When creating molecular animations in SAMSON, many users face a recurring issue: the camera suddenly shifts view between frames, disrupting the flow and clarity of their animations. This often happens when camera settings are not explicitly defined across the timeline, and the view subtly changes due to document interactions—causing confusion when presenting to others or recording movies.
If you’ve ever had to re-record part of your animation because the perspective wasn’t quite right, SAMSON has a simple yet powerful solution: the Hold Camera animation. This feature provides a way to keep the camera parameters consistent between two frames, ensuring a stable and clean visual experience throughout your animation.
Why Use Hold Camera?
During long animation work sessions, it’s common to pan, zoom or rotate the model for inspection or editing. If the camera isn’t locked during parts of the animation, these unintentional changes will show up in your final output. Using Hold Camera ensures your intended view remains unchanged between selected frames, avoiding any sudden and jarring transitions.
How to Use the Hold Camera Animation
Here’s a step-by-step guide to keep your camera still while focusing your animation efforts elsewhere:
- In the Animator’s Track view, choose your start frame.
- Orient your model to the desired view by positioning the camera as needed using normal navigation tools.
- Go to the Animation panel and double-click on Hold Camera.
- Set your end frame to define where the camera should stop holding the view.
- If needed, adjust the start and end frames later by dragging inside the Track view.
This animation preserves parameters such as camera position, orientation, and zoom level, effectively freezing the viewpoint during that timeframe. It’s particularly useful in sections of your animation without active camera motion, providing consistent framing of your molecules or systems.
Example in Action
In the example below, the camera remains completely still while other object animations occur. This is crucial when you want to emphasize model motion without introducing unintended visual shifts from the viewer’s perspective.
It’s worth noting that older SAMSON documentation referenced an Animation menu now deprecated—today, all animations are conveniently accessible through the Animator‘s Animation panel (or using Ctrl+7 / Cmd+7).
When Not to Use It
If you’re animating complex camera paths—like rotations or zooms—using other camera animations (e.g., Move Camera) might be more appropriate for dynamic views. However, Hold Camera complements these nicely by acting as filler to ensure smooth transitions between active movements.
For anyone producing presentations, reports, or educational content in SAMSON, mastering viewpoint control is essential. The Hold Camera animation is a small but vital part of this toolkit.
📖 Learn more in the official documentation.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can get SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.