Creating scientific animations in molecular modeling often calls for highlighting specific regions of a system—zooming in to show molecular interactions, active sites, or conformational shifts. But many users face the same issue: a zoom that changes the entire viewpoint, resulting in awkward shifts or even disrupting the focus of fog or depth-of-field effects.
If you’ve run into this, the Zoom camera animation in SAMSON might offer a cleaner solution.
Why this matters
Animations are often used to communicate findings in a visual and accessible way: presentations, supplementary videos in publications, or educational content. But when your camera shifts unexpectedly, with the center of the scene changing, it can distract your audience or obscure what you’re trying to showcase.
The Zoom camera animation is designed specifically to address this problem. It allows you to animate a zoom by changing only the camera’s position, while keeping the target point fixed. This makes it ideal if you:
- Want to zoom into a molecular detail without changing the rest of the framing.
- Use fog or depth-of-field effects and want those to stay stable.
- Prefer smoother transitions that feel more intuitive.
How to use it
To add a Zoom camera animation:
- Select the start frame in the Animator’s Track view.
- Position the scene as you want it to appear at the beginning of the animation.
- Double-click the Zoom camera animation effect in the Animation panel.
- Set the end frame and reposition the camera to define the zoomed-in view.
Customizing behavior
A few key settings give you finer control over the animation:
- Apply to active camera: By default, animations apply to the currently active camera. You can change this by inspecting the animation and modifying which camera it targets.
- Keep camera upwards: If checked, this makes the animation respect the orientation of the scene based on whether the grid is enabled. This is important when the grid aids visual context (e.g., in surface alignments).
- Easing curve: Change how the camera zoom accelerates and decelerates. This affects how smooth or dynamic the zoom feels.
Zoom vs. Dolly: What’s the difference?
While both animations achieve a zooming effect, the difference is subtle but important:
- Zoom camera keeps the target point fixed, only changing the camera’s distance to it.
- Dolly camera allows the target point to vary between start and end frames, which can cause the focal area to drift.
If you’re working with effects like fog or depth-of-field that rely on consistent focal areas, the Zoom camera is the better choice.
Need precision?
You can further tweak the start and end camera positions at any time—even after inserting the animation—by using the animation controllers. For a detailed guide on adjusting these settings, see Adjusting camera positions.
Animations are not just aesthetic flourishes—they can improve clarity and storytelling in molecular research. By mastering tools like the Zoom camera effect, your visualizations become more precise, engaging, and easier to interpret.
To learn more, visit the full documentation page here:
https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/animations/zoom-camera/
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.