When creating molecular animations for presentations, publications, or educational content, clarity often competes with complexity. You may want to focus your audience’s attention on specific molecular components at specific times, gradually building up or breaking down structures without overwhelming them with too much at once.
A common challenge in molecular modeling animations is efficiently controlling the visibility of nodes—whether they represent atoms, molecules, or entire assemblies—across time. That’s where the Flash animation in SAMSON can provide a precise, time-saving solution.
What Does the Flash Animation Do?
The Flash animation makes selected nodes appear at one point in the animation and disappear at another. Unlike transparency-based methods (which still leave objects visually present in a faded state), Flash toggles the visibility itself, making nodes fully appear and disappear—simplifying your scene exactly when needed.
This is particularly useful for illustrating biological events that involve sudden structural changes or to introduce new molecular players during a mechanism walkthrough. You can also use it to cleanly exit side topics and refocus the viewer’s attention.
How to Add a Flash Animation
- Select the nodes you’d like to appear and disappear.
- Open the Animation panel of the Animator.
- Double-click on the Flash animation effect.
The Flash effect inserts four keyframes by default. Here’s what each keyframe does:
- Between keyframes 1 and 2: Nodes remain hidden.
- At keyframe 2: Nodes become visible.
- Between keyframes 2 and 3: Nodes remain visible.
- At keyframe 3: Nodes become hidden.
- Between keyframes 3 and 4: Nodes remain hidden.
Adjust keyframe positions to precisely synchronize visibility with other animation effects or narration points. Creating dovetail transitions becomes simple and intuitive with this timeline approach.
Controlling the Animation Flow
Another feature worth noting is the Easing curve found in the Inspector. While Flash toggles visibility on and off rather than interpolating physical parameters, you can customize how temporal transitions happen, making the switch feel more natural or abrupt depending on the context you’re visualizing.
When to Use Flash
Use Flash when you need:
- Sudden appearance/disappearance of structures without visual clutter
- Simplified animations that don’t rely on fading effects
- Precise control over narrative flow in your molecular story
Whether you’re teaching the binding mechanism of a substrate or revealing a mutation site briefly, Flash is a tool that helps distill complex molecular scenes into digestible visual moments.
To learn more, visit the official Flash animation documentation page.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. Download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.