Chapter 3.2: Installing Manim & Your First Animation

Get Manim Running and Create Your First Scene

🎨 PROJECT 3.2 | Difficulty: Intermediate | Time: 15 minutes

💻 Interactive Options:

• 📓 Open in JupyterLite
• 📥 Download Notebook (Challenge)
• 💡 Note: Manim requires FFmpeg and LaTeX for full functionality

🚀 Installing Manim with UV

Option 1: Using UV (Recommended)

# Create a new manim project
mkdir manim-project
cd manim-project

# Initialize UV
uv init

# Add manim
uv add manim

# Manim also needs FFmpeg (for video) and LaTeX (for equations)

Install Dependencies:

macOS:

brew install ffmpeg
brew install --cask mactex-no-gui  # Or: brew install basictex

Windows:

# Install FFmpeg from ffmpeg.org
# Install MiKTeX from miktex.org

Linux:

sudo apt install ffmpeg texlive-latex-base texlive-fonts-recommended

Option 2: Quick Start (Jupyter/Online) - Use Manim Community Online - Run in Google Colab with !pip install manim

🎬 Your First Scene

Create first_scene.py:

from manim import *

class HelloManim(Scene):
    def construct(self):
        # Create text
        text = Text("Hello, Manim!", font_size=72)
        
        # Animate it
        self.play(Write(text))
        self.wait(2)
        self.play(FadeOut(text))

Render it:

uv run manim -pql first_scene.py HelloManim

Flags explained: - -p: Preview after rendering - -q: Quality (l=low, m=medium, h=high, k=4K) - -s: Save last frame as image

🎨 Basic Shapes

from manim import *

class BasicShapes(Scene):
    def construct(self):
        # Create shapes
        circle = Circle(radius=1, color=BLUE)
        square = Square(side_length=2, color=RED)
        triangle = Triangle(color=GREEN)
        
        # Position them
        circle.shift(LEFT * 3)
        triangle.shift(RIGHT * 3)
        
        # Animate
        self.play(Create(circle))
        self.play(Create(square))
        self.play(Create(triangle))
        self.wait(1)
        
        # Transform
        self.play(Transform(circle, square))
        self.wait(1)

🎯 Colors and Styling

from manim import *

class ColorDemo(Scene):
    def construct(self):
        # Predefined colors
        shapes = VGroup(
            Circle(color=RED),
            Circle(color=BLUE),
            Circle(color=GREEN),
            Circle(color=YELLOW),
            Circle(color=PURPLE)
        ).arrange(RIGHT, buff=0.5)
        
        # Custom colors (RGB or hex)
        custom = Circle(color="#FF6B6B")
        
        # Opacity and fills
        filled_circle = Circle()
        filled_circle.set_fill(BLUE, opacity=0.7)
        filled_circle.set_stroke(WHITE, width=3)
        
        self.play(Create(shapes))
        self.wait(1)

✨ Animation Timing

from manim import *

class TimingExample(Scene):
    def construct(self):
        circle = Circle()
        
        # Sequential animations
        self.play(Create(circle), run_time=2)  # Takes 2 seconds
        self.wait(1)  # Pause for 1 second
        self.play(circle.animate.shift(RIGHT * 2), run_time=1)
        
        # Simultaneous animations
        square = Square().shift(LEFT * 2)
        self.play(
            FadeIn(square),
            circle.animate.shift(DOWN),
            run_time=1
        )

🏆 Practice Challenges

Challenge 1: Shape Dance

Create a scene where:

1. Three shapes (circle, square, triangle) appear
2. They rotate 360 degrees simultaneously
3. They change colors
4. They disappear with different effects

Challenge 2: Name Animation

Animate your name:

1. Write it letter by letter
2. Change the color
3. Make it grow and shrink
4. Rotate it

🚀 What’s Next?

Now that you can create and animate basic objects, we’ll learn:

• Mathematical functions and graphs
• LaTeX equations
• Complex transformations

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Previous: 3.1 Intro to Manim | Next: 3.3 Math Functions & Graphs