Cannot run git-sim to generate only images

[bendem]

The documentation says it will generate images unless --animate is provided to the command line, I can't seem to not generate videos.

> git-sim -d --img-format=png --no-animate --low-quality --media-dir=../version-sample.git-sim --all merge dev
Simulating: git merge dev
Output image location: ../version-sample.git-sim/git-sim_media/version-sample/images/git-sim-merge_03-15-23_14-55-45.png

> find ../version-sample.git-sim
../version-sample.git-sim
../version-sample.git-sim/git-sim_media
../version-sample.git-sim/git-sim_media/version-sample
../version-sample.git-sim/git-sim_media/version-sample/videos
../version-sample.git-sim/git-sim_media/version-sample/videos/480p15
../version-sample.git-sim/git-sim_media/version-sample/videos/480p15/git-sim-merge_03-15-23_14-55-45.mp4
../version-sample.git-sim/git-sim_media/version-sample/videos/480p15/partial_movie_files
../version-sample.git-sim/git-sim_media/version-sample/videos/480p15/partial_movie_files/Merge
../version-sample.git-sim/git-sim_media/version-sample/videos/480p15/partial_movie_files/Merge/1559455761_51972775_1184456380.mp4
../version-sample.git-sim/git-sim_media/version-sample/videos/480p15/partial_movie_files/Merge/partial_movie_file_list.txt
../version-sample.git-sim/git-sim_media/version-sample/texts
../version-sample.git-sim/git-sim_media/version-sample/texts/eb86629d54dd331d.svg
../version-sample.git-sim/git-sim_media/version-sample/texts/06ce9cf5e00359e1.svg
../version-sample.git-sim/git-sim_media/version-sample/texts/bae3cfb60178f8cf.svg
../version-sample.git-sim/git-sim_media/version-sample/texts/177c442328e6a07a.svg
../version-sample.git-sim/git-sim_media/version-sample/texts/642cbb1c7323e76e.svg
../version-sample.git-sim/git-sim_media/version-sample/texts/18448f657b077afa.svg
../version-sample.git-sim/git-sim_media/version-sample/texts/d7e7e68bfe087ec3.svg
../version-sample.git-sim/git-sim_media/version-sample/images
../version-sample.git-sim/git-sim_media/version-sample/images/git-sim-merge_03-15-23_14-55-45.png

System infos:

> cat /etc/system-release
Rocky Linux release 8.7 (Green Obsidian)

> uname -r
5.15.90.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2

> dnf list --installed ffmpeg cairo pango | cat
Installed Packages
cairo.x86_64                1.15.12-6.el8                @appstream
ffmpeg.x86_64               4.2.8-1.el8                  @rpmfusion-free-updates
pango.x86_64                1.42.4-8.el8                 @appstream

> pipx list
venvs are in /home/demarteaub/.local/pipx/venvs
apps are exposed on your $PATH at /home/demarteaub/.local/bin
   package git-sim 0.2.7, installed using Python 3.9.13
    - git-dummy
    - git-sim

[bendem]

I've tried the exact same thing using a locally built docker image and I'm getting the same behaviour, guessing that means it's not related to my system settings.

Command used to run the image:

podman run \
  --userns=keep-id \
  --rm \
  -e git_sim_media_dir=/out \
  -u $(id -u $USER) \
  -v "$(realpath ../version-sample.git-sim):/out" \
  -v $PWD:/in:ro \
  -w /in \
     github/git-sim -d status

[bendem]

After some testing, I see that the videos generated are actually single frames, adding --animate fills in the rest of the frames. Would there be a way to not generate them at all (removing the requirement to install ffmpeg if we don't actually plan on generating videos)?

[initialcommit-io]

@bendem I will check but I don't think so, as I believe ffmpeg is a dependency of Manim. Also, the way the tool currently works when the --animate flag is not supplied, like you said it still generates a single frame video like you said, and extracts the frame into an image to produce the final output.

I'll do some research/testing and confirm.

[bendem]

Interesting, it wasn't clear to me how this worked, that makes sense now. I guess it's to be expected, it would be nice to have still, but it's just that, nice to have.

[initialcommit-io]

@bendem After looking into the Manim documentation, I don't think there is a way to use Manim without ffmpeg, as it seems to be required by Manim's core animation engine which is used for both generating video and image output. Closing this, but please let me know if any other questions related to this.

[bendem]

Thanks for taking the time to investigate this!