A Simple Way to Add Breathing Room to Molecular Animations

When presenting complex molecular systems, timing matters. Animations that move too quickly from one state to another can overwhelm viewers, especially when trying to highlight an important molecular interaction or structural change. If you’re creating a molecular animation in SAMSON and wish to pause and let your viewers absorb a moment — without halting the entire animation manually — there’s a straightforward solution: the Pause animation.

What Is the Pause Animation?

The Pause animation effect in SAMSON lets you freeze the scene at a specific keyframe for a customizable duration. It’s not about stopping all motion entirely — it’s about intentionally inserting a pause that holds the attention at just the right moment. Think of it as a built-in breather for your molecules — or your audience.

Why Use It?

Here are a few common scenarios where Pause can be incredibly helpful:

  • You want to let your audience observe a docking event before moving on.
  • You’re gradually unfolding a sequence of conformational changes where each step deserves attention.
  • You’re synchronizing animation with a voiceover or captions that need extra time.

How to Add a Pause

To add a pause to your animation:

  1. Go to the Animation panel of the Animator.
  2. Double-click on the Pause animation effect. This places a keyframe at your current frame.
  3. Move the keyframe as needed to the desired position on the timeline.

Note: You can always move keyframes after placing them, making it easy to fine-tune your animation flow.

Setting Duration of the Pause

Once the pause is in place, you can specify how long it should last.

To do that:

  1. Select the Pause animation node in the Document view.
  2. Open the Inspector.
  3. Enter the duration in seconds — this determines how long your animation will stay paused at that frame.

Inspector settings for pause animation

This small tweak makes a big difference for anyone watching your animation — especially students or collaborators who are new to molecular modeling. It gives them time to interpret what they’re seeing and leads to a more engaging and informative experience overall.

Whether you’re creating a presentation for a lecture, a conference poster video, or a scientific communication, this feature helps make your work clearer and easier to follow.

To learn more, visit the full documentation page at https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/animations/pause/

SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can get SAMSON here.

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