When presenting complex molecular systems, timing is everything. Whether you’re walking students through conformational changes or preparing a highlight reel for a publication, controlling the flow of your animation can be the difference between clarity and confusion.
One small, often overlooked tool can significantly elevate your molecular animations: the Pause animation effect in SAMSON. This tool solves a simple but critical problem—how to create deliberate moments of stillness in your animation timeline so that key frames can be absorbed and appreciated.
Why use Pause?
Molecular modelers frequently build animations to show transitions: a conformational flip, a docking sequence, or simply a slow rotation to highlight a binding pocket. But if your animation flows too quickly, your audience may miss the most important frames—those that really tell the story. The Pause effect gives you a simple way to stop the motion, let viewers take a breath, and focus on what matters in the frame.
How it works
In SAMSON, adding a pause is intuitive. Here’s how to do it:
- Open the Animation panel in the Animator.
- Double-click on the Pause animation effect to insert it at your current frame.
- Drag the keyframe if you want to reposition it in the timeline.
- Once the pause is added, select it in the Document view, then go to the Inspector to set the duration of your pause.
Once configured, the animation will hold on the chosen frame for the set number of seconds before continuing.
When to use Pause animations effectively
Here are a few useful scenarios where the Pause effect can make a difference:
- Highlighting protein-ligand interactions: Stop the animation to point out where and how a compound is binding.
- Teaching specific concepts: During live or recorded lessons, pauses ensure students have time to observe structural changes without having to rewind.
- Orchestrating camera transitions: Combine a camera move with a pause to let a viewer take in a new perspective before the next transition.
Inspector settings and control
You can customize the pause duration directly in the Inspector. Just select the Pause animation node in your document, and you’ll see a simple interface like this:
This makes it easy to fine-tune the length of each pause, which can be critical when timing your animation to a voiceover or syncing with slide presentations.
Final thoughts
The Pause tool may be simple, but its impact on animation clarity is powerful. For anyone working on molecular presentations—whether for education, research, or outreach—adding pauses can make your animations more digestible and far more effective.
To learn more, visit the official documentation for the Pause animation.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.