When communicating molecular mechanisms, clarity matters. Whether for educational content, journal illustrations, or presentations, effectively showing what appears—and more importantly, what disappears—can help molecular modelers deliver their message without visual noise.
If you’ve ever needed to hide specific molecules or molecular components at just the right moment in your animation, but didn’t want to rely on transparency tricks or manually juggling keyframes, you’re not alone. This is an issue faced by many researchers trying to depict mechanisms with precision. Fortunately, SAMSON offers a straightforward solution with its Hide animation effect.
Why Use the Hide Animation?
The Hide animation allows you to make selected nodes—atoms, molecules, structures—disappear entirely at a specific moment in your animation. Unlike changing transparency, nodes hidden via this method are removed from view completely. This is essential when you want to:
- Focus on one component of a complex system by removing others at the right time
- Present step-by-step assembly/disassembly animations where structures need to cleanly vanish
- Improve narrative clarity without clutter
How It Works
The Hide animation uses a system of three keyframes:
- Keyframe 1 → 2: The selected nodes are visible
- At Keyframe 2: Nodes instantly disappear
- Keyframe 2 → 3: The nodes remain hidden
You can move and adjust these keyframes as needed to control exactly when the transition occurs.
Adding a Hide Animation
- Select the nodes (molecules or structures) you want to hide.
- Double-click on Hide from the Animation panel in the Animator.
- Adjust the keyframes based on when the nodes should vanish.
Note: You can modify interpolation behavior between keyframes using the Easing curve, although ‘Hide’ is typically designed for sudden changes rather than smooth transitions.
Visual Example of the Hide Effect
If you’re wondering what this looks like in action, here’s a short animation demonstrating how components disappear at Keyframe 2 and remain hidden thereafter:
Quick Tip: Accessing the Animator
While older versions of SAMSON included an Animation menu, animations—including the Hide feature—are now accessed entirely through the Animation panel within the Animator workspace. Use Ctrl+7 (or Cmd+7 on macOS) as a shortcut to open the Animator.
To learn more about how to use the Hide animation and explore other animations like Appear, Disappear, Pulse, and Flash, check out the complete documentation here: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/animations/hide/
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.