Whether you’re preparing a talk, creating a recorded walkthrough, or simply documenting molecular interactions for a team meeting, visualization plays a key role in helping others understand your work. But what happens when your visuals are cluttered, or worse – visually disconnected from your storyline?
This is a common pain point for molecular modelers: it takes time and effort to build presentations that are not only scientifically accurate but also visually coherent. Switching molecular views is one thing, but aligning them with clear and consistent backgrounds is another.
In SAMSON, the Set background animation addresses this problem by allowing you to animate background transitions over time. Whether you’re fading from a white canvas to a dark scene to emphasize an interaction, or slotting in presentation slides as context between molecular renderings, this feature helps build clarity into your presentations—without external video editors or extra tools.
What is it?
The Set background animation in SAMSON lets you animate the background between two frames. This can be a color change or an image that fits or fills the entire frame. If you use multiple background settings along your timeline, SAMSON automatically interpolates between them—creating a smooth visual transition that keeps your audience focused on the molecular story.
How it works
To add this animation:
- Open the Animation panel in the Animator.
- Double-click Set background to add the animation at the current frame (this will be keyframe 1).
- Move forward in your timeline, then set another background at keyframe 2.
- SAMSON will interpolate the background between both frames unless another background animation overrides it later.
You can fine-tune the behavior of this transition using the easing curve to control how the background changes during the animation (e.g., ease-in, linear, etc.).
Backgrounds as Slide Decks
One particularly useful technique is embedding slides or static images as background visuals. For example, while rotating a protein to reveal a binding site, you can bring up a background slide that explains the molecule’s pharmacophore. This allows you to combine your visualized molecular models with slide content without switching to a separate app.
When setting a background image, you choose whether the image should be fully contained in the frame (letterboxed or pillarboxed when necessary) or stretched to cover the frame entirely (cropping might occur on the longest side).
Visual Example
Here’s what the Set background animation looks like in action:
Adjusting Properties
In the Inspector, you can modify how the background transition behaves. This includes defining the easing curve, specifying background colors or images, and positioning settings for image containment.
Why it helps
Transitions in background help improve the overall pacing and focus of your molecular presentation. Instead of abrupt context switches, these transitions allow for smoother storytelling—useful for teaching, pitching a project, or archiving your exploration process.
By using the Set background animation, you make your presentations clearer, more consistent, and visually explanatory—without any post-processing tools.
To learn more, visit the official documentation here: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/animations/set-background/
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.