Question Is After Effects really what I need to make explainers, or is it overkill ?

[mirziharza]

Hey I want to create explainer animations regarding certain technical/mathematical/physics topics (imagine 3Blue1Browns animations). <- I know he uses manim but creating animations in Manim for everything doesn't seem possible or it's extraordinarily time-consuming. Think of circuits, physics etc.

The first tool that came into my mind was After Effects but is it really the right tool ? It seems like it but maybe it's not the right tool or too powerful/bloated for my use case.
I want to animate computer science concepts, electrical circuits, everything physics and astronomy related. Manim would handle math (partially).

If AE is overkill, what would you recommend instead ?

I am on Linux but don't worry I can use Wine or Windows (K)VM+GPU passthrough, so no OS limitations on my end.

 

[Eximo]

I can imagine a lot of different ways, some stupider than others.

Flash might still be an option, not suitable any more for use on the web, but nothing says you can't animate in there and record it.

You can probably do a lot with Powerpoint, if you are just moving simple shapes around. Then just screen record it.

There are a lot of free tools out there for making frame by frame animations (ie turning pictures into videos, you would just have to edit an image file in something like GIMP and do it for each frame.

You might even be able to adapt something like Unreal Engine to make simple 2d animations and movements. They have a whole 2D animation engine in there. Coupled with flow diagrams you might be able to make simple movements repeatable and copyable.

I imagine once you get into it, manim might be easier than you think. Just looks daunting.