Zooming into specific details of a complex molecular structure can often feel like a balancing act for molecular designers. You want to get closer to an area of interest without altering the overall perspective or focus of your view. Luckily, SAMSON’s Zoom camera animation makes that process intuitive and straightforward.
In essence, this animation maintains the same target point—the central focus of your view—while changing the camera’s position between the starting and ending frames. This is particularly useful when visualizing intricate features of a molecular system without disrupting additional visual settings like Fog or Depth-of-field effects.
Why Molecular Modelers Should Care
Imagine you’re analyzing a large biomolecule and want to highlight a key binding site for a presentation. Using the Zoom camera animation ensures your central point of interest stays in focus at all times, avoiding unwanted shifts in perspective that could confuse the viewer or detract from your intended message. It saves time, reduces frustration, and ensures visual consistency.
How to Use the Zoom Camera Animation
Here’s how you can easily leverage this animation in SAMSON:
- Set Your Starting Frame: In the Animator’s Track view, select your starting frame and adjust the camera’s orientation to the desired position.
- Add the Zoom Camera Animation: Double-click the Zoom camera animation from the Animation panel.
- Define the Ending Frame: Adjust the ending frame as required to create a smooth zoom effect.
What’s even more convenient is that the starting and ending frames remain flexible. You can adjust them anytime to fine-tune the animation according to your needs. This means even last-minute changes in your presentation visuals are hassle-free!
Additional Controls for Greater Precision
The Zoom camera animation also integrates additional settings to adapt to your preferences. For example:
- You can decide whether the camera animation applies to the active camera by inspecting the animation and toggling the Apply to active camera option.
- If you’re using SAMSON’s grid, you can adjust the behavior of the animation by modifying the Keep camera upwards option, ensuring greater control over orientation during zooms.
- For enhanced smoothness, customize how camera parameters transition between frames by changing the Easing curve.
Visualize Better with Adjusted Camera Positions
Need to tweak the target point or positions during the animation? No problem! Use SAMSON’s animation controllers to make adjustments effortlessly. For an in-depth guide, check out the Adjusting camera positions section of the documentation.
With such powerful tools at your disposal, focusing on any portion of a molecular model becomes smoother and frustration-free. To learn more and master the Zoom camera feature in SAMSON, visit the official documentation.
Note: SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. Get SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.