If you’ve ever tried to present complex molecular systems and felt limited by flat, static perspectives, you’re not alone. One common challenge in visualizing molecular models is finding ways to create depth and a natural sense of movement—especially in a vertical direction—to clearly communicate structure and spatial relationships. This is where the Pedestal Camera animation in SAMSON can be a helpful tool.
The Pedestal Camera animation vertically shifts the camera position and its target point in tandem, creating a smooth upward or downward movement relative to the current camera orientation. This movement helps provide an immersive sense of elevation (or descent), ideal for presentations where simply rotating or zooming the view doesn’t adequately reveal important structural details—such as layers in a protein complex or a membrane-crossing molecule.
Why Use Vertical Camera Movements?
Vertical transitions tell a different story than horizontal ones. For example:
- They’re particularly useful in nucleic acid structures or membrane simulations where elements are stacked vertically.
- They can help show the environment surrounding a molecule, such as moving from a cell membrane into a cytoplasmic region.
- They are more natural for certain time-lapse or reveal-style animations, where you want to guide your viewer’s attention from bottom to top, or vice versa.
How to Add a Pedestal Camera Animation
Creating a Pedestal Camera animation in SAMSON is straightforward:
- Go to the Animator’s Track View and choose your starting frame.
- Orient your view—or, more precisely, your camera—how you want it to start.
- Double-click the Pedestal Camera effect in the Animation panel.
- Set your end frame. SAMSON will automatically shift both the camera’s position and its target upwards from your initial frame to the end one.
This linkage between camera position and target provides a smooth uplift that gives continuity and gravity to a molecular presentation.
Details that Matter
You can fine-tune the movement using the animation’s properties. For instance:
- Use animation controllers to refine the camera’s exact trajectory.
- Modify the “Keep camera upwards” option to control how verticality behaves in relation to the scene’s grid orientation.
- Adjust the easing curve to make the lift slower at the start and end, or uniform throughout.
If you already work with the Truck Camera (which shifts horizontally), the Pedestal Camera will feel familiar, just oriented vertically. You can even combine both to create a compound lateral and vertical tracking shot.
Conclusion
Vertical camera movement is a subtle but powerful technique to guide focus and improve clarity in molecular animations. Whether you’re showcasing a multi-layered molecule or guiding someone through a mechanistic pathway, SAMSON’s Pedestal Camera effect can enhance the storytelling of your science.
Learn more on the Pedestal Camera documentation page.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can get SAMSON here.