When it comes to clearly communicating complex molecular processes, smooth visual transitions can make all the difference. As a molecular modeler or educator, you probably spend significant time refining the clarity and timing of your scientific animations. One common challenge is how to make certain elements appear at specific points in an animation without using fading or transparency.
This is where the Shown animation effect in SAMSON comes into play. It offers a direct and precise way to control the visibility of molecular model elements (called nodes)—allowing them to be shown cleanly and distinctly between animation keyframes.
Why not just use transparency?
Transparency can work in many scenarios, but it may also introduce visual ambiguity—especially when overlapping structures become difficult to distinguish. The Shown animation prioritizes clarity: instead of a fade, nodes are either visible or not, making it highly effective for presentations in educational or collaborative settings where scientific accuracy and visual sharpness are critical.
How to use the Shown animation effect
- Select the nodes you want to display at a specific point in time.
- In the Animator‘s Animation panel, double-click the Shown effect. This inserts a keyframe at the current frame, making the selected nodes visible from that frame onward.
- You can adjust the position of the keyframes to control exactly when nodes become visible as the animation progresses.
Tip: You can always move the keyframes later if you change your mind about when something should appear.
Combining with other visibility effects
The Shown effect can be combined with other visibility-related animations like Hidden, Appear, Disappear, Show, and more. Each of these has a slightly different behavior, and depending on your communication goals, one or a combination of them may better suit your visualization needs. The Shown animation is especially useful when you want a binary on/off visibility control, which is often the preferred choice when teaching or presenting specific components within a molecular complex.
Visual example
Here is an example where the Shown animation is used to make key molecular elements appear clearly during a scene transition:
Adjusting transition behavior
Although the Shown effect disables gradual changes in visibility, keep in mind that you can still modify the way animations progress between frames using the Easing curve. This helps define how the overall timing of the animation flows, which is particularly useful if you use other effects alongside Shown.
A final note on reproducibility
It’s worth mentioning that earlier versions of SAMSON used the Animation menu to apply effects. If you’re using the latest version, all animations are now conveniently accessible from the Animation panel in the Animator. This helps keep all animation workflows in one place and simplifies the presentation-building process.
To learn more about the Shown animation and how it fits into your molecular presentation workflow, visit the full documentation page at https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/animations/shown/.
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can get SAMSON here.