Creating smooth, compelling molecular animations can be time-consuming, especially when you want the camera to follow a specific path or highlight different regions in a scene. One challenge molecular modelers often face is figuring out how to direct attention dynamically—without manually recording dozens of frames or struggling with awkward transitions.
If you’ve ever wanted more flexibility in how viewers experience your molecular presentations, SAMSON offers a straightforward solution for interpolating camera positions between keyframes with the Move camera animation. By customizing the path of the camera, you can demonstrate structural features, docking events, or interactions while precisely controlling the viewer’s perspective.
Why use Move camera instead of static views?
Fixed viewpoints are helpful, but they rarely tell the full story. With the Move camera animation, you can blend multiple perspectives into a continuous motion. This makes your presentation more engaging—and more informative. For example, you can show a protein-ligand docking process by flying the camera into the binding site, pause briefly, then pull back to give context.
The feature relies on creating and adjusting keyframes, which are specific positions and orientations of the camera that the animation interpolates between. Each keyframe captures the exact state of the camera at a specific point in time. It’s a bit like stop-motion, but automated.
Getting started
To begin, simply orient the view as desired. Within the Animator’s Track view, choose the frame where the camera should be positioned and double-click the Move camera animation from the Animation panel. This automatically adds a keyframe capturing your current camera setup.
Fine-tuning the animation path
You can add additional keyframes by navigating to a new frame, adjusting the camera orientation, then left-clicking in the animation track (or right-clicking and selecting Add keyframe). SAMSON will interpolate camera movement between these keyframes. If needed, you can move existing keyframes on the timeline or remove them entirely by right-clicking and selecting Remove keyframe.
The Move camera animation offers several customization options:
- Apply to active camera: Choose whether the animation affects the currently active camera.
- Keep camera upwards: Maintain orientation relative to the grid.
- Easing curve: Control the speed of transitions between keyframes (e.g., ease-in, ease-out).
When and where it shines
This feature is valuable in many contexts—from educational walkthroughs to collaborative research. For instance, you can:
- Introduce a molecule with a sweeping overview
- Zoom into an active site gradually
- Fly around a crystal lattice or a nanoscale structure
Examples of documents using Move camera include docking animations, fly-arounds of protein structures, and nanoscale assembly overviews. These are shared on SAMSON Connect to inspire others.
Want to see it in action?
Here are a few SAMSON documents demonstrating this technique:
To dig deeper into the technical details, check the full documentation here: Move Camera Documentation.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.