If you’ve ever struggled with managing complex visualization setups in molecular modeling, you’re not alone. Molecular modeling tools like SAMSON can create visually rich scenes with multiple light sources, each with its own settings. But what if all you needed was to quickly find all hidden lights, rename certain kinds of lights programmatically, or simply toggle visibility for selected light components? That’s where the NSL (Node Specification Language) in SAMSON comes into play, especially the light attribute space.
This post breaks down how you can use NSL to target light nodes—a powerful method for optimizing scene management and rendering clarity in your molecular simulations or presentations.
What Is the light Attribute Space?
In SAMSON, the light attribute space (short name li) refers specifically to nodes representing lights in your scene. This means you can isolate operations or queries on all existing light objects—without affecting any other aspect of your molecular system. It’s a time-saver, especially for large projects where several lighting elements may be active.
Common Pain: Visual Clutter or Faulty Lighting
Imagine opening a saved project, and the molecular system looks off. Maybe it’s too dark, over-lit, or you suspect hidden light elements are interfering. Hunting through the scene manually is tedious. With NSL, you can type:
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li.h |
This will return all light nodes that are hidden. Want to do the opposite?
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not li.h |
This expression gives you all visible light nodes—perfect for identifying which lights are currently rendering in your scene.
Targeting Lights by Name
You can also query lights by name, using wildcards. For example, to find lights named something like “Lamp1”, try:
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li.n "Lamp*" |
This is helpful when managing a naming convention across complex files or when arranging coordinated lighting setups.
Selecting and Filtering Lights
Need to know which lights are selected, or assign attributes only to a selected group? Although the selected property inherited from node attributes doesn’t have a short name for light nodes, you can still type:
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li.selected |
to get them. Combine it with other attributes like visible or name for powerful filters.
More Flags: selectionFlag and visibilityFlag
For deeper inspection or automation, these boolean flags can help:
li.sf– returns lights with their selection flag set to true.li.vf– checks if lights have the visibility flag enabled.
Both accept true/false as values. For example:
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li.vf false |
returns lights with the visibility flag disabled—another good troubleshooting step if your scene dimming seems mysterious.
Efficient Scene Debugging
Let’s say your scene has multiple light sources, but something seems off in the rendered frame. Rather than clicking around the document view, run a few NSL queries:
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li.h # Which lights are hidden? li.vf false # Are any lights not set to be visible? li.n "Test*" # Are test lights still active? |
This makes light-level scene auditing vastly more accessible.
These simple syntax expressions can make a noticeable difference when working on time-sensitive projects or just cleaning up file states from multiple collaborators.
Conclusion
With this focused look at the light attribute space in NSL, molecular modelers can now more effectively troubleshoot lighting setups and streamline scene configuration in SAMSON. Next time your visualization looks dim—or just too crowded—remember that a quick NSL query might save you a lot of time.
Learn more about light attributes and Node Specification Language in the official SAMSON documentation.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can get SAMSON here.