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How I animate 3Blue1Brown [video]

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Re: How I animate 3Blue1Brown [video]

#21
post #19

I’m amazed at how much production goes into each of his videos. His YouTube play button is well deserved.

It's also what bums me out about YouTube. There is an insane amount of effort that goes into producing high-quality videos - orders of magnitude more than would go into putting together a well-illustrated blog post.

As with blogs, a lot of this effort is wasted unless you get lucky. But with blogs, at least you have multiple good shots at visibility. Maybe you'll make it to the top of HN, maybe on X, maybe somewhere else. Even within a single platform, you usually have multiple tries. If you don't get noticed right away, there's still hope that someone else shares your content down the line.

In contrast, on YouTube, an algorithm essentially decides once. If you don't already have a zillion subscribers, it shows your video to a couple of people, more or less at random. If they don't engage, that's the end of the road.

Re: How I animate 3Blue1Brown [video]

#22

It's funny how, after years of hearing his voice and not seeing his face, seeing his face puts me in smack in the middle of the uncanny valley.

I feel like quite a few of the content creators I watch are starting to “show their face”, though the big one that comes to mind is the Real Engineering guy. A few of his newest videos have had him acting a bit like a host, interviewer and narrator.

It’s also weird when some of these creators swap with somebody else, like veratasium has had his producer do some of the videos instead.

The big reveal would be AvE.

Re: How I animate 3Blue1Brown [video]

#23
post #19

I’m amazed at how much production goes into each of his videos. His YouTube play button is well deserved.

It's also what bums me out about YouTube. There is an insane amount of effort that goes into producing high-quality videos - orders of magnitude more than would go into putting together a well-illustrated blog post. As with blogs, a lot of this effort is wasted unless you get lucky. But with blogs, at least you have multiple good shots at visibility. Maybe you'll make it to the top of HN, maybe on X, maybe somewhere…

A YouTube video has a URL though. So just like a blog post, you can share it on all the same sites you mentioned with blog posts.

Plus you have the built-in audience of YouTube and the algorithm that can help with discovery..

"Build it and they will come" has never been true, for videos or blogs...

Re: How I animate 3Blue1Brown [video]

#25

Wow. I really wish this were a JavaScript library so we could play with this in a browser and publish 3D animations to the browser.

I've done some porting between Python and JS based on Tensorflow in the past - and I suspect the poor ergonomics in JS for math/lists would probably ruin the experience a good amount. Perhaps something like Pyodide can bridge the gap and make it easier to bring into the browser as well.

It would probably be easier to add an 'export to js' option to Manim than to try to create an ergomic js library.

Re: How I animate 3Blue1Brown [video]

#26
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also what bums me out about YouTube. There is an insane amount of effort that goes into producing high-quality videos - orders of magnitude more than would go into putting together a well-illustrated blog post. As with blogs, a lot of this effort is wasted unless you get lucky. But with blogs, at least you have multiple good shots at visibility. Maybe you'll make it to the top of HN, maybe on X, maybe somewhere…

A YouTube video has a URL though. So just like a blog post, you can share it on all the same sites you mentioned with blog posts. Plus you have the built-in audience of YouTube and the algorithm that can help with discovery.. "Build it and they will come" has never been true, for videos or blogs...

There are surprisingly few venues for video content outside YT, at least not on a scale that would matter on YT! For example, if you want to get to the top of HN, non-video content has much better odds. Many tech- or science-centric subreddits discourage or ban videos too.

YT is a fairly closed ecosystem that's both insanely resource-intensive to participate in, and that doesn't give creators too many second chances. My specific claim is that it's more of a crapshoot than running a blog. There are so many great science visualizations with 50 views.

Re: How I animate 3Blue1Brown [video]

#27
post #8

It's funny how, after years of hearing his voice and not seeing his face, seeing his face puts me in smack in the middle of the uncanny valley.

He featured multiple times before with Matt Parker and Brady Haran (NF), strange that you missed it. Although I guess even in this niche channel preferences vary wildly.

What's NF? ChatGPT thinks it refers to Numberphile in this comment, but wouldn't that be NP? I've never seen Numberphile abbreviated as NF.

Re: How I animate 3Blue1Brown [video]

#28

It's funny how, after years of hearing his voice and not seeing his face, seeing his face puts me in smack in the middle of the uncanny valley.

I feel like quite a few of the content creators I watch are starting to “show their face”, though the big one that comes to mind is the Real Engineering guy. A few of his newest videos have had him acting a bit like a host, interviewer and narrator. It’s also weird when some of these creators swap with somebody else, like veratasium has had his producer do some of the videos instead. The big reveal would be AvE.

I noticed a few of the people I watch revealed their face last year before the big collab with Mark Rober.

Re: How I animate 3Blue1Brown [video]

#29

It's funny how, after years of hearing his voice and not seeing his face, seeing his face puts me in smack in the middle of the uncanny valley.

I feel like quite a few of the content creators I watch are starting to “show their face”, though the big one that comes to mind is the Real Engineering guy. A few of his newest videos have had him acting a bit like a host, interviewer and narrator. It’s also weird when some of these creators swap with somebody else, like veratasium has had his producer do some of the videos instead. The big reveal would be AvE.

I used to like AvE till COVID. Then he became an anti-masker conspiratorial nutjob.

Re: How I animate 3Blue1Brown [video]

#30
Lately I often think about 3Blue1Brown, Veritasium and Kahn Academy, how much good they are doing to this world.

Imagine having close to an unlimited amount of money at your disposal and a media platform which is capable of reaching close to every person on this planet. To give people a voice in a community, if they dare to or if they feel the need to.

The only thing you then lack is a platform for organizing communities instead of sowing the seeds of hatred, to use the tools provided by people like Grant Sanderson, Derek Muller, Grady Hillhouse and others, in order to help communities to improve their communities, towns, cities, and so on. To help them solve their problems, make them understand how problematic corruption, greed and abuse of power is.

While I was born in Germany, I lived for around 20 years in Peru, since I was a child. People are poor, but very kind hearted, politicians and the wealthy are corrupt.

This is what makes me feel so sad about Elon Musk, specially knowing that he grew up in South Africa.

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