In molecular animation, it’s often important to draw attention to specific components at precise moments. Whether you’re presenting a complex assembly mechanism or highlighting a transient interaction, how you manage visibility can make the difference between clarity and confusion.
This is where the Flash animation effect in SAMSON can help. Unlike transparency-based animations, the Flash animation focuses on toggling visibility directly. This makes it ideal for controlled, unmistakable appearances and disappearances of molecular nodes—perfect for storytelling in scientific communications.
What is Flash Animation?
The Flash animation in SAMSON makes selected nodes appear at a specific keyframe and disappear at another, using their visibility property rather than changing their transparency. In other words, the structure is either there or it’s not—no distracting fade effects.
For example, you can show a ligand right when it’s relevant, and hide it before or after an interaction, directing viewers’ attention with surgical precision.
How It Works
When you apply the Flash animation to selected nodes, it automatically creates four keyframes:
- Between Keyframe 1 and 2: The nodes remain hidden.
- At Keyframe 2: The nodes become visible.
- Between Keyframe 2 and 3: The nodes stay visible.
- At Keyframe 3: The nodes are hidden again, and remain hidden through Keyframe 4.
This setup gives you a flexible template for momentarily revealing content before making it disappear again.
Why Use Flash Animation?
Suppose you’re illustrating a complex process like active site recognition. You don’t want ligands visible until the enzyme’s conformational change is complete. Flash animation allows you to time the ligand’s appearance without cluttering your whole scene.
Similarly, when assembling multi-domain proteins or molecular machines, you may want components to arrive one-by-one. Flash helps isolate each step cleanly, enhancing viewer understanding.
How to Add It
- Select the nodes you want to animate (for example, a specific residue or a ligand).
- Open the Animation panel within the Animator.
- Double-click the Flash animation effect. SAMSON will insert the animation with its four keyframes.
- Adjust the timing by moving the keyframes as needed to fit your desired narrative.
To fine-tune the pacing, you can also modify the Easing curve of the animation points. This lets you control how abruptly or smoothly the changes in visibility occur over time.
Tips for Effective Usage
- Use Flash to reduce visual noise in complex mechanisms by focusing on one component at a time.
- Combine Flash with camera movement for more engaging presentations.
- Coordinate multiple Flash animations to synchronize events across different parts of your system.
Whether you’re creating animations for your research, your students, or a conference presentation, Flash gives you the control needed to clearly highlight dynamic molecular events.
To learn more, visit the original documentation page: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/animations/flash/
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can get SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.