If you’ve ever built an animation of a molecular system and felt frustrated by the sudden disappearance of elements—like they just vanish from the scene without context—you’re not alone. Molecular modelers often need to visually transition elements out of view smoothly, especially when creating narrated presentations or educational content. The good news? SAMSON provides a built-in Disappear animation to help you create exactly that: a progressive fade of selected molecular components.
This blog post covers how to use the Disappear animation in SAMSON to gracefully remove objects from a scene, making your molecular presentations easier to follow, especially for non-expert audiences. Whether you’re building a paper figure, a video abstract, or a classroom animation, this small touch can help others better understand structural dynamics and model composition.
What Does "Disappear" Mean in SAMSON?
Unlike the Hide animation, which instantly toggles visibility, the Disappear animation fades objects out over time by increasing their transparency. This is ideal for structural models, visual models, meshes, and labels—essentially, any node with a transparency attribute.
It won’t work on individual atoms or bonds directly, since these don’t have a transparency property. But they inherit it through their structural model. So, if you’re trying to make atoms slowly fade out, make sure you apply the animation to the parent node (e.g. the entire molecular structure), not the atoms themselves.
How to Add a Fade-Out Effect
Here’s how to use the Disappear animation:
- Select Nodes: Choose the nodes you want to gradually remove from visibility.
- Apply the Effect: Double-click the Disappear option in the Animation panel within SAMSON’s Animator.
The Disappear animation comes with four default keyframes:
- Keyframes 1-2: Nodes are fully visible (fully opaque).
- Keyframes 2-3: Nodes fade out by increasing transparency.
- Keyframes 3-4: Nodes are fully transparent.
You can adjust the positions of the keyframes to control when the fade begins and ends, as well as how fast it progresses. This flexibility is useful for syncing animations with narration or other cues.
Customize the Motion
Want to fine-tune the speed or style of fading? SAMSON lets you change how the parameters are interpolated between keyframes through what’s called an easing curve. You can make the transition linear, ease-in, ease-out, or use other types of curves for a smoother or more dynamic feel.
This can help you match the style of your animation to the type of system you’re showing—whether it’s a slow dissolution or a sudden disappearance.
Visual Example
Here’s what a fade-out effect looks like in action:
Final Notes
This effect is especially useful when working on educational material or collaborative presentations where clarity is key. Rather than elements mysteriously vanishing, fading them out offers a cue to the viewer that the structure is being intentionally removed, not deleted.
To explore more about the Disappear animation, and find related transitions like Appear, Flash, and Pulse, visit the original documentation page.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.