As a molecular modeler, there are moments when you need to create clear, professional presentations of molecular designs to showcase your findings or demonstrate research discoveries. Making specific nodes or molecular structures seamlessly appear and stay visible during animations can be tricky. Let’s dive into how the Show animation in SAMSON can simplify this task and enhance your presentations!
The Show animation is a useful tool in SAMSON’s Animator. It ensures that chosen molecular nodes (e.g., atoms, groups of atoms, or other structures) appear prominently at a specific keyframe in your animation and remain visible until the end. What makes it unique is that it adjusts the visibility of nodes, not their transparency, ensuring clarity and focus in your presentation.
Why the Show Animation Helps Molecular Modelers
Unlike manually adjusting visibility or sequencing multiple animations, the Show animation streamlines the process by combining two essential effects—Hidden and Shown—into one cohesive effect. You can easily highlight features step-by-step for an engaging presentation, which is particularly helpful for complex molecular systems.
How to Use the Show Animation Effectively
Using the Show animation is intuitive. Follow these steps:
- Identify the nodes (components) of interest that you want to highlight in your animation.
- Double-click on the “Show” effect in the Animation panel of the Animator. This adds the Show effect to your timeline.
The Show animation operates across three keyframes:
- Between keyframes 1 and 2: The chosen nodes will stay hidden.
- At keyframe 2: The nodes will appear and stay visible until keyframe 3.
Fine-Tuning Your Animation
You can adjust the timing by moving the keyframes to fit your narrative. For example, you can make the nodes appear just as the topic comes up in your presentation. Further customization is possible by altering the Easing curve, which controls how smoothly the animation transitions between frames.
Key Things to Remember
While the Show animation is highly flexible, the Animation menu referenced in early examples (including in some documentation images) is no longer part of SAMSON. Instead, all animation effects are now consolidated in the Animation panel, making the interaction cleaner and easier.
Get Started with the Show Animation
Whether you’re preparing animations for scientific publications, educational purposes, or team discussions, the Show animation is a dependable tool to make specific molecular features or operations stand out effectively. It’s simple to use, visually striking, and ensures your audience captures your intended message.
To delve further into the Show animation and its capabilities, visit the full documentation page here.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. Download SAMSON at www.samson-connect.net.