When analyzing molecular simulations or trajectories, a common challenge for molecular modelers is keeping focus on a specific group of atoms as they move over time. Whether you’re preparing a presentation, exploring a dynamic mechanism, or sharing a molecular movie with others, you may have found yourself repeatedly adjusting the camera to follow a moving residue, ligand, or molecular domain š.
The Follow atoms animation in SAMSON addresses this challenge by letting the camera automatically follow selected atoms throughout an animation. This can help you keep your area of interest centered on screen, without manual repositioning of the camera for every frame.
What does it do?
When this animation is active, both the camera target and the camera position are updated during the animation to follow the selected atoms. The system keeps your atoms of interest centered while maintaining the same relative distance and orientation of the camera. This creates smooth tracking footage of your molecular system in motion.
Itās particularly helpful if youāre working with:
- Ligands or cofactors moving inside binding pockets
- Flexible protein loops
- Nanoparticles undergoing transformations
- Any localized region that displaces significantly over time
Step-by-step: Adding the Follow Atoms Animation
- Select the atoms that you want to follow. Use SAMSON’s selection tools to specify a residue, domain, or custom group of atoms.
- Set up the camera to the view you want at the start of the animation.
- In the Animator panel, select the desired start frame and double-click on the Follow atoms animation effect.
- The camera position and target will be stored for the start frame. Between keyframes, SAMSON dynamically computes the center of your selection and moves the camera to follow it.
- You can adjust end frames and modify how long the animation lasts.
Customizing the Behavior
You can fine-tune aspects of the animation by inspecting its properties. For instance:
- The animation applies to the active camera by default, but this can be changed.
- If the Keep camera upwards option is enabled, the behavior will depend on whether the sceneās grid is visibleāuseful for controlling camera rotation.
Syncing the Camera for Presentations
Since SAMSON maintains a consistent viewing distance, the result is a video where your region of interest remains in focus and centered. This is especially useful for animations intended for educational or communicative purposes: your audience wonāt be distracted by unpredictable viewpoint changes or by having to guess where the key movement is occurring.
To learn more about this animation type and additional tips on handling camera movements, visit the complete documentation page: SAMSON Follow Atoms Animation Documentation.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at www.samson-connect.net.