Anyone involved in molecular modeling knows the frustration of achieving the perfect molecular orientation—only to have it unintentionally shift between animation frames. Whether you’re building a presentation or recording a molecular process, even the slightest variation in the view can be distracting or mislead viewers.
The Hold camera animation effect in the SAMSON molecular design platform offers a straightforward yet highly effective way to address this challenge. This feature lets you keep the camera (i.e., the viewer’s position and orientation) fixed between two frames of an animation, ensuring that the spatial context remains consistent throughout a sequence.
Why a Static Camera View Matters
Imagine you’ve aligned your system to present a binding pocket orientation or highlight a conformational change, but as you progress through your animation, the view subtly shifts—perhaps due to an unintended interaction or misconfigured animation track. Viewers may lose context, your message becomes unclear, and valuable time is wasted readjusting views.
The Hold camera feature solves this issue by locking the camera parameters between frames. It’s especially useful when combining different animation effects or after having interacted directly with the view in earlier editing steps. Simply put, it provides visual consistency and preserves your intended framing of molecular scenes.
How to Add a Hold Camera Animation
- Open the Animator’s Track view and navigate to the frame where you want the static view to begin.
- Orient the camera manually to the view you want. This could include translating, zooming or rotating to an optimal angle.
- In the Animation panel, double-click the Hold camera effect.
- Define the end frame to determine how long the camera view will be held.
Tip: You can adjust both the start and end frames even after adding the effect, which adds flexibility if your storyline shifts during the animation planning.
When to Use It
Hold camera is ideal in various scenarios:
- Maintaining a steady view between two action-filled scenes (e.g., reaction steps).
- Presenting static molecular interactions for illustration or lecture purposes.
- Locking the viewer perspective mid-animation to ensure focus isn’t unintentionally diverted.
This tool doesn’t replace movement animations but complements them by giving you full control over what the audience sees and helping emphasize important molecular orientations that shouldn’t change during a segment.
Additional Context
In past versions of SAMSON, this was done via the now-removed Animation menu. All camera-related animations are now streamlined and accessible via the Animation panel inside the Animator workspace—making it even easier to incorporate into your existing workflow.
Learn more in the official documentation: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/animations/hold-camera/
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.