covered is going to need specialist knowledge to extend this program.
    - jshowa3 8y ago
      I like 3b1b's animations, but lets not get ahead of ourselves here. Mathematicians have been using blackboards and symbols for thousands of years, and its never been a hindrance. While its not as good as video, its more than adequate to explain things and if you still have issues, you can use the many mathematical modeling tools that have existed for years. Also, many of his topics require in-depth knowledge in the first place and gloss over significant portions of detail because the problems are often specialized. These details are obscured through the many drawings and it gives the viewer a false sense of understanding without actually being able to do the math. So you're left with a largely conceptual understanding without any syntheses understanding, because, at the end of the day, you have to produce a line by line derivation in order to be considered having understanding.
- earenndil 8y ago
  Because animations aren't his secret sauce?
- FPGAhacker 8y ago
  It’s been on github for years.
- fireattack 8y ago
  >why he open sourced this after so long Did he only do it recently? It was on GitHub already when I watched his video first time.
  - raverbashing 8y ago
    Yes, it has been on GitHub for some time already
- 0815test 8y ago
  > after so long of saying it was made for his personal use and wasn’t designed for widespread use. I'm not sure why you don't trust his explanation? Polishing up personal/internal projects and making them releasable as open source can take a lot of time and effort.
  - outlace 8y ago
    I never said I didn’t trust his explanation. As I recall it seemed like he had no intention of ever making it widely available so was just surprised to see it show up all of the sudden. This is sort of funny, I’m actually a big fan of his work and yet everyone seems to think my question is a knock on him.
- danielg6 8y ago
  The 3b-hive stung you.
- whytaka 8y ago
  Clearly, he is simply a great human.
bitforger 8y ago
I tried using this once... it wasn't super great. 1. The documentation is sorely lacking. 2. Which makes the inheritance hierarchy (which is already a little unintuitive) really hard to grok. 3. There's this weird home-rolled way of doing default property inheritance that took me a long time to wrap my head around. In the end, I ended up coding a short interactive thing[1] for my blog using Paper.js. It's a great idea, but could really use some love and maybe a stronger philosophy to guide development. Right now it feels more like a few hacks thrown together. [1] http://mitchgordon.me/math/2019/03/18/multiplying-complex-numbers.html http://mitchgordon.me/math/2019/03/18/multiplying-complex-nu...
- amingilani 8y ago
  Yeah, that's what I felt when I poked around it. But at the same time, I don't think it was meant to be anything more than a few hacks he uses to create his own beautiful content. I expect this is the kind of critique I'd get if someone ever tried to use my dotfiles. They work wonderfully, but just for me.
- sago 8y ago
  He can't win. People bug him to find out what software he uses. He says he wrote it. People bug him to release it. And then complain it is not properly documented or is unintuitive. 'A few hacks thrown together' seems awfully pejorative. It is a tool he has developed over the years to enable him to produce the high-quality videos he releases.
  - GuiA 8y ago
    People don’t know what they want. Or rather, they conflate what they want with real things that are close to, but not quite exactly, what they had in their mind. They then get frustrated because it doesn’t match what they imagined the whole time... but nobody told them it was!
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - hyperpallium 8y ago
billfruit 8y ago
Does it do 3d? Because geometry and algebra on 3d bodies and rotations, quarternions, etc do benefit from good visualizations.
- MayorMonty 8y ago
  A lot of his series on differential equations and geometry makes use of 3d components, presumably from this engine
knolan 8y ago
I’ve recently moved back into academia. Inspired by 3b1b and horrified by the awful state of the (PowerPoint) notes that were given to the students of the modules I now coordinate, I’ve taken to rewriting them using Jupyter and copious amounts of Blender animations. I don’t see myself using these tools as I know blender very well and I’ve got a workflow. Equations can be exported from LaTeXit as SVG and imported into blender for manipulation and animation. The new eevee real time renderer in 2.8 makes rendering high quality graphics really fast. Then, when appropriate, I try to recreate the concept in simple Python and animate it so the students can play with it.
- wodenokoto 8y ago
  Sounds awesome, can you show off some examples?
  - knolan 8y ago
    I will once I have a few complete sections. I plan on putting them on GitHub so you can run them via Google Colab. The topic is introductory fluid mechanics BTW.
    - viKunar 8y ago
      Hey, I’d love to help out with that. I’ve been making my own attempt at writing literate code in fluid dynamics and I’d love any examples of it in the wild. In short, don’t mind a repo with half finished code :) send me a message at @grokkingStuff
      - knolan 8y ago
        I’ll be in touch!
- osrec 8y ago
  Would you mind explaining how you work with SVGs in blender? Genuinely interested, as I've been using blender for years, but have not had much success manipulating 2d graphics in there. I'm hoping your workflow can expand my knowledge! Thanks!
anonfunction 8y ago
This type of project would really benefit from some examples of the media it produces.
- etatoby 8y ago
  You mean such as the entire 3blue1brown YouTube channel that it was created for?
  - anonfunction 8y ago
    Sure, that would be a great thing to include in the README.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- palebluedot 8y ago
  In the tutorial linked in the README, there are many examples with output: https://talkingphysics.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/getting-started-animating-with-manim-and-python-3-7/ https://talkingphysics.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/getting-star...
  - anonfunction 8y ago
    Thanks! I think a screenshot or link to a youtube video would be helpful in the README for those of us unfamiliar with 3Blue1Brown.
    - charliepark 8y ago
      I have no idea why this was downvoted. This is absolutely correct. Edit: Can someone explain to me why both the answer above this and mine were downvoted? The linked library has zero context on what 3Blue1Brown is, or even that it's a YouTube channel. Changing the explanation on the library from "Manim is an animation engine for explanatory math videos. It's used to create precise animations programmatically." to "Manim is an animation engine for explanatory math videos. It's used to create precise animations programmatically, as seen on <the 3Blue1Brown YouTube channel>." would — in seven words — instantly improve this README. It would give visitors context, concrete examples, and a resource to dig in more. If you've downvoted, please explain what drawbacks there are to that.
Aaargh20318 8y ago
Where can I find some examples of the output of this ? The github page doesn't link to an example video or even a screenshot.
- Gladdyu 8y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw
  - Aaargh20318 8y ago
    Thanks, that looks pretty cool actually.
  - nkozyra 8y ago
    I clicked on the first one and most of the animation is distracting and superfluous, like bars of a bar graph repeatedly bouncing off each other. Does that sort of animation really promote learning? How much ornamental dressing is needed to keep visual attention but not distract?
    - andybak 8y ago
      Aren't they meant to be solid masses with particular collision properties? In which case showing how they collide seems to me exactly want you'd want to show. EDIT - I just watched it with sound. I suspect you didn't and misunderstood the subject matter.
- hbgb 8y ago
  The github readme points to a tutorial here: https://talkingphysics.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/getting-started-animating-with-manim-and-python-3-7/ https://talkingphysics.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/getting-star...
waldsonpatricio 8y ago
Does anybody has a recommendation to animation workflow for algorithms explanation? I've already tried with tikz and inkscape, but I always give up.
sethammons 8y ago
As a former math teacher and now software developer, this is super cool. I no longer have a need for it, but if I had time, I'd consider reviving some old lessons. Again, this is really neat. It would be nice to be able to make it interactive, like slider bars and such. The ti Nspire had some cool apps for that.
JudgeWapner 8y ago
Just wanted to also give a shoutout to Eugene Khutoryansky for providing a ton of science and math videos with great 3D visualizations. I'm not sure what 3D system he uses, perhaps someone here does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r18Gi8lSkfM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r18Gi8lSkfM https://www.youtube.com/user/EugeneKhutoryansky https://www.youtube.com/user/EugeneKhutoryansky

669 points by amingilani 8y ago

Why did he give away his secret sauce? Edit: yes I know this tool isn’t his secret sauce, I was being facetious. His excellent explanations are his secret sauce. I just wanted to know why he open sourced this after so long of saying it was made for his personal use and wasn’t designed for widespread use.

gsich 8y ago
Because the renderer alone won't help you.
yathern 8y ago
Because the "secret sauce" isn't a tool to make animations. The secret sauce is being able to explain complex concepts in simple terms, while encouraging curiosity and maintaining math as an approachable topic, for those who may be otherwise intimidated - and additionally coming up with ideas for animations that will help explain those concepts. All the while, maintaining a high level of quality and regularly releasing content, such that you become a "brand". It's a lot harder to replicate that secret sauce, than it is to replicate some animation engine.
- maimeowmeow 8y ago
  In addition, theres proabably not a wide audience for math videos, and this is a good advertisement for his channel. Likely would have been useful when I was in undergrad, but most math terms are gibberish after not using them at all for work.
- csours 8y ago
  To expand: Of all of the math teachers I've had, only one tried to explain things in an understandable way the 3b1b does. Most math teachers just follow a curriculum and hope repetition drills facts into the students head. 3b1b makes the relationships between systems clear.
- roenxi 8y ago
  Mathematicians are all experts at symbol manipulation and tend to communicate that way. 3b1b uses geometric analogues that are far more useful than definitions and symbols for learners. Math teachers are usually stuck using symbols to communicate because not many mathematicians have 3b1b's skill at animating and so can't use the high-bandwidth visual medium like he does. A blackboard can't compete with a 3b1b video; and it isn't just because he thinks clearly, it is because an animation can get more bits of information through in a short period of time and works better with a students short term memory. His custom animation tool is more important than it seems - he can explain more clearly because of a slight-of-hand where he has a much wider communication channel to get his message across. That being said, the barrier to entry is still high. I suspect any topic he hasn't already covered is going to need specialist knowledge to extend this program.
  - jshowa3 8y ago
    I like 3b1b's animations, but lets not get ahead of ourselves here. Mathematicians have been using blackboards and symbols for thousands of years, and its never been a hindrance. While its not as good as video, its more than adequate to explain things and if you still have issues, you can use the many mathematical modeling tools that have existed for years. Also, many of his topics require in-depth knowledge in the first place and gloss over significant portions of detail because the problems are often specialized. These details are obscured through the many drawings and it gives the viewer a false sense of understanding without actually being able to do the math. So you're left with a largely conceptual understanding without any syntheses understanding, because, at the end of the day, you have to produce a line by line derivation in order to be considered having understanding.
earenndil 8y ago
Because animations aren't his secret sauce?
FPGAhacker 8y ago
It’s been on github for years.
fireattack 8y ago
>why he open sourced this after so long Did he only do it recently? It was on GitHub already when I watched his video first time.
- raverbashing 8y ago
  Yes, it has been on GitHub for some time already
0815test 8y ago
> after so long of saying it was made for his personal use and wasn’t designed for widespread use. I'm not sure why you don't trust his explanation? Polishing up personal/internal projects and making them releasable as open source can take a lot of time and effort.
- outlace 8y ago
  I never said I didn’t trust his explanation. As I recall it seemed like he had no intention of ever making it widely available so was just surprised to see it show up all of the sudden. This is sort of funny, I’m actually a big fan of his work and yet everyone seems to think my question is a knock on him.
danielg6 8y ago
The 3b-hive stung you.
whytaka 8y ago
Clearly, he is simply a great human.

bitforger 8y ago

I tried using this once... it wasn't super great. 1. The documentation is sorely lacking. 2. Which makes the inheritance hierarchy (which is already a little unintuitive) really hard to grok. 3. There's this weird home-rolled way of doing default property inheritance that took me a long time to wrap my head around. In the end, I ended up coding a short interactive thing[1] for my blog using Paper.js. It's a great idea, but could really use some love and maybe a stronger philosophy to guide development. Right now it feels more like a few hacks thrown together. [1] http://mitchgordon.me/math/2019/03/18/multiplying-complex-numbers.html http://mitchgordon.me/math/2019/03/18/multiplying-complex-nu...

amingilani 8y ago
Yeah, that's what I felt when I poked around it. But at the same time, I don't think it was meant to be anything more than a few hacks he uses to create his own beautiful content. I expect this is the kind of critique I'd get if someone ever tried to use my dotfiles. They work wonderfully, but just for me.
sago 8y ago
He can't win. People bug him to find out what software he uses. He says he wrote it. People bug him to release it. And then complain it is not properly documented or is unintuitive. 'A few hacks thrown together' seems awfully pejorative. It is a tool he has developed over the years to enable him to produce the high-quality videos he releases.
- GuiA 8y ago
  People don’t know what they want. Or rather, they conflate what they want with real things that are close to, but not quite exactly, what they had in their mind. They then get frustrated because it doesn’t match what they imagined the whole time... but nobody told them it was!
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- hyperpallium 8y ago

billfruit 8y ago

Does it do 3d? Because geometry and algebra on 3d bodies and rotations, quarternions, etc do benefit from good visualizations.

MayorMonty 8y ago
A lot of his series on differential equations and geometry makes use of 3d components, presumably from this engine

knolan 8y ago

I’ve recently moved back into academia. Inspired by 3b1b and horrified by the awful state of the (PowerPoint) notes that were given to the students of the modules I now coordinate, I’ve taken to rewriting them using Jupyter and copious amounts of Blender animations. I don’t see myself using these tools as I know blender very well and I’ve got a workflow. Equations can be exported from LaTeXit as SVG and imported into blender for manipulation and animation. The new eevee real time renderer in 2.8 makes rendering high quality graphics really fast. Then, when appropriate, I try to recreate the concept in simple Python and animate it so the students can play with it.

wodenokoto 8y ago
Sounds awesome, can you show off some examples?
- knolan 8y ago
  I will once I have a few complete sections. I plan on putting them on GitHub so you can run them via Google Colab. The topic is introductory fluid mechanics BTW.
  - viKunar 8y ago
    Hey, I’d love to help out with that. I’ve been making my own attempt at writing literate code in fluid dynamics and I’d love any examples of it in the wild. In short, don’t mind a repo with half finished code :) send me a message at @grokkingStuff
    - knolan 8y ago
      I’ll be in touch!
osrec 8y ago
Would you mind explaining how you work with SVGs in blender? Genuinely interested, as I've been using blender for years, but have not had much success manipulating 2d graphics in there. I'm hoping your workflow can expand my knowledge! Thanks!

anonfunction 8y ago

This type of project would really benefit from some examples of the media it produces.

etatoby 8y ago
You mean such as the entire 3blue1brown YouTube channel that it was created for?
- anonfunction 8y ago
  Sure, that would be a great thing to include in the README.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
palebluedot 8y ago
In the tutorial linked in the README, there are many examples with output: https://talkingphysics.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/getting-started-animating-with-manim-and-python-3-7/ https://talkingphysics.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/getting-star...
- anonfunction 8y ago
  Thanks! I think a screenshot or link to a youtube video would be helpful in the README for those of us unfamiliar with 3Blue1Brown.
  - charliepark 8y ago
    I have no idea why this was downvoted. This is absolutely correct. Edit: Can someone explain to me why both the answer above this and mine were downvoted? The linked library has zero context on what 3Blue1Brown is, or even that it's a YouTube channel. Changing the explanation on the library from "Manim is an animation engine for explanatory math videos. It's used to create precise animations programmatically." to "Manim is an animation engine for explanatory math videos. It's used to create precise animations programmatically, as seen on <the 3Blue1Brown YouTube channel>." would — in seven words — instantly improve this README. It would give visitors context, concrete examples, and a resource to dig in more. If you've downvoted, please explain what drawbacks there are to that.

Aaargh20318 8y ago

Where can I find some examples of the output of this ? The github page doesn't link to an example video or even a screenshot.

Gladdyu 8y ago
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw
- Aaargh20318 8y ago
  Thanks, that looks pretty cool actually.
- nkozyra 8y ago
  I clicked on the first one and most of the animation is distracting and superfluous, like bars of a bar graph repeatedly bouncing off each other. Does that sort of animation really promote learning? How much ornamental dressing is needed to keep visual attention but not distract?
  - andybak 8y ago
    Aren't they meant to be solid masses with particular collision properties? In which case showing how they collide seems to me exactly want you'd want to show. EDIT - I just watched it with sound. I suspect you didn't and misunderstood the subject matter.
hbgb 8y ago
The github readme points to a tutorial here: https://talkingphysics.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/getting-started-animating-with-manim-and-python-3-7/ https://talkingphysics.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/getting-star...

waldsonpatricio 8y ago

Does anybody has a recommendation to animation workflow for algorithms explanation? I've already tried with tikz and inkscape, but I always give up.

sethammons 8y ago

As a former math teacher and now software developer, this is super cool. I no longer have a need for it, but if I had time, I'd consider reviving some old lessons. Again, this is really neat. It would be nice to be able to make it interactive, like slider bars and such. The ti Nspire had some cool apps for that.

JudgeWapner 8y ago

Just wanted to also give a shoutout to Eugene Khutoryansky for providing a ton of science and math videos with great 3D visualizations. I'm not sure what 3D system he uses, perhaps someone here does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r18Gi8lSkfM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r18Gi8lSkfM https://www.youtube.com/user/EugeneKhutoryansky https://www.youtube.com/user/EugeneKhutoryansky