Render formats and quality
Resolutions, frame rates, and output formats.
Rendering always uses the current workspace — the scene editor or the Canvas studio drawings, whichever tab is active when you click Render. See Editor vs. Canvas studio for how the two workspaces differ.
Output formats
| Format | Notes |
|---|---|
mp4 | Standard video, with audio |
gif | Looping, no audio track — any music/sound clips are silently dropped. Good for docs and slides |
webm_alpha | WebM with a transparent (alpha) background, for compositing over other footage |
Quality / resolution presets
| Preset | Resolution | Quality | Manim flag |
|---|---|---|---|
| Draft | 480p | preview | -ql |
| Standard | 720p | final | -qm |
| Full HD | 1080p | final | -qh |
| High | 1440p | final | -qp |
| Ultra | 2160p (4K) | final | -qk |
quality is a separate field from resolution: preview renders faster at lower fidelity, final renders at full fidelity. The five named presets above are shortcuts that set resolution and quality together; resolution and quality can also be set independently.
Frame rate
24, 30, or 60 fps.
Aspect ratio
| Preset | Ratio | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| YouTube | 16:9 | Widescreen |
| Reels / TikTok / Shorts | 9:16 | Vertical |
| Instagram Post | 1:1 | Square |
| Instagram Portrait | 4:5 | Portrait |
| Classic | 4:3 | Legacy widescreen |
| Cinematic | 21:9 | Ultra-wide |
What happens when you click Render
- The current workspace compiles to Manim Python.
- The generated code is written to
scene.pyon the server. - The Manim CLI runs against that file.
- A progress bar parses the CLI's stdout (animation count and internal percentage markers) to estimate completion.
- On success, the output video is available to preview inline and download; on failure, the dialog surfaces the Manim error log along with common fixes (missing LaTeX packages, missing
manim/ffmpegon PATH, and similar).
You can always open the Python via the toolbar's Code view without starting a render — useful for checking the generated scene or running it yourself outside the app. If the project has timeline markers, a Split into chapters checkbox compiles one independent
Scene class per chapter instead of a single continuous class — see Timeline markers.Other sections