Manim’s Output Settings#
This document will focus on understanding manim’s output files and some of the main command-line flags available.
Note
This tutorial picks up where Quickstart left off, so please read that document before starting this one.
Manim output folders#
At this point, you have just executed the following command.
manim -pql scene.py SquareToCircle
Let’s dissect what just happened step by step. First, this command executes
manim on the file scene.py, which contains our animation code. Further,
this command tells manim exactly which Scene is to be rendered, in this case,
it is SquareToCircle. This is necessary because a single scene file may
contain more than one scene. Next, the flag -p tells manim to play the scene
once it’s rendered, and the -ql flag tells manim to render the scene in low
quality.
After the video is rendered, you will see that manim has generated some new files and the project folder will look as follows.
project/
├─scene.py
└─media
├─videos
| └─scene
| └─480p15
| ├─SquareToCircle.mp4
| └─partial_movie_files
├─text
└─Tex
There are quite a few new files. The main output is in
media/videos/scene/480p15/SquareToCircle.mp4. By default, the media
folder will contain all of manim’s output files. The media/videos
subfolder contains the rendered videos. Inside of it, you will find one folder
for each different video quality. In our case, since we used the -l flag,
the video was generated at 480 resolution at 15 frames per second from the
scene.py file. Therefore, the output can be found inside
media/videos/scene/480p15. The additional folders
media/videos/scene/480p15/partial_movie_files as well as media/text and
media/Tex contain files that are used by manim internally.
You can see how manim makes use of the generated folder structure by executing the following command,
manim -pqh scene.py SquareToCircle
The -ql flag (for low quality) has been replaced by the -qh flag, for
high quality. Manim will take considerably longer to render this file, and it
will play it once it’s done since we are using the -p flag. The output
should look like this:
And the folder structure should look as follows.
project/
├─scene.py
└─media
├─videos
| └─scene
| ├─480p15
| | ├─SquareToCircle.mp4
| | └─partial_movie_files
| └─1080p60
| ├─SquareToCircle.mp4
| └─partial_movie_files
├─text
└─Tex
Manim has created a new folder media/videos/1080p60, which corresponds to
the high resolution and the 60 frames per second. Inside of it, you can find
the new SquareToCircle.mp4, as well as the corresponding
partial_movie_files.
When working on a project with multiple scenes, and trying out multiple resolutions, the structure of the output directories will keep all your videos organized.
Further, manim has the option to output the last frame of a scene, when adding
the flag -s. This is the fastest option to quickly get a preview of a scene.
The corresponding folder structure looks like this:
project/
├─scene.py
└─media
├─images
| └─scene
| ├─SquareToCircle.png
├─videos
| └─scene
| ├─480p15
| | ├─SquareToCircle.mp4
| | └─partial_movie_files
| └─1080p60
| ├─SquareToCircle.mp4
| └─partial_movie_files
├─text
└─Tex
Saving the last frame with -s can be combined with the flags for different
resolutions, e.g. -s -ql, -s -qh
Sections#
In addition to the movie output file one can use sections. Each section produces its own output video. The cuts between two sections can be set like this:
def construct(self):
# play the first animations...
# you don't need a section in the very beginning as it gets created automatically
self.next_section()
# play more animations...
self.next_section("this is an optional name that doesn't have to be unique")
# play even more animations...
self.next_section("this is a section without any animations, it will be removed")
All the animations between two of these cuts get concatenated into a single output video file. Be aware that you need at least one animation in each section. For example this wouldn’t create an output video:
def construct(self):
self.next_section()
# this section doesn't have any animations and will be removed
# but no error will be thrown
# feel free to tend your flock of empty sections if you so desire
self.add(Circle())
self.next_section()
One way of fixing this is to wait a little:
def construct(self):
self.next_section()
self.add(Circle())
# now we wait 1sec and have an animation to satisfy the section
self.wait()
self.next_section()
For videos to be created for each section you have to add the --save_sections flag to the Manim call like this:
manim --save_sections scene.py
If you do this, the media folder will look like this:
media
├── images
│ └── simple_scenes
└── videos
└── simple_scenes
└── 480p15
├── ElaborateSceneWithSections.mp4
├── partial_movie_files
│ └── ElaborateSceneWithSections
│ ├── 2201830969_104169243_1331664314.mp4
│ ├── 2201830969_398514950_125983425.mp4
│ ├── 2201830969_398514950_3447021159.mp4
│ ├── 2201830969_398514950_4144009089.mp4
│ ├── 2201830969_4218360830_1789939690.mp4
│ ├── 3163782288_524160878_1793580042.mp4
│ └── partial_movie_file_list.txt
└── sections
├── ElaborateSceneWithSections_0000.mp4
├── ElaborateSceneWithSections_0001.mp4
├── ElaborateSceneWithSections_0002.mp4
└── ElaborateSceneWithSections.json
As you can see each section receives their own output video in the sections directory.
The JSON file in here contains some useful information for each section:
[
{
"name": "create square",
"type": "default.normal",
"video": "ElaborateSceneWithSections_0000.mp4",
"codec_name": "h264",
"width": 854,
"height": 480,
"avg_frame_rate": "15/1",
"duration": "2.000000",
"nb_frames": "30"
},
{
"name": "transform to circle",
"type": "default.normal",
"video": "ElaborateSceneWithSections_0001.mp4",
"codec_name": "h264",
"width": 854,
"height": 480,
"avg_frame_rate": "15/1",
"duration": "2.000000",
"nb_frames": "30"
},
{
"name": "fade out",
"type": "default.normal",
"video": "ElaborateSceneWithSections_0002.mp4",
"codec_name": "h264",
"width": 854,
"height": 480,
"avg_frame_rate": "15/1",
"duration": "2.000000",
"nb_frames": "30"
}
]
This data can be used by third party applications, like a presentation system or automated video editing tool.
You can also skip rendering all animations belonging to a section like this:
def construct(self):
self.next_section(skip_animations=True)
# play some animations that shall be skipped...
self.next_section()
# play some animations that won't get skipped...
Some command line flags#
When executing the command
manim -pql scene.py SquareToCircle
it was necessary to specify which Scene class to render. This is because a
single file can contain more than one Scene class. If your file contains
multiple Scene classes, and you want to render them all, you can use the
-a flag.
As discussed previously, the -ql specifies low render quality. This does
not look very good, but is very useful for rapid prototyping and testing. The
other options that specify render quality are -qm, -qh, and -qk for
medium, high, and 4k quality, respectively.
The -p flag plays the animation once it is rendered. If you want to open
the file browser at the location of the animation instead of playing it, you
can use the -f flag. You can also omit these two flags.
Finally, by default manim will output .mp4 files. If you want your animations
in .gif format instead, use the -i flag. The output files will be in the
same folder as the .mp4 files, and with the same name, but a different file
extension.
This was a quick review of some of the most frequent command-line flags. For a thorough review of all flags available, see the thematic guide on Manim’s configuration system.