How to use

Read individual rule files for detailed explanations and code examples:

Core Concepts rules/scenes.md - InteractiveScene, Scene types, and construct method rules/mobjects.md - Mobject types, VMobject, Groups, and positioning rules/animations.md - Animation classes, playing animations, and timing Creation & Transformation rules/creation-animations.md - ShowCreation, Write, FadeIn, DrawBorderThenFill rules/transform-animations.md - Transform, ReplacementTransform, TransformMatchingTex rules/animation-groups.md - LaggedStart, Succession, AnimationGroup Text & Math rules/tex.md - Tex class, raw strings R"...", and LaTeX rendering rules/text.md - Text mobjects, fonts, and styling rules/t2c.md - tex_to_color_map (t2c) for coloring math expressions Styling & Appearance rules/colors.md - Color constants, gradients, RGB, hex, GLSL coloring rules/styling.md - Fill, stroke, opacity, backstroke, gloss, shadow 3D & Camera rules/3d.md - 3D objects, surfaces, Sphere, Torus, parametric surfaces, lighting rules/camera.md - frame.reorient(), Euler angles, fix_in_frame(), camera animations Interactive Development rules/interactive.md - Interactive mode with -se flag, checkpoint_paste() rules/frame.md - self.frame, camera control, reorient, and zooming rules/embedding.md - self.embed() for IPython debugging, touch() mode Configuration & CLI rules/cli.md - manimgl command, flags (-w, -o, -se, -l, -h), rendering options rules/config.md - custom_config.yml, directories, camera settings, quality presets Working Examples

Complete, tested example files demonstrating common patterns:

examples/basic_animations.py - Basic shapes, text, and animations examples/math_visualization.py - LaTeX equations and mathematical content examples/graph_plotting.py - Axes, functions, and graphing examples/3d_visualization.py - 3D scenes with camera control and surfaces examples/updater_patterns.py - Dynamic animations with updaters Scene Templates

Copy and modify these templates to start new projects:

templates/basic_scene.py - Standard 2D scene template templates/interactive_scene.py - InteractiveScene with self.embed() templates/3d_scene.py - 3D scene with frame.reorient() templates/math_scene.py - Mathematical derivations and equations Quick Reference Basic Scene Structure from manimlib import *

class MyScene(InteractiveScene): def construct(self): # Create mobjects circle = Circle()

    # Add to scene (static)
    self.add(circle)

    # Or animate
    self.play(ShowCreation(circle))  # Note: ShowCreation, not Create

    # Wait
    self.wait(1)

Render Command

Render and preview

manimgl scene.py MyScene

Interactive mode - drop into shell at line 15

manimgl scene.py MyScene -se 15

Write to file

manimgl scene.py MyScene -w

Low quality for testing

manimgl scene.py MyScene -l

Key Differences from ManimCE Feature ManimGL (3b1b) Manim Community Import from manimlib import * from manim import * CLI manimgl manim Math text Tex(R"\pi") MathTex(r"\pi") Scene InteractiveScene Scene Create anim ShowCreation Create Camera self.frame self.camera.frame Fix in frame mob.fix_in_frame() self.add_fixed_in_frame_mobjects(mob) Package manimgl (PyPI) manim (PyPI) Interactive Development Workflow

ManimGL's killer feature is interactive development:

Start at line 20 with state preserved

manimgl scene.py MyScene -se 20

In interactive mode:

Copy code to clipboard, then run:

checkpoint_paste() # Run with animations checkpoint_paste(skip=True) # Run instantly (no animations) checkpoint_paste(record=True) # Record while running

Camera Control (self.frame)

Get the camera frame

frame = self.frame

Reorient in 3D (phi, theta, gamma, center, height)

frame.reorient(45, -30, 0, ORIGIN, 8)

Animate camera movement

self.play(frame.animate.reorient(60, -45, 0))

Fix mobjects to stay in screen space during 3D movement

title.fix_in_frame()

LaTeX with Tex class

Use raw strings with capital R

formula = Tex(R"\int_0^1 x^2 \, dx = \frac{1}{3}")

Color mapping with t2c

equation = Tex( R"E = mc^2", t2c={"E": BLUE, "m": GREEN, "c": YELLOW} )

Isolate substrings for animation

formula = Tex(R"\sum_{n=1}^{\infty} \frac{1}{n^2} = \frac{\pi^2}{6}") formula.set_color_by_tex("n", BLUE)

Common Patterns Embedding for debugging def construct(self): circle = Circle() self.play(ShowCreation(circle)) self.embed() # Drops into IPython shell here

Set floor plane for 3D self.set_floor_plane("xz") # Makes xy the viewing plane

Backstroke for text readability text = Text("Label") text.set_backstroke(BLACK, 5) # Black outline behind text

Installation

Install ManimGL

pip install manimgl

Check installation

manimgl --version

Common Pitfalls to Avoid Version confusion - Ensure you're using manimgl, not manim (community version) ShowCreation vs Create - ManimGL uses ShowCreation, not Create Tex vs MathTex - ManimGL uses Tex with capital R raw strings self.frame vs self.camera.frame - ManimGL uses self.frame directly fix_in_frame() - Call on the mobject, not the scene Interactive mode - Use -se flag for interactive development License & Attribution

This skill contains example code adapted from 3Blue1Brown's video repository by Grant Sanderson.

License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Attribution required - Credit both 3Blue1Brown and the adapter NonCommercial - Not for commercial use ShareAlike - Derivatives must use the same license

See LICENSE.txt for full details.