Creating clear and effective molecular animations can be challenging, especially when trying to visualize transitions from one molecular conformation to another. Whether you are presenting a trajectory from a simulation or cycling between structures during a conformational change, having a smooth and synchronized animation helps in communicating your data with clarity.
In SAMSON, the Play path animation tool offers a helpful way to animate one or more molecular paths between two frames of an animation. This can be used to illustrate a molecular trajectory, conformational transitions, or any path-based motion you have constructed.
Why Use the Play Path Animation?
Let’s say you’ve imported or constructed a trajectory—possibly from a simulation or manual conformation changes. In SAMSON, this information is stored in path nodes. You may want to animate these changes to better understand motion, convey a process to peers, or build a teaching visualization. The Play Path animation effect helps achieve this by binding a path to keyframes in your animation timeline.
How It Works
First, choose the path to be animated. Then, open the Animation panel from the Animator and double-click on the Play path animation effect. This effect will use the full extent of the path between the two keyframes currently defined in your animation. If you adjust the keyframes, the animation will adapt accordingly.
If you select multiple paths, they remain synchronized—an important detail when displaying coordinated behavior such as domain motions or docking trajectories involving multiple molecules.
Smoothed Transitions—Or Not
When the number of animation frames does not match the number of frames in your path, SAMSON automatically smoothes the motion. This is often useful for generating visually pleasant results. However, for scientific accuracy or sharper transitions, you might want to turn smoothing off. You can do this in the Inspector panel.
Fine-Tuning Your Animation
You also have control over how parameters change over time using the Easing curve. This determines whether your animation starts slowly and accelerates, slows down near the end, or maintains a constant speed. Such options make it easier to align visual pacing with narrative intent or synchronize with other animated elements.
Making the Most of It
Overall, the Play Path animation in SAMSON is best when:
- You want to visually convey conformational changes over time
- You’re presenting multiple synchronized molecular motions
- You need a simple way to create clean animations without recoding paths
- You want to iterate quickly on motion pacing using easing curves
To learn more and see a step-by-step breakdown, visit the official Play path documentation page.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON and explore its features at https://www.samson-connect.net.