Creating compelling molecular animations often means more than just stringing frames together. For many molecular modelers, one recurring challenge is how to effectively control the tempo of a presentation. Rapid transitions can overwhelm the viewer, especially when introducing complex conformations or reaction steps.
This is where SAMSON’s Pause animation becomes quite handy. It lets you stop time—for a few seconds—at any frame in your animation. Whether you want to give your audience a moment to study a molecular interaction or highlight a particular structure, the Pause effect offers a simple yet useful solution.
Why Add a Pause?
Without a pause, your animation might go from one state to another too quickly for your viewers to understand the transition. Think of a protein folding animation: introducing strategic pauses at key folding stages makes a big difference in how clearly the process is communicated. 🎬
Integrating pauses doesn’t just make your animations more digestible—it also gives you tighter control over the narrative flow. Whether you’re preparing a lecture, a poster session clip, or a social video, pauses help you guide your audience’s attention.
How to Add a Pause in SAMSON
1. Open the Animation panel in the Animator.
2. Double-click on the Pause animation effect.
3. A keyframe is placed at your current location in the timeline. You can move it to any point where you want the animation to pause.
Note
You can always move the keyframes of the animation to fine-tune when the pause happens.
Setting the Duration of the Pause
After adding the Pause animation node, click to select it in the Document view. Then, use the Inspector to set how long you want the animation to pause (in seconds).
This makes the Pause both flexible and powerful—you can add one-second pauses for dramatic effect or several seconds to allow time for observation or explanation.
Use Cases Worth Considering
- Educational animations: Let students focus on active sites or mutations.
- Research presentations: Emphasize transitions in reaction pathways.
- Social media snippets: Improve watchability by spacing out complex sequences.
Pauses might seem like a minor detail, but they can make animations much more effective. And in science communication, clarity is everything.
To learn more about the Pause animation in SAMSON, visit the documentation page: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/animations/pause/
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can get SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.