When presenting molecular animations, one common challenge is controlling when specific molecular components appear—and stay visible—throughout the timeline. This is especially important for molecular educators, researchers, and designers who create molecular presentations and want to seamlessly illustrate complex transformations without overwhelming the viewer.
If you’ve ever needed molecules or atomic structures to appear at a certain point in your animation and remain visible from then on, then SAMSON’s Show animation effect might be just what you need. Understanding how to effectively use this feature can save time, reduce timeline clutter, and help communicate molecular events more clearly.
How the Show Animation Works
The Show animation effect makes selected nodes (atoms, molecules, structures, etc.) appear at a specific keyframe and remain visible until the end of the animation. It controls visibility (not transparency), ensuring the selected elements appear solid and unambiguous during the presentation.
This animation combines what would otherwise require two separate animations—Hidden and Shown—into a single, more intuitive step.
Why It Matters
Molecular presentations often require the gradual reveal of subsystems such as ligands, solvent molecules, or protein domains. Doing this manually using multiple animations for hiding and showing nodes not only takes more time but increases the risk of timeline disorganization. The Show animation simplifies this workflow—it enables better control, reduces errors, and helps keep animations more readable.
How to Add a Show Animation
- Select the nodes you want to reveal (e.g., a ligand bound to an active site or a water cluster in a channel).
- Open the Animation panel in the Animator.
- Double-click on the Show animation effect.
The animation adds three keyframes:
- Keyframe 1 to 2: Nodes remain hidden.
- Keyframe 2: Nodes become visible.
- Keyframe 2 to 3: Nodes stay visible through to the end.
You can move the keyframes around to match the desired timing of your scene. If needed, you can adjust how node properties change over time by modifying the easing curve. This gives a more dynamic feel if you’re combining the Show animation with transitions like Pulse or Flash.
Contextual Note
In older versions of SAMSON, animations were accessed via a menu. Now, they are all centralized in the Animator. To open it quickly, use the shortcut Ctrl + 7 (Cmd + 7 on macOS).
When to Use Show Instead of Appear
Unlike the Appear animation (which deals with gradual transparency), Show immediately sets visibility to ON at the keyframe. Use Show when you want clear, unambiguous visualization of molecular elements from a precise moment onward.
To learn more and access the full documentation, visit the Show animation documentation page.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON here.