When creating molecular visuals, clarity and realism are key. Whether you’re preparing a presentation, a scientific publication, or an explainer for a broader audience, the way your molecules look can significantly affect how they are perceived and understood. A flat, unrealistic representation may obscure important spatial or chemical properties. In contrast, a scene rendered with carefully chosen materials can make structural features pop, highlight specific parts of the system, and even convey functional meaning through textures and illumination.
If you’ve ever wished your molecular models looked more polished, or if you’re struggling to produce visuals that rival those you see in training videos or publications, it’s worth exploring how materials are controlled in SAMSON using the built-in Cycles path-tracing renderer, originally developed by Blender.
Material Presets: From Glass to Velvet
SAMSON offers a powerful way to apply a wide range of photorealistic appearances to molecular structures through material presets.
These presets are organized into several broad categories:
- Metallic: Copper, Gold, Silver, Steel…
- Semi-metallic: Brass, Bronze, Pearl…
- Smooth: Ceramic, Plastic, Paper…
- Rough: Concrete, Velvet, Wood…
- Emissive: From faint glows to intense, light-emitting surfaces.
- Transparent: Ice, Glass, Water…
You can access and apply these materials through the Inspector panel. Simply select the object or node, and use the Appearance tab to choose a preset. The software does all the rendering magic behind the scenes.
Diving Deeper with Parameter Tweaks
If presets don’t give you exactly what you need, you can manually fine-tune each material. Parameters such as roughness, metallicity, and transparency are adjustable through the Inspector. For example, you might want your gold atom cluster to appear slightly tarnished, or your lipid bilayer to have a more translucent finish than the default preset—these individual tweaks let you refine the result.
Use Cases in Molecular Modeling
How can material control improve your modeling workflow?
- Illustrating ligands: Set the ligand to an emissive material to visually separate it from the surrounding protein.
- Demonstrating binding pockets: Use transparency and glass-like materials to show internal cavities without hiding the whole molecule.
- Educational molecules: Different textures can help classify domains or molecule types at a glance.
Material configuration gives you control over the visual language you want to convey. Whether you’re after realism, simplicity, or visual emphasis, the tools are built into SAMSON and directly available through the Cycles renderer.
To learn more about how to make the most of Cycles rendering and explore other tools such as lighting and animation, check out the full documentation: SAMSON Rendering Documentation.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can get SAMSON at www.samson-connect.net.