When creating molecular animations to highlight specific steps in a mechanism, processes in a simulation, or structural features of a complex system, precise control over visibility can make or break the effectiveness of your presentation. One common challenge that many molecular modelers face is how to make certain elements appear exactly when they are needed in an animation—without relying on transparency tricks or abrupt scene cuts.
This is where the Shown animation feature in SAMSON can help. It allows for deterministic control of node visibility between keyframes, ensuring that molecular elements are made visible at the right points in your timeline. Unlike other effects that play with opacity or appearance style, Shown directly toggles whether elements are visible, making it a precise tool for scientific communication.
Why Use Shown Instead of Transparency?
Transparency is great when you want to suggest uncertainty or material properties, but it often isn’t enough when you’re assembling an educational video, demonstrating ligand binding, or walking through a simulation. What we need is timing—nodes (molecules, residues, subsystems) that are either there or not, at just the right moment.
The Shown animation does exactly that. It makes any selected nodes visible between keyframes. So before the keyframe they can be invisible, then they appear, stay visible, and later disappear if combined with the Hidden animation.
How to Add a Shown Animation
To start using it:
- Select the nodes you want to show.
- Double-click on the Shown animation effect in the Animation panel of the Animator.
- This sets a begin keyframe at the current frame.
- Move or duplicate keyframes to adjust timing as needed.
You can add multiple Shown animations during the course of your timeline to successively reveal parts of your molecular system—helpful for scene build-ups, stepwise reactions, or collaborative interactions between components.
Customization Tips
You can combine Shown and Hidden animations on the same nodes to tightly control appearance and disappearance. Moreover, how the animation progresses can be refined with easing curves. You can modify how parameters change between frames by editing the Easing curve—useful for creating smoother or more immediate transitions depending on context.
Pro tip: If you’re used to older versions of SAMSON, note that the Animation menu has been replaced with the Animation panel inside the Animator. All presentation actions are now accessible from there.
The Shown animation is particularly useful when building illustrative sequences designed to teach a process or a pathway. Reveal only what needs to be seen—when it needs to be seen—and keep your viewers focused on the current narrative without visual distractions.
To learn more, visit the official Shown animation documentation page.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.