Creating compelling molecular animations is a key part of communicating scientific ideas, whether you’re presenting to colleagues, teaching a class, or publishing online. But just like in a good video or film, sometimes it’s all about the pause. A precise pause at key moments can let your viewers absorb what they’re seeing, highlight important structures, or provide time for explanation.
In SAMSON, the integrative molecular design platform, the Pause animation effect lets you hold a frame for a specific duration—helping you improve the attention and clarity in your molecular animations.
Why Use Pause in Molecular Animations?
Molecular modelers often struggle to balance visual dynamics and comprehension. For instance, a fast sequence showing conformational changes or docking processes might be visually appealing—but the audience might miss crucial details unless you help them focus. That’s where the Pause effect comes in—it gives breathing room to complex visual transitions.
Adding a Pause Animation
Adding a Pause is simple. In the Animation panel of the Animator, just double-click the Pause effect. This inserts a Pause keyframe at the current frame position of your animation timeline. You can then move this keyframe freely across the timeline to match your narrative needs.
Tip
You can always reposition Pause keyframes to match structural transitions or explanatory audio cues.
Setting the Pause Duration
Once the Pause keyframe is placed, you can control how long the pause lasts by adjusting its duration in the Inspector. Here’s how:
- In the Document view, select the Pause animation node.
- Open the Inspector.
- Set your desired pause duration (in seconds).
This makes it easy to hold critical frames for longer or shorter time, depending on what the moment calls for.
Best Practices
When using Pause animations, consider the following recommendations:
- Pause at transitions: if your animation jumps between distinct conformations, insert a pause before or after the change for clarity.
- Match narration: if you’re adding voiceover or subtitles, match your pauses to give time to explain the scene.
- Avoid overuse: Although pauses enhance focus, using too many may disrupt the flow.
Conclusion
The Pause feature is a small but valuable part of your molecular animation toolkit. It can enhance communication, slow down crucial observations, and help others better understand molecular processes. For step-by-step instructions and more details, visit the Pause animation documentation page.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can get SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.