When creating molecular animations, especially for reports or presentations, it’s common to want to move the camera to show structures from different angles without disorienting the viewer. A frequent challenge is how to pan the view vertically while keeping the molecular system properly centered and aligned throughout the animation. Fortunately, SAMSON supports a specific feature that addresses this: the Pedestal camera animation.
The Pedestal camera effect is designed to shift both the camera’s position and its target point along a vertical axis. This makes the entire scene slide up or down smoothly, allowing users to maintain focus on specific regions of their molecular systems without rotating or skewing the perspective.
What problem does Pedestal camera solve?
Many researchers struggle when trying to guide viewers through the height of a macromolecule or navigate through layered structures like membranes. Simply moving the camera’s position often distorts the perspective or leads to unintentional tilting. The Pedestal camera solves this by keeping the view aligned along the same axis, translating the view vertically and maintaining the orientation.
How to set up the Pedestal camera animation
Here’s a streamlined overview of the workflow:
- In the Animator’s Track View, choose where you want the animation to start.
- Adjust the camera to your desired angle using typical view controls.
- Double-click on the Pedestal camera animation in the Animation panel.
- This records both camera position and target point.
- By default, the end frame will shift both values upward in parallel creating a vertical lift animation.
This ensures the entire frame moves evenly, giving a smooth upward panning movement.
Tips for customizing the animation
- Adjust camera positions manually if you need more control—though there are limitations specific to this animation effect.
- Turn the grid on or off depending on whether you want to influence how the vertical direction is computed (this can affect behavior depending on the Keep camera upwards property).
- Use easing curves to control the animation’s speed profile between keyframes for more natural movement.
This is especially helpful if you want to emphasize certain segments of the animation, like slowing down as the camera transitions past a region-rich active site.
Pedestal vs. Truck camera: vertical vs. horizontal
If you’ve used the Truck camera animation before, you’ll notice the Pedestal camera behaves similarly but operates in the vertical direction instead of horizontal. These tools can be combined as needed to generate high-quality walkthroughs of complex molecular environments.
Conclusion
Whether you’re preparing a research presentation, crafting educational material, or documenting structural behavior, the Pedestal camera animation offers a controlled way to vertically scan through molecular scenes. It’s a subtle effect, but often essential for guiding viewer attention up and down layered molecular architectures without disrupting the sense of orientation.
➡️ Learn more in the official documentation.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can get SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.