When working with molecular models, visualizing motion is not only helpful—it’s often essential. Whether you’re simulating a docking process, building a molecular assembly, or simply illustrating atomic movements for a presentation, being able to capture trajectories of atoms over time can make complex behavior much easier to understand and share.
In SAMSON, this is where the Record path animation comes in. Instead of just playing an animation of your molecular transformation, it gives you the ability to record the atomic movement as a reusable and exportable path. This can be especially helpful when working with multiple animation effects that change atomic positions (like Assemble, Dock, or Simulate), and you want to extract meaningful trajectories from these changes.
Why this matters
Capturing atom movements with precision is repeatedly a challenge in molecular modeling—especially when you’re working with dynamic systems, simulations, or complex assemblies. Often, you have to rely on simulation outputs and manually interpret or extract key frames. That’s time consuming and prone to error. The Record path animation in SAMSON addresses this by dynamically capturing the actual positions of atoms as an animation plays.
How it works
To use the Record path animation, all you need to do is:
- Open the Animation panel in the Animator.
- Double-click “Record path” to add the animation track. A keyframe will be placed at your current frame.
- Make sure to place the Record path animation below the other animations that move atoms. SAMSON executes animations from top to bottom, so order matters here.
As your animation plays, the track shows a color-coded bar to indicate if atomic positions are being recorded:
- Green segments: Positions recorded and valid
- Red segments: Positions not recorded yet or no longer valid
Efficiency tip: Pause recording when not needed
Recording can be resource-intensive. If you’re in the middle of designing an animation and aren’t ready to record yet, you can disable the path recording to improve software performance. Right-click on the Record path track in the Animator or use the Inspector panel to toggle “Enable recording”. When recording is off, the animation controllers in the panel will appear darkened—an easy way to tell what’s active.
What can you do with the path afterward?
When you’ve played through the animation and all positions are recorded (green track!), you can extract the path into a standalone Path node in two ways:
- Click “Create path” in the Inspector of the animation
- Right-click on the animation > “Create path” in the Animator panel
At this point, the path can be used for further animations, analysis, or exported depending on your needs.
To learn more, visit the official documentation page: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/animations/record-path/
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. Visit https://www.samson-connect.net to download SAMSON.