Stabilizing the View: How to Lock the Camera During Molecular Animations

When creating animations of molecular systems, the camera view can sometimes unexpectedly shift between frames. This often happens when working on long simulation trajectories or assembling scenes over time, leading to moments of disorientation or inconsistent visual storytelling.

Fortunately, the Hold camera animation effect in SAMSON provides a straightforward solution. If you’ve ever played back your animation and thought, “Wait — why did the view just change?”, this feature might be exactly what you need.

Why the View Might Drift

In SAMSON, each frame in your animation may reflect your current camera position — unless explicitly defined otherwise. If you change the camera to examine a particular atom or orientation at one point but forget to control that view in the animation timeline, you might find that SAMSON automatically interpolates (or jumps) between views in unintended ways.

This can break immersion in scientific presentations, obscure important atomistic details, or generally make your molecular animations harder to follow. This is especially true when you switch between animation types, or when you revisit a document after making changes to the orientation.

What the ‘Hold Camera’ Animation Does

The Hold camera animation allows you to fix the camera’s position, target, and zoom level between two frames. The camera remains static, regardless of what other changes you make, helping you present a clean and consistent view of your molecular scene.

It’s particularly useful in multi-part animations where some segments involve camera motion, while others are intended to be viewed from a fixed angle. Using this technique, you can:

  • Keep focus on a catalytic site during multiple reaction states
  • Embed a static camera to freeze orientation while other objects animate
  • Ensure reproducibility and clarity in tutorial and education content

How to Use ‘Hold Camera’ in Practice

  1. Navigate to the frame where you want the camera to remain fixed. Use the Animator’s Track View to find the exact position.
  2. Orient the camera to your desired viewpoint using user controls or predefined camera presets.
  3. Open the Animation panel (via Animator, accessible with Ctrl + 7 or Cmd + 7) and double-click on Hold camera.
  4. Adjust the end frame of the effect to match the desired animation length. You can drag the start and end-points on the timeline as needed.

This way, even if other effects are applied later or elsewhere in the project, your defined camera view stays intact for the selected time period.

Hold camera animation example

When to Use It

The ‘Hold camera’ effect can be seen as your lock anchor for visual orientation. Consider placing it:

  • At the beginning of your scene to fix the intro shot
  • In teaching animations to preserve consistent views of molecular structures
  • During any pause or highlight moment where movement might distract from the scientific content

When used deliberately, this simple animation can bring clarity and control to molecular animations — making them easier to watch, explain, and learn from.

To learn more, visit the official documentation page for Hold Camera.

SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.

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