If you’ve ever created a molecular animation and felt frustrated by the sudden appearance or disappearance of molecular structures, you’re not alone. Many molecular modelers want to smoothly introduce structures over time, especially when visualizing things like conformational changes, ligand binding, or transition pathways. This is where SAMSON’s Appear animation comes in handy.
The Appear animation in SAMSON lets you progressively introduce molecular models and other elements into a scene with a transparency fade-in. It supports structural models, visual models, labels, and meshes — anything that has a transparency attribute. This makes it possible to emphasize structural elements gradually, making the resulting animation easier to follow and more visually engaging.
Why It Matters
Let’s say you’re presenting the folding pathway of a molecular structure. Without a progressive fade-in, your alpha-helix might just jump into existence on screen 😬. It can be jarring and break the viewer’s immersion. With the Appear animation, you can gradually adjust the transparency to make the element emerge naturally within the sequence, reinforcing the continuity and helping viewers understand the chronological development of your molecular system.
How It Works
The Appear animation consists of four keyframes:
- Keyframe 1 ➝ 2: The node remains fully transparent.
- Keyframe 2 ➝ 3: The node progressively appears by decreasing transparency.
- Keyframe 3 ➝ 4: The node stays fully opaque.
You can adjust the timing by shifting these keyframes in your timeline via SAMSON’s Animator panel. You can also refine how the change in opacity takes place using different easing curves. This is useful if you want the appearance to feel more dynamic — for example, easing out quickly or fading in gradually.
How to Apply It
- Select the nodes you want to animate. Ensure they support transparency (e.g., not individual atoms or bonds, but their structural models).
- Open the Animation panel in the Animator.
- Double-click on the Appear animation to apply it to the selected nodes.
- Adjust your animation’s keyframes to control the timing and appearance pace.
Good to Know
- This animation does not work well with atoms or bonds directly, as they don’t have an opacity property. Use it on the containing structural model instead.
- If a node doesn’t support transparency, the Appear animation behaves like a basic Show animation.
- The original animation menu shown in some older video clips is outdated. Use the current Animator panel instead.
For those presenting complex structural transitions, molecular assemblies, or timed experiments, this subtle but powerful animation will give your presentations more continuity and clarity.
Visit the full documentation to learn more.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can get SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.