When communicating the results of molecular modeling workflows, animations play a key role. They help convey complex transitions, mechanisms, and structural changes in a clear and engaging way. However, one simple but often overlooked issue is control over timing: how long each part of your animation stays on screen.
This becomes especially important when you’re trying to emphasize a key moment in your molecular animation—a structural rearrangement, a conformational switch, or a ligand binding event. If the message goes by too fast, your audience might miss it. That’s where the Pause animation in SAMSON becomes extremely useful.
Why insert a pause?
Imagine you’re building an animation to show how a protein folds or how a drug binds to a receptor. There might be a frame where everything aligns perfectly to highlight the binding site or a conformational transition. But if that frame lasts only a fraction of a second, your message gets lost.
The Pause animation allows you to stop your animation at a particular frame for a user-defined amount of time. This lets your viewers register what they’re seeing before you move on to the next step. It helps create a more effective narrative when explaining molecular mechanisms to colleagues, students, or in publications.
How to add a pause
To insert a pause into your animation in SAMSON, follow these simple steps:
- Open the Animation panel in the Animator workspace.
- Double-click on the Pause animation effect to insert it at the current frame.
- You can move this keyframe later if you want to pause at a different moment.
Note
You can always move the keyframes of the animation to fine-tune your timing as your animation evolves.
Setting the pause duration
After inserting the Pause animation keyframe, you might wonder how to define how long the pause should last.
This is done through the Inspector:
- Select the pause animation node in the Document view.
- Open the Inspector panel to adjust properties associated with the pause.
- Specify the pause duration in seconds.
Here is what the Inspector looks like when editing the Pause animation:
When to use pause animations
Consider using pauses in the following situations:
- To allow time for text annotations to be read
- To emphasize a transition or event in a mechanism
- To align with a narrative script during a recorded or live presentation
- To control pacing for educational materials
Adding a deliberate pause can make your scientific storytelling more effective and accessible. It’s a small but valuable feature that gives you precise control over pacing and focus.
To learn more, visit the original documentation page on the Pause animation in SAMSON.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can get SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.