resources.md

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page	Resources

For developers

Learning Manim

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How to bill your work

If you are going to work as a contractor, there are two ways you can bill your clients:

1. Flat fee: You charge a fixed sum for each project, which includes minor changes you might need to apply after your client's feedback.
2. Hourly rate: You charge per hour spent working on the project.

The choice between (1) and (2) is a matter of who is going to take on the risk that the project takes longer than expected:

• If you choose a flat fee, you (i.e. the developer) might have to work more hours for the same pay.
• If you choose an hourly rate, the client might have to pay for more hours than your initial estimate and also receive the final product late.

The most important thing to note is:

Manim is in the alpha stage, so you might encounter tricky bugs and end up spending more time than you expect on a project.

In small projects, developers tend to take on the risk themselves and charge a flat fee, in order to prevent a bad service to the client. You can also negotiate extra payment, if the client demands a major change while you are close to finishing the project. Here is an example offer:

The whole animation will cost you 100 USD.

• 40 USD for the first scene.
• 60 USD for the second scene, because I will need to write new classes.

Minor changes are included in the price. If it happens that you don't like the end result and would want me to do a considerable rework, I would have to charge you extra (in addition to the 100 USD).

On the other hand, in large projects with longer-term employment, you might be better off charging hourly (or daily, weekly, monthly, etc.).

You can refer to this blog post to learn more about billing your clients.

Invoicing clients

Invoice your clients each and every time you request a payment from them.

This has a couple of advantages:

• It shows professionality, and makes your client take you more seriously.
• It helps you to keep track of your income.
• Most importantly, it helps your client to keep track of their expenses, which they might deduct from their taxes.

If you have never created an invoice before, click here to get started.

For clients

Do you need Manim?

Before hiring a developer, make sure that Manim is the right tool for what you are trying to produce:

Manim is most suited for cases where you can animate something mathematical more efficiently by writing a program, instead of doing it manually by clicking around.

We created a chart that can help you to decide:

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This advice comes from Grant Sanderson, the creator of Manim, himself. Click here to watch what he has to say.

Reaching out to a developer

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Prepare a storyboard

A storyboard is a collection of drawings and text that describe how the animation should play out. Before you let the developer start working on your animation, the most important thing you have to do is:

Prepare a detailed storyboard for the developer.

Planning is the most essential step in creating an animation. The developer's task is to convert already planned out scenes to code. If the scenes are not planned out in enough detail, the developer is forced to improvise. And that often leads the developer to produce results that are different than what you expect.

To prevent the developer from having to redo your scenes and charging you extra, you should add enough details to your storyboard as to leave as less ambiguity as possible. A good rule of thumb:

One minute that you spend adding details to your storyboard saves the developer one hour of work spent on rewriting code.

We have created a guide to help you learn how to prepare a good storyboard. Click here to get started.