When presenting molecular systems—whether you’re communicating a molecular interaction mechanism, showcasing a conformation change, or simply creating a smooth visual flythrough for a talk—camera movements can make or break the experience.
One common pain point in molecular animations is using static or overly rigid camera transitions. While a simple zoom might seem sufficient at first, it often falls short when trying to piece together complex scenes that need both zooming and shifting the focus to a different part of the system. This is where the Dolly camera animation in SAMSON comes in.
What is the Dolly Camera Animation?
The Dolly camera animation allows the camera to move between two frames with changes in both position and its target point. It mimics a camera dolly you might find in filmmaking—offering a more cinematic and smooth effect than a simple zoom. This is ideal when you want to zoom into a particular molecular interaction site while simultaneously re-centering the view.
This differs from the Zoom camera animation, which keeps the same target point throughout. The Dolly camera is particularly valuable when rendering scenes involving spatial context transitions, like moving from a protein’s surface to its binding pocket or from a molecule’s macroview to an atomistic detail.
How to Add a Dolly Camera Animation
Here’s a typical workflow:
- In the Animator’s Track View, select your starting frame and interactively set your initial camera view.
- In the Animation panel, find and double-click the Dolly camera effect to add it.
- Navigating to the end frame, set your final view. This can involve moving the view, zooming, and rotating.
- You can then fine-tune this transition using animation properties like the easing curve and whether to apply to the active camera or not.
Making It Feel Right: Interpolation, Grids, and Orientation
SAMSON’s dolly animation includes some properties that help avoid jarring effects. For instance, adjusting the easing curve allows you to control how fast or slow the motion starts and ends. This is essential when trying to give a natural feeling to movements.
Another nuance is the Keep camera upwards option, which determines how verticality is maintained during the transition. If you’re working in a scene where the grid is on (e.g., you’re grounded in a pseudo-physical environment), keeping vertical orientation consistent makes visuals easier to follow. Turning this on especially helps if you’re working with biological systems that have an interpretable—and often expected—orientation.
Finally, if you ever need more precision, animation controllers let you adjust target points and camera positions at the keyframes. This can help you control the path even more finely when navigating within crowded molecular systems or when lining up the framing for publication-quality outputs.
When Should You Use It?
- To create smooth simulations of ligand binding sequences.
- To transition between two active sites in a single scene.
- To create context: zoom in while moving towards a protein-ligand interface, maintaining viewer orientation.
While a zoom may work for simple movements, the Dolly camera provides flexibility and realism that can significantly improve the clarity and aesthetic of molecular animations, especially in educational or communicative contexts.
To learn more, visit the official documentation page.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can get SAMSON here.