For molecular modelers preparing presentations or videos, one question often arises: how do you clearly communicate the structural complexity of an assembly without overwhelming your audience? Often, the answer lies not in adding more detail — but in temporarily removing it.
This is where the Disassemble animation in SAMSON plays a valuable role. Whether you’re showcasing the inner components of a protein complex, or trying to visually explain the hierarchical structure of DNA-bound proteins, the Disassemble effect offers a simple way to break apart models to reveal their internal structures.
What Is the Disassemble Animation?
The Disassemble animation effect allows a selected group of structural nodes or meshes to move away from their original positions, as if the molecular assembly is falling apart into its components. This is especially helpful in illustrating how subunits are arranged within a complex.
The final positions of these ‘disassembled’ components are automatically calculated so that they spread out from the center of assembly, making space for viewers to focus on the underlying relationships.
Why That Matters to You 👇
You might be:
- Giving a research seminar and want to walk your audience through a molecular assembly step by step.
- Producing a teaching video for students to highlight how individual subunits contribute to a structure.
- Creating VR or AR molecular experiences that benefit from dynamic movement and modular presentation.
In scientific communication, clarity often comes not from complexity, but from control. With Disassemble, you get just that.
How to Use It
- Select the group of nodes or meshes you want to disassemble.
- If no selection is made, SAMSON will attempt to guess the applicable nodes.
- Double-click “Disassemble” in the Animation panel of the Animator.
- Adjust your keyframes to control the timing of the disassembly.
- Fine-tune the amplitude or easing curve from the Inspector.
And voilà — your assembly spreads apart, giving your viewers the space (literally) to better follow along.
Making It More Than Just a Cool Effect
Animations are often added late in the process, like polish. But used intentionally, they become central storytelling tools. Try pairing Disassemble with:
- A rotating camera around the disassembled view.
- A Hold Atoms animation to focus attention on a specific site.
- A clean Assemble action to transition back to the original structure.
With precise keyframe movements and easing curves, you have full control over how fast or smooth the disassembly occurs. Whether you’re working with molecular structures, meshes, or custom groupings, SAMSON handles the transitions automatically — but gives you tools to refine the presentation as much as you like.
Additional Tip: Amplitude Control
On animation creation, the movement amplitude is assigned by default. But this may not always suit your visualization needs. In the Inspector, you can change the amplitude to scale back or exaggerate how far the parts fly apart. This gives you direct influence over the dramatic effect of your sequence.
To learn more about how Disassemble works in SAMSON, visit the full documentation here: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/animations/disassemble/.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON from https://www.samson-connect.net.