programation

programation stands for "Programmatic Animation", basically drawing with a computer, but that sounded fancier. After watching videos from 3blue1brown I was inspired to make my own animation toolkit, based on his. My goal is to create this completely on my own, though I've taken a few things from his project (cited in source).

Current State:

Requirements

To preview you only need to have the python requirements installed. You can install them by running the following command:

> pip install --user -r requirements.txt

In order to save to a video, you will need FFmpeg

Usage

> python main.py

Command-line options

• No arguments: Defaults to -p
• -f <filename>: Export to the following file
  • Ex: -f ./files/output/Test.mp4
• -h: Enable high-quality rendering (1920 by 1080)
• -m: Enable medium-quality rendering (1280 by 720)
• -p: Preview the animation
• -size<width>[x<height>]: Manually set the render size
  • -size<width> will result in a 16 by 9 aspect ratio with the specified width
  • Ex: -size1234x567 will set the render size to a width of 1234 and a height of 567
  • If no size is provided, it will default to 640 by 360

Runtime options

• p: Pause/resume the animation
• <enter> or <space>: Step to the next frame when paused
• <escape>: Close the window

Windows

To get this project setup on Windows, you'll need a few things:

• Python 3: https://www.python.org/downloads/

  • You will also need to have the VC++ 14.0 Build Tools

  • Make sure to have the following selected:

    • C++ build tools 14.00

    

    • Windows 10 SDK (any version should work, just remember which you used)

    

  • Once installed, add the Windows 10 SDK bin directory to the PATH
    • Path should be something like: C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\<SDK Version>\x64
  • You may also need to upgrade the setuptools package once this is installed

    > pip install --upgrade setuptools

• TeX Live: https://www.tug.org/texlive/quickinstall.html
  • I chose the simple installation with all default settings (this will take a while)
• FFmpeg: http://adaptivesamples.com/how-to-install-ffmpeg-on-windows/
  • I recommend using the latest stable build, rather than the nightly build
• dvisvgm: https://dvisvgm.de/Downloads/
  • This will fix a memory issue that occurs with the version shipped with TeX Live
  • Note: I'm uncertain if this is still mandatory, if you don't run into any issues feel free to leave this off
  • Extract the zip to any folder you like, but make sure to put this before TeX Live in the PATH