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Make 3Blue1Brown-style animations with a few lines of Python

Vertical maths and data clips for Reels, Shorts and TikTok, written in a few lines of Python. Manim is the free animation engine behind the 3Blue1Brown videos: shapes that morph, charts that grow, a dot riding a graph, and a 15-second explainer you fill in with your own idea.

40 minIntermediateTools: FreeStep 1 free
Tested 9 Oct 2026 · Manim Community 0.22.0 on Python 3.12 via uv 0.11.9, no LaTeX installed, 16GB laptop with no graphics card, Windows 11
Vertical 1080x1920 clips ready for Reels, Shorts and TikTok, including a fill-in-the-blanks 15-second explainer template
Real animations you made yourselfa square morphing into a circle, a growing bar chart, a dot riding a graph, text that writes itself and a proper equation
Manim installed in its own project folder, with no LaTeX and no separate FFmpeg needed
  • Fast renders: under 7 seconds for a quick preview and under 13 seconds for a full HD clip, on a laptop with no graphics card
Before you start
  • Windows, Mac or Linux, with about 600MB of free disk space (the project folder comes to about 350MB with the optional equation extra, plus uv's download cache)
  • uv installed. It's a small, official tool that installs Python apps cleanly. Step 1 shows you how
  • Notepad or any code editor. You'll paste code, not write it from scratch
  • No maths degree. If you can change a number in a list, you can make the chart
● What you'll have in 40 minutes
Preview
Four of this mission's animations, rendered by Manim on an ordinary laptop and played side by side. Each took between 5 and 12 seconds to render in full HD.
01/07Install Manim0 done
STEP 01 of 07~6 min

Install Manim

Manim lives in its own project folder, so it can't clash with anything else on your PC.

  1. Manim was created by Grant Sanderson, the person behind the 3Blue1Brown ↗ maths channel, to animate his own videos. There are now two versions, and it matters which one you install:

    • Manim Community (ManimCommunity/manim ↗): a fork of Grant's code that a group of developers started in 2020 and the community now maintains. Its README recommends it for its active development and better documentation. This is what uv add manim installs, and what this mission uses.
    • ManimGL (3b1b/manim ↗): Grant's own version, which he still maintains. It installs under a different name, manimgl.
    TipCode and install instructions for one version often fail on the other. When you search for help or ask an AI, say Manim Community (or ManimCE).

  2. We install it with uv. If you don't have it yet, install it first, then close the terminal and open a new one:

    Windows (only if you don't have uv)
    winget install --id astral-sh.uv -e
    Mac or Linux (only if you don't have uv)
    curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

  3. On Mac and Linux, Manim also needs a few system libraries for drawing and text. Install them once, from Manim's install guide ↗ (Windows users skip this):

    Mac (with Homebrew)
    brew install cairo pkg-config
    Linux (Ubuntu / Debian)
    sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential python3-dev libcairo2-dev libpango1.0-dev
    Linux (Fedora)
    sudo dnf install python3-devel pkg-config cairo-devel pango-devel

  4. Now make a project folder called manimations with Manim inside it. Run these one at a time:

    Terminal
    uv init --python 3.12 manimations
cd manimations
uv add "manim>=0.22,<0.23"
    Output
    Initialized project `manimations` at `...\manimations`
Using CPython 3.12.13
Creating virtual environment at: .venv
Resolved 38 packages in 3.42s
...
 + av==19.0.1
...
 + manim==0.22.0
 + manimpango==0.7.0
...
 + pycairo==1.29.2
...

  5. It takes under a minute on a normal connection, and the project folder comes to about 290MB. Cairo draws the shapes, Pango handles text, and PyAV writes the video with FFmpeg built in, so you don't need to install FFmpeg separately.

  6. Pinned on purpose<0.23 keeps you on Manim 0.22, the version every scene here was written for. Manim is still on 0.x releases, which can rename or change things between versions. When you want a newer one, change the pin, re-render one scene, and check it still looks right.

  7. Check it's healthy:

    Terminal
    uv run manim checkhealth
    Output
    Manim Community v0.22.0
...
Checking whether your installation of Manim Community is healthy...
- Checking whether manim is on your PATH ... PASSED
- Checking whether the executable belongs to manim ... PASSED
- Checking whether latex is available ... FAILED
- Checking whether dvisvgm is available ... SKIPPED

  8. The LaTeX failure is expected. LaTeX is a separate typesetting program. Manim uses it for its classic equation objects and, unless you tell it otherwise, for the numbers on charts and graphs. This mission works round it, and the text and equations step shows a lighter way to get proper equations.

    TipEvery Manim command in this mission starts with uv run. That tells uv to use the Manim inside this folder, so always cd manimations first when you open a new terminal.
✓
Checkpointuv run manim checkhealth prints Manim Community v0.22.0 and PASSED for the first two checks.
If it breaksLines of SyntaxWarning: invalid escape sequence the first time you run it + 3 more
Lines of SyntaxWarning: invalid escape sequence the first time you run it
Harmless. They come from pydub, a small audio library Manim uses, and Python only shows them the first time it reads that file. They go away on the next run.
error: Failed to spawn: manim and program not found
You're not in the project folder. Run cd manimations (from the folder you made it in) and try again.
Can I use Python 3.14 instead of 3.12?
Yes. Manim 0.22.0 supports Python 3.11 to 3.14. This mission pins 3.12 because every example here was rendered on it. If you don't have it, uv downloads it for you (about 21MB).
uv add manim says Microsoft Visual C++ is required
Every package has a ready-made Windows version for Python 3.12, so check you used --python 3.12. If it still happens, Manim's docs say to install the free Microsoft C++ Build Tools with the Desktop development with C++ workload, then open a new terminal and run uv add manim again.
Still stuck? Ask the community
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