When fine-tuning a molecular animation, one detail can make or break your presentation: how and when objects appear on screen. If you’re working with molecular assemblies, chemical reactions, or binding mechanisms, timing the visibility of atoms and structures precisely can help you tell your scientific story more clearly. But how do you strike the right balance between clarity and complexity — without manually adjusting node visibility over and over?
That’s exactly what the Show animation effect in SAMSON helps with. It’s a tool that simplifies the process of making atoms (or any nodes) appear at a specific frame in your animation — and stay visible until the end, so your audience can follow changes without distraction.
Why visibility control matters
Let’s say you want to visualize a ligand binding to a protein, but only reveal the ligand halfway through the animation to better focus the viewer’s attention. Manually toggling visibility at each frame can become tedious — and often leads to human errors. Molecular modelers often want a clean, linear workflow: select the node, define when it should appear, and ensure smooth visibility without having to think twice.
Show solves this by allowing you to:
- Hide a node before a specific frame.
- Make the node appear at a defined keyframe.
- Keep it visible automatically for the rest of the animation.
The logic is simple, but powerful: it’s basically combining Hidden followed by Shown in a single animation effect — one that saves time and reduces errors.
How to use the Show animation
Here’s how to quickly add the effect:
- Select the node(s) you want to show — these could be individual atoms, molecular chains, or structural groups.
- In the Animation Panel of the Animator, double-click Show.
This action automatically creates three keyframes:
- Between keyframe 1 and 2: nodes are hidden
- At keyframe 2: nodes appear
- From keyframe 2 to 3: nodes remain visible
If necessary, you can drag the keyframes to match your script’s rhythm. And yes — all keyframes remain editable at any time.
Extra tip: fine-tune appearance with easing curves
While visibility itself is binary (hidden or shown), you can still control the feeling of the transition by editing the easing curve. This is useful when coordinating multiple visibility changes — so they don’t feel abrupt or out of sync with other motions.
Is this better than alternatives?
In many cases, yes. You could use Appear or Flash for different visual effects, but if all you want is for the node to show up clearly and persist throughout the rest of the animation, Show is the cleanest solution. It reduces clutter in the timeline and removes the need for chaining effects.
Conclusion
Whether you’re preparing a molecular simulation demo or a teaching animation, visibility timing is part of communicating complexity simply. The Show feature in SAMSON offers a visually intuitive and technically efficient way to reveal molecular components when it matters most — and keep them visible for as long as you need.
To dive deeper into the Show animation, visit the official documentation page: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/animations/show/
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net