When working on molecular simulations or structural rearrangements, animation workflows can become repetitive and time-consuming. A common challenge for molecular modelers is ensuring that once they achieve the right animation involving atom movements—for example, docking, simulated dynamics, or manual manipulation—they don’t lose that progress when switching between presentations or continuing the workflow. Repeating animations over and over just to measure or visualize a path is not only tedious, but also inefficient.
That’s where the Record path animation feature in SAMSON can help. This simple yet practical animation effect records the trajectories of atoms during a presentation, turning transient movements into persistent and reusable data within your molecular scene. It reduces the need to re-run simulations just to look at how a molecule transitioned from one conformation to another.
Why record atom paths?
Imagine you’re running a simulation of a ligand docking into a receptor. The simulation shows the ligand twisting through a narrow channel before reaching the binding pocket. This path can provide insights into the mechanism and might be hard to recreate. By using the Record path animation, you ensure that the ligand’s trajectory is captured precisely, frame by frame, for later analysis or presentation.
How to get started
To record a path:
- Open the Animator panel in SAMSON.
- Double-click the Record path animation effect. This adds it as a track at the current frame.
- Make sure that the animations you want to record—like Simulate, Dock, or Move atoms—are listed above the Record path animation. The Animator panel runs effects from top to bottom.
SAMSON uses a simple color-coding system to help you monitor whether the path is being recorded as expected:
- Green segments: positions have been recorded at those frames.
- Red segments: positions have not yet been recorded or became invalid.
Performance matters
If you are still working on your presentation and don’t need to capture the path immediately, you can improve performance by disabling the recording:
- Right-click on the Record path animation in the Animator and uncheck Enable recording.
- Or, disable it from the Inspector of the animation.
This can make playback smoother while you fine-tune other animations.
Exporting the path
Once the animation finishes and the path is fully recorded (i.e., the segment is all green):
- In the Inspector of the Record path animation, click Create path.
- Alternatively, right-click on the animation in the Animator and select Create path.
This adds a new Path node in your document, storing the recorded trajectory. You can now use this path in your analysis, visualize it from any angle, or even replay it using the Play path or Play reverse path animations.
To learn more and explore additional tools in the animation suite, visit the full documentation page here: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/animations/record-path/.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.