From Animated Motion to a Reusable Molecular Path

A molecular presentation can show atoms moving, but the motion you see is not automatically a saved trajectory. That distinction matters when you want to reuse or inspect the path created by several animations. In SAMSON, the Record path animation captures atom positions as the presentation plays, then lets you create a Path node from the recorded result.

This is useful when the movement comes from an animation such as Assemble, Dock, Move atoms, or Simulate—or from a combination of them. Rather than trying to reconstruct the motion afterward, you can record the resulting positions as the presentation runs.

A reliable recording workflow

  1. Set up the animations that produce the motion. Add and arrange the animations whose resulting positions you want to capture.
  2. Add Record path. In the Animator’s Animation panel, double-click the Record path effect. Its keyframe is placed at the current frame; move it if the recording should begin at a different point.
  3. Check the order. The Animator executes animations from top to bottom. Place Record path after the animations whose positions it should record. This ordering is easy to overlook: if the recorder comes before a motion-producing animation, it may not capture the intended result.
  4. Play the presentation. Let it run so the positions can be recorded across the path. The track’s colors provide a quick status check: green means positions have been recorded for that segment; red means they have not yet been recorded or have become invalid.
  5. Create the Path node. Once the presentation has played and the Record path track is fully green, use Create path in the animation’s Inspector, or right-click the animation in the Animator and choose Create path.
Record path animation showing recorded and unrecorded progress
Green segments indicate recorded positions; red segments indicate positions that are not recorded or are invalid.

Use the track as a progress check

The color display is more than a visual detail. Before creating a Path node, scan the full track rather than checking only the beginning. A red section is a sign that the corresponding positions are missing or invalid, so the recording is not yet complete. If the track is not fully green, play the presentation as needed and check again before exporting.

Keyframes are movable, so you can adjust their placement if the recording needs to cover a different part of the presentation. If you are still editing the presentation—or have finished recording and do not plan to change the path—you can enable or disable recording in the animation’s Inspector. The same setting is available by right-clicking Record path in the Animator and changing Enable recording. When recording is disabled, the animation controllers are darkened.

Create path option for the Record path animation
After recording, create the corresponding Path node from the Inspector or the Animator context menu.

Keep recording and motion generation distinct

Record path captures the positions produced by other animations; it is not itself the motion-producing step. That makes the animation order and the playback check central to a dependable workflow: first arrange the motion, then place the recorder after it, play the presentation, confirm the track is fully green, and create the Path node.

For the exact interface steps and related path animations, see the Record path documentation.

Note: SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. Get SAMSON.

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